Featured Open Letter To Toyota USA: Go All In On The Prius Prime, Kill The Regular Prius Hybrid

Hyundai and Kia have placed Toyota squarely in their sights for the past few years.

Ioniq, Niro, Kona all put Toyota to shame for the money. My only concern about buying the Ioniq or Niro PHEV is the dual-clutch transmission.

Toyota has one advantage... Panasonic.
Hyundai Ioniq Electric Sales Constrained By Battery Shortage | CleanTechnica

 

yeah, i'm not expecting any hunday bevs out here soon, it was a nice thought though

 

According to Prof John Kelly at Weber State University, the empty void is for "liquid capture if spillage occurs". I'm not sure why liquids could not be captured using a non-rectangular void conforming to the lower part of the chassis. Loss of cargo space is one major disadvantage of the Prime over a regular Prius.

 

i'm not sure about this kelly guy, that seems pretty far fetched

do we know for sure that he's not on toyotas payroll?

 

He sure gets a lot of toys...

 

There is a void. What's your theory? The pack already has forced air cooling ducts inside it so cooling does not seem to be the reason.

 

Since I am new to hybrid vehicles, I don't have anything in the hunt. I do really admire my Gen 2, best car I've ever owned. If I could say something to the author of that letter, if would contain 2 letters, F & U

 

No. He is a straight shooter. But like many of us, not always perfect. There are dynamic aspects I would like to see and I want to take his ‘model’ class.

Bob Wilson

 

This void is just the (unusable) spare tire void??

 

Was Toyota expecting people to transport cans of raw milk(one of these did spill in a work minivan)? Unless the professor is a Toyota engineer, he is just speculating like the rest of us.

We know that home charging in much of Japan will take twice as long on Level 1 as in the US, and Level 2 isn't possible. This is why CHAdeMO is standard on the Prime there, and why the cost of the solar roof would be seen as worthwhile. The Prime likely had a smaller traction pack originally. A comment buried in one of the reveal threads from a poster with back stage access to an event supports that.

Toyota USA, upon seeing the first Prime, declared it wouldn't sell in the US with such a short EV range, and Toyota was left scrambling to fix it. Apparently, delaying the car's release wan't an option, so the engineers didn't have the time to properly fit a larger pack into the space, and perform all the required testing. The rectangle pack was the fastest solution to not getting a second Prius PHEV with PiP range.

Correct. TNGA was designed for ICE cars, and the chassis has a spare tire well in all models using it. This is why the Prime loses as much, or more, cargo space to the battery as the C-max Energi did; it is a PHEV conversion of an ICE model.

Photos of the space can be found here, and the space likely isn't liquid tight.
I found the missing 4" (vertical) in the trunk. It is below the battery. | PriusChat

 

not sure, but i suspect it was a last minute shoe horning of a 9 kWh battery into a spot they designed for something smaller.
word was that u.s. dealers told toyota to go back to the drawing board when they first presented prime with smaller battery. don't know if that's correct, but makes sense, given toyotas proclivity to shy away from ev.
they seem to see the battery as more of a tool to reduce pollution by increasing efficiency.

 

There are really two aspects to this;
1. A measure of emissions caused by an EV charged from the grid
2. Whether you (or manufacturer) choose to offset your emissions caused by charging the EV

For an EV charged from the grid, a reasonable measure of the emissions is the average CO2 intensity of the grid at the location of charge. There are secondary issues that you can consider like the intensity at the time you charge or the intensity of the electrical source that is most likely to ramp up at the time you decide to charge. For example in your area the dominant source for night time charging may be coal or gas in which case the night-time CO2 intensity would be higher than the average. Or it may be that incremental power is generally supplied by say gas during the night and so the intensity could also be higher again than average. However to keep things simple the average is a good measure but for detailed analysis of effect of large people moving to EV’s you would need to look at the secondary issues.

The second issue is whether you seek to offset your emissions from charging your EV. For example;
1. Buy Green power
2. Install a grid connected solar PV system

The above are examples of where you seek to offset emissions in some way .. but really this is separate to your emissions in one specific area such as charging an EV.

The example you suggested was ‘1’ above, where I seek to offset the CO2 from charging the EV on the grid by selecting Green Power. If you do this is it right to say my car has zero CO2 emissions?

