Prius Battery Replacement (GenII) Like you've never seen - NEW Cylindrical Cells

Again, using one prototype, in your own personal car, for a few short months, is NOT a serious test. Selling your experimental battery at the same price as a genuine Toyota battery is not a good marketing plan. Selling without any warranty is not a confidence building gesture. Rudely dismissing all constructive criticism is not a careful customer growth plan.

 

Umm... pretty sure the OP did not come here to get constructive criticism on his customer growth plan.

He did something.
Maybe others might be interested.
Offering to sell you the same setup.

If you are interested, contact him.

I wish that people spent this much effort openly criticizing the myriad bad "rebuilders" that are we know are scamming members with whack-a-mole, crappy, used packs.

 

Eric,

I think you would be a perfect person for on going validation testing. A side project sort o speak.

 

Great idea! Why not GIVE this to our expert members for some serious, real-world testing?

 

An unbiased third party with battery testing expertise could encourage some serious confidence in this product.

He/she might provide graphs of heat generation during high/low charging and discharging for your prospective customers.

 

So far I have not seen enough performance specs to prove or disprove the relative merit of the product. An ideal battery with infinitesimal resistance could theoretically require only passive cooling because of the low I-squared-R losses. No electrical figures were provided.

 

You have already freely admitted that a SINGLE other person would not do anything to create much real-world data. Dozens, hundreds and eventually thousands are needed. Your request for other members to spend $2000 to fund your personal experiment (rather than a genuine Toyota battery at the same price) just doesn't make sense. And your cocky attitude is't going to sell many batteries. It could be your writing skills, but seriously dude, you need to learn some people skills.

 

Personally I would need to see microscopic photos on internal ionic covalent bond of each atom before I can proceed with considering any battery. Additionally an infraspectragraph of bi-lateral hooptydink would be in order as well.

Specifically...I was thinking if you could make a coherent video that explains what you have created, similar to the concise Turbo Encabulator video from days gone by.

 

My previous post was supposed to be a joke by the way.

I would not do any more testing than the OP likely has already done.
Seriously, all I would bother doing is drive it around and report back if it is still working.
Not sure if that is very helpful.

OP clearly has access to way better tools than I do. Actually, probably better than any of us.
I'd buy this simply to say I did it. Sort of a novelty.
"Whoo, hoo. Look at me, I have NEW cylindrical cells in place instead of Toyota's prismatic cells. Cool!"
But beyond that it isn't really something I need right now.

Then again I've spent plenty of money on stuff I dotn't need just for the heck of it.
- $1,000 hack into the Insight that allows full control over the charge/recharge system. Including programming my own assist/regen setpoints.
- $4,000 4 kwh lithium add on pack for a Honda Insight
- $X,000's for lithium add on packs for Prius. (Don't look in my basement to see how much lithium is there.)

If you want to try it, then try it and be cool. Go for it.
Then report back here once in a while.

Don't want to do it?... then move on.

 

I like a good bit of joking sarcasm in the afternoon.

Excellent video with many "technical" terms.

 

Thank you Ken for your input. Your view has been noted. Now move along, nothing more to see here.

 

Addressing the thermal test, it seems to be a fairly adequate real-world test, as if he is adept at all will be able to get the cover off much quicker than the time the pack will take to cool down to ambient. I do think that a comparison with an original pack would add to the relevant information, but I'm thinking unless it is in Phoenix in August, or another unusual situation, heat with either pack won't be a huge problem. The Prius algorithm for battery use just doesn't, under normal circumstances, heat stress the battery.

And this algorithm for battery use leads into the second point:

As this is the second mention I've seen of the "failed" Enginer experiment, I thought it should be commented on.

I remember when this was coming out, and I considered it for my Prius. The concept was drawn up long ago, with information available then, and the main "failure" was that people had overinflated expectations of what the kit would do. And it was an add-on kit, putting a small amount of energy back into the original Prius pack. People had hoped for miles on EV only, what they got was a (usually) small increase in MPG under the correct circumstances. And that is because the Prius battery would only accept a small inflow of energy without throwing a code.

