Looking at buying a Prime and I have some questions

Get used to the idea of no spare tire. The car comes with the usual jack & tools and an inflation pump with a jar of puncture sealant. And 2 years of included towing to the nearest Toyota dealership.

There is no cost effective alternate way to recharge the battery. Just plug it into any ordinary 120 volt receptacle. Solar is its own consideration, not a way to save money for our cars. One full charge saves about a half gallon of gas. I figure a charge costs me less than 3 cents a mile at my electric rate. No alternative pays for itself before it starts saving you money.

We really like our Prime. It isn't perfect....but there is no such thing as the perfect car.

 

welcome!
i can't think of anything, it's a prius on steroids. all the best!

edit: you can say e $4-5,000. by flying east and driving one home

 

Yeti device looks interesting. You could ask on Amazon about charging a PHEV. I do not see if anybody asked that question.

 

Charging from solar is just not cost-effective on a small scale. It takes 18-36 hours to charge the yeti 3000 from their 200W solar panels, and that's hours of sun. So best-case 2-3 days. And that battery has enough to charge the Prime about halfway, 3kWh. So that's $3600 (retail price) for maybe one full charge a week. Maybe 1.5 charges to be generous. Assuming $0.11/kWh and 9kWh, you're saving $1 a week. At that rate it would take 69 years to pay for the cost of the goal zero system. There's also some inefficiency going from solar to battery to 120V to battery again, if you use a goal zero battery. And you'll have to go switch the plug for your Prime between the goal zero and the wall every day for 69 years to make sure you maximize the amount of solar power you use, without letting it sit full (not collecting more solar) for too long.

I think the goal zero could charge a Prime, but there's no point. If you're somewhere remote where charging isn't available just use gas. That's the benefit of a PHEV. If you're at home just use the grid or put in solar for your whole house.

Larger scale solar can make sense, mostly because you have more capacity and less storage. A typical installation on a household roof is probably a few kW depending on the size of your house. You can share electricity with the grid, or if you don't want to then put in something like a Tesla powerwall. But as long as electricity is cheap and time of use pricing is not required, a powerwall doesn't make much sense. With solar panels on your roof, the upfront cost is higher, but in general the components will be designed for continuous use (not occasional use like the goal zero), and since it's working all the time you don't have to manually manage it. You get power whenever the sun is shining, and if you're not using anything it goes to the grid.

The goal zero systems are designed to replace generators, or be used for similar small scale power in remote areas. The Prime already has a big battery, so it can work similarly. I've read you can get maybe 1000W out of it through the 12V system using an inverter. Running an inverter directly off the hybrid battery is also theoretically possible, if Toyota wanted to give us this great feature. The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV has 120V outlets that can supply 1500W, and there are some accessories that can get AC power out of the charging port in certain countries if the vehicle is properly equipped.

 

I wish to encourage you to read the customization chapter in the user manual now so you can make your desired customizations a condition of sale.

https://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om-s/OM47C17U/pdf/OM47C17U.pdf (starts at page 736)

I recently showed possible security features to my daughter, her wife, and my sister in law; who have new Primes

"I am coming to visit and will likely annoy you about your Prime. Bear with me
In your owner’s manual, is an entire chapter of items you can change or have changed.

I am going to highlight some and discuss why you might want to change it, and contrast that with how I have it set. (I am an slow old man who parks in a garage at night)
Page 739 Automatic door unlocking It defaults to unlocking any time you are in Park, but you may feel safer if it only unlock when you open the driver’s door, or you may never want automatic unlocking.

Unlocking using a mechanical key By default, it only unlocks the driver’s door; I have mine set to unlock all, so my wife is not still locked out.

Time elapsed before the automatic door lock function is activated if a door is not opened after being unlocked I am old and crippled, so 120 seconds is better for me.

Page 740 Smart door unlocking Again, I want all the doors to open so my wife is not still waiting to get in, you may feel safer if only the driver’s door unlocks.

Unlocking operation Once again, I want all the doors to open so my wife is not still waiting to get in, you may feel safer if only the driver’s door unlocks.

(Notice, we have 3 ways to unlock a door, using the Key, Grabbing the door handle, and using the Remote, you can customize them differently. I prize consistency)

Page 741 Signal (buzzer) when the shift position is in R This defaults to continuous, but I have mine set to a single beep.

Page 742 Time elapsed before the headlights turn off I have mine set to 0 seconds, because I am parked in a lit garage, you might want 90 seconds if you are parked at night at work and the headlights aim toward the entrance.

Page 744 Time elapsed before the interior lights turn off Defaults to 15 seconds, you can change this, I haven’t.

As you can see, many of these trade convenience with security. You will be the judge of which you want."

All three ladies wrote back saying "Turnoff the continuous Reverse Beeping" , completely ignoring security.

 

Had my Prime since Feb 2018. Took it on a 5,100+ mile ride to Alaska with 3 friends! It was the best drive! No problems at all and the best part is we spent $200-$300 for gas. Might have been around $230 or $280. I can't remember.

 

Re: Solar idea, of course the Prime is designed for solar roof option (sadly not avail in USA) which can provide up to about 10% of the miles driven, which is actually quite amazing. Too bad we cannot get it.

But I wish we could get the solar option, or skip the roof and I wish they could just provide a socket so you could plug in your home solar. But it adds cost as there is another battery on the vehcile that collects the solar power.

All Gen4 Prii to date have the chasis for the solar option, so I guess we could install it as after-market, if we had a brave EE soul to blaze the trail. I wonder if Toyota continues with the same chasis and solar option in other parts of the world/Japan.

 

Some would say the entire Entune system is a malfunction, but in reality, it just sucks. It's the one glaring flaw in an otherwise great vehicle.

 

Yeah, the head unit is garbage. I've had some bugs with mine. Bluetooth Audio Bugs - Plus trim | PriusChat

It's not bad enough to stop me from buying the car. I pretty much expected this performance from what I've read about Entune. And the bugs are minor. It is functional, just annoying sometimes.

Some other things I don't like about it:

• The lane departure warning gives lots of false alerts, and it is very weak at keeping in the lane. If you get near the edge of a lane it's as if there is a slight gust of wind pushing you towards the center. Not very helpful, but better than nothing
• A rear wiper would be helpful, but I'll probably put some rain-x on the back and it will be fine.
• The headlights aren't actually as good as I expected. With the low-beams on the sharp cutoff sometimes makes it hard to see what's above the lights. The high beams are pretty narrow, but very bright. They are not auto-leveling (as far as I know) so sometimes they aren't quite at the optimal angle. And the auto high beam system usually has a slower reaction time than I do. The IIHS rates the headlights as "adequate" and I'd say that's pretty accurate.
• There are lots of squeaks and rattles. I think there's a thread where someone took care of most of them with felt tape. Toyota engineers clearly put a lot of thought into controlling noise. There is laminated (acoustic) glass on the front side windows, sound absorbing material around the wheel wells, etc.