Prius Plug-in Hybrid Update

First I love my prius plug in...I have 24,000 miles after 9 months of ownership...and I really do like it.

What I hate most about it is the lack of a spare tire. I sometimes am out in the middle of nowhere...now if I get a flat how would I deal with it? No cell phone reception, no spare, very few people...

The second thing I do not like about my plug in is the range. I am only getting 15% electric...not good...

I am excited about the new one, however, I will not buy a new one until my green sticker expires in Jan 2019...

 

I don't think any Plug_in Hybrid will be selling too well including Volt, in late 2016, unless Congress and states up the incentives.
CA HOV stickers will no longer be major incentive except for BEV.
PiP2 has a chance to be top seller in the category though if they do some things

 

well you are doing 5 times better than the one I saw on autotrader the other day with 3% electric over something like 36,000 miles.

At least you know to plug it in.

 

it's more a matter of gas prices than technology. short of more government intrusion, (incentive) there's no reason for the average gasser to convert to any alternative vehicle. it's not a matter of 'mine is better than yours' as too many here argue, it's a matter of personal choice, and most people continue to choose gassers. and they will continues to do so when the new pip, volt, bolt, tesla, kia, whatever comes along.

 

some of us keep a spare above decks.

why is 15% not good?

 

Mine was something like 2.5% EV over 18000 miles when I bought it.

Since I bought it, it's over 50% EV I believe, since my work commute is about 10 miles each way, and I can charge it at work.

So maybe I don't REALLY need that much more range but it sure would be nice to have on weekends or when I go shopping after work.

 

couldn't agree more.

 

The HOV decal for my work commute was the primary reason I replaced my 2002 Prius with a 2012 PiP. Getting twice as may EV miles in the PiP-2 just wouldn't do it for me. Given the congestion in the HOV lanes, they are not likely to increase the number of green decals when the current limit it reached in a month or so. We will be lucky if they don't exercise the congestion clause to revoke them altogether before the 2019 expiration date.

BTW, seeing a decrease from around 2950Wh to around 2650 Wh for a full charge (as reported by ChargePoint) in the three years since I got my PiP, which is about 3%/yr

 

Sorry for the personal slam. Really not useful or helpful. I think I had too much coffee this morning!

 

Some of the best feedback comes about that way.

 

How many EV miles do you have per year?

 

Per the MFD, I have 12000 EV miles, 41700 HV miles, over the three years and two months I have had the PiP. But I don't know how this metric deals with "Boost" mode, where you are nominally in EV mode, but the ICE is running (perhaps due to going over 63mph, or having triggered ICE warmup).

 

The 26.4 km (16.4 miles) quoted in the article are per Japan new drive cycle (JC08) and not per EPA.
If you do 11 miles on current model, you may expect 22 miles on G2 (if the articleis based on credible source and not just a speculation).

 

I would have a very, very, very hard time achieving 25+ km with my PiP. But then again I live in a large city with lots of traffic lights. Still, reading a small blurb on JC08 online, it doesn't seem like a hypermiling type test at all, so I'm surprised my PiP gets that on that Japanese test.

Is it correct to assume that the battery specs for the Japanese model is the same as the North American model?

And yeah, if the new model came with a 20 mile range (or at least 30+ km), I'd be interested, albeit not for a few years. 25 miles (40+ km) would be ideal for me though.

 

The only way you can get ~20 miles is doing a constant ~30mph on flat ground.

http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/phev/fact2013toyotapriusphev.pdf

It'd be nice if we could use the whole ~4.4kWh instead of just ~2.5kWh, since that would almost double the range, but I'm sure that's too hard on the battery for the 150k mile warranty.

 

Initially, it was supposed to be 5KWh/13 miles ev. The production version came with 4.4KWh/11 miles ev. I think the reduction may have been to keep the 50mpg. Maybe 6KWh in next Gen will do 18-20 ev miles?

 

That is likely the same, but the ICE may kick in at a lower speed. it does for the European market.

I think the preproduction testers had that size battery. The hatch floor was an inch or so higher to fit it.

 

I have my PiP for a year now and I love it too. However, I personally don't want a spare tire. Or would never pay for extra EV range either. There is no "one PiP fits all", you know...

Prius and PiP were optimized for efficiency of both fuels.
Volt was designed to reduce gas usage as close to 0 as possible.
Leaf and Tesla were designed not to use any gas.

Just pick the car that fits your personal philosophy best.

I get about 50% EV : 50% HV driving with my PiP, halving the gasoline cost of a regular Prius. Since a regular Prius is already a very efficient itself, the gasoline savings compared to PiP initial cost penalty can hardly justify the PiP. In other words: Gasoline cost is not the biggest slice of my TCO. It's depreciation. If PiP2 gets any more expensive (getting a bigger battery pack, spare tire, other extra equipment...), gasoline savings could hardly compensate TCO increase.
But that's just my driving pattern. PiP is an excellent example for "YMMV". One won't find two PiP owners with same numbers around here.

Bottom line is: I will not buy a PiP2 no matter how good Toyota makes it. The cost to replace my almost new PiP with a PiP2 would not justify. Hopefuly, if they do it right I might consider buying a PiPn when the time to retire my current one comes.

 

Gasoline cost is not the biggest slice of TCO even in normal Prius at EU gas prices I'm estimating gas costs me around 30% TCO