I remember MrBigH and his experiments too, as it was a time of great experimentation with the Prius. He produced excellent results, although it was a bit extreme if I remember as he took out the back seat. But it was still one individual with inspiration achieving excellent results.

In Florida, there was a rebate for the Hymotion kit, and I had it put on my Prius. It worked spectacularly, MPG up around 94, you could if you knew what you were doing drive in EV only mode for many miles, and was much more robust, but also much more expensive, that the Enginer kit.

There was even a place replacing the entire original Prius pack, I don't remember who they were.

So, first, it logically has no impact on this product what success or failure the Enginer pack had, and second, it has been done before, which doesn't diminish what 2k1Toaster is attempting to do now.

 

I think helluvalot of relevant data could best come from the original designers of this copycat kit. They have sold more than one of these battery packs.

And while you are mostly correct about the Enginer debacle being a different problem, Consumers must be fully informed so they can carefully consider the failure of other well intentioned, experiments when making a $2000 decision that is being marketed as "better" (a nice theory) and "tested" (a bald-faced lie). At $1000, this pack would still be a risk. At $2000 it's the same price a genuine Toyota pack. At this point, no one knows if this thing will last longer than any of the $500 refurbs. It is the very reason Toyota provided 10 year warranties with all Prius.

And you are quite wrong about OPs uncovered heat test. Insulation from the seats, carpeting, flaps, and covers, trap heat and seal air movement while driving.

 

Just imagine what service from this guy might be like if/when something goes wrong with his "better" design.

because engineers are never wrong. EVER!
Think Enginer batteries...
Think Honda Civic Hybrid batteries...
Think Star Wars Missile Defense...
Think Tacoma Narrows bridge...
Think "unsinkable" Titanic...

 

Wow, I see why people are starting to lose patience. I stated that whatever test conditions should be duplicated with a stock Prius pack in a stock Prius under the same conditions. If he's driving around with a blanket covering the entire back area with his pack, then do the same in a stock Prius. Out in Phoenix with a stock Prius pack, compare it in Phoenix with his pack. I am surmising that the conditions of items removed is to facilitate quickly getting to the test pack, in order to allow people to see any hot spots.

And, here we go again with the faulty logic. 2k1Toaster never claimed "engineers are never wrong. EVER!" He had, AFAIK, nothing to do with any of the other items mentioned, although if 2k1Toaster will admit he was involved in the Titanic sinking I might revise my opinion.

And, once again, I will attempt to correct the Enginer battery "failure" fallacy being promoted, as I only remember people being upset that the energy transfer wasn't quick enough to make as noticeable improvement in MPG as they had hoped. It wouldn't matter if there were 300ah gigantic batteries in the back, the batteries weren't the limiting factor for this project. The Prius algorithms were not set up for this, and thus others focused on conquering the software aspect, sometimes through spoofing, or in the case of the group who replaced the entire original pack, I think they also replaced the Prius computers too, although I could be incorrect about that.

I am somewhat concerned that kenoarto, who joined not long after I did back in 8/2005, has taken on such an enthusiasm to stop this project. I don't remember such naysayers of negativity back then when people were innovating with new ideas. I don't know if there is an ulterior motive, or just a pit-bull focus that he's got to be right and 2k1Toaster is wrong.

The most vehement negativity has been focused on the fact that the cells are cylindrical, which, as a civilian without access to sophisticated testing equipment, seems to my impression to be better for cooling rather than prismatic packed into a box. If you search, you can see failures of original packs, from people who were doing experiments that didn't go as planned, due to the heat buildup. But if the volume of this pack, which as physics states must be larger due to the cylindrical cells, it seems to have a greater ability at dispersing heat into the atmosphere.