My view is ‘no’ because in selecting Green Power you are paying for green power to be added to the grid and this has the effect of reducing the average CO2 emissions intensity and so now everyone who uses the grid (including EV users who don’t buy green power) get a slight benefit from what you have done. However its incorrect for you to then assign 100% of that green power for your car use as then CO2 reduction would be double counted and at a national level that makes no sense. This is the accounting fallacy I was talking about.

The bottom line is that when you add green capacity under the above cases you are offsetting your emissions which is great … but in terms of your EV emissions, you are just reducing the average grid CO2 intensity slightly ... and charging your EV will still be at the average (although slightly lower) rate.

Two other examples to consider;
1. If I drive an EV and my neighbour drives a conventional ICE car .. is there any difference in my EV emissions if I install the solar panels or if he installs them ?
2. If my neighbour purchase green power to offset his ICE car CO2 emissions .. is it correct to say he drives emission free ?

So it’s great to offset your emissions but the emissions rating for your car is really dependent on other factors such as the car’s efficiency and the CO2 released in the production, distribution and consumption of electricity/fuel etc. For a grid connected EV its the CO2 emission intensity of the grid in that area that will determine its CO2 emissions per Km.

 

The main point is that the owner of a plug in car has options for offsetting the energy used for it as a consumer, regardless of how someone does the accounting. This simply isn't possible with a hydrogen or fossil fuel car. They are stuck with the carbon intensity of whatever fuel to local station chooses to provide.

 

Even if you obtained your electricity from 100% coal generation, you would still be lessening the demand for oil - I think. As the demand goes down, the price goes down, stimulating more usage which raises demand, which raises prices. I can't prove this, but I do think that using less oil has a net effect that, less oil is consumed in the global economy. Which to me is a win in itself, as the geopolitical costs in terms of money and CO2 generation, should not be overlooked.

 

My theory is cost. Toyota needed a bigger battery for Prime and it didn’t fit the existing Prius well so they just raised The trunk floor up till it fit. Toyota did keep the Prime cost down.

 

Not true. CO2 emissions are created in many different ways and there are also many different ways to offset them. Installing solar panels or buying green power is one way, there are also financial instruments you can purchase to give you carbon credits. You can also do simple things like plant trees. Its your choice whether you want to offset your emissions or whether you want to offset only a portion of them.

Its true that an owner of plug in car can offset their emissions with solar panels and green power .. but its also true that the owner of ICE vehicle can offset their emissions using solar panels & green power .. if they choose.

Regardless of whether you offset or not .. the vehicle you drive has an emission rating based on its technology and the way the energy it requires is produced, transported and consumed.

 

Lot of ways to reduce your carbon footprint, regardless of what you're driving:

1. Walk if possible, if you need something and it's nearby.
2. Avoid take-outs, Starbucks drivethroughs, and so on.
3. Consolidate trips: short trips pollute more.

 

There will lots of short terms effects as you describe. One of the others is that if large numbers of people move to EV's quickly … how will the power generation technologies meet this extra demand .. and what effect will that have on a regions CO2 Emissions intensity. Generally wind and solar are run at full capacity when they can … with gas and coal ramped up to meet excess demand. If you are relying on coal and gas to meet rapidly increasing demand due to EV's .. your emissions intensity is likely to go up until such time as additional green capacity is brought online to compensate. So there are major infrastructure considerations and planning if we are to move large amounts of the vehicle population to EV over short periods of time.

Also there is no benefit from a CO2 perspective in EV's if you are charging on 100% coal as a hybrid will produce less CO2 emissions per Km running on petrol in this scenario.

 

I think your right .. it was obviously not planned for in TNGA, which seems short sighted. I would assume they are planning a modified TNGA for PHEV.

Also in the photos of the cut-away view of the Prime … you can see why their is no 5th seat. Does anyone know what the device located under the back seat in centre is ? Somehow they need to redesign to fit this elsewhere.

 

My municipality (Coquitlam, BC, Canada), in their wisdom, legislated so that the bulk of the residential population swell took place in the northside (much of it up steep hillsides), and encouraged retail big-box stores at the south and east extremes.