Rainbow Prius Hybrid Powered by Lithium!

@Max

Exactly and then throw in a Red Bullet and improve highway speeds too!

That makes getting the battery charged up even faster.

I have to say the Red Bullet has made my prius peppy and I enjoy driving it.


I am running out of cool upgrades.




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Oh dear you guys are killing me! So bloody jealous!!!
I really hope to see more good news and production estimates!

 

No actual real life data from these lithium battery regarding to driving mpg and FE for the short or long term use yet. Similar to the bullet red thingy.

 

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha haha ha ha ha

 

I'm not the best to answer this question, but my MPG has gone up 4-5 mpg. I've also done a lot of mods that reduce my MPG, so my numbers may not be the best.

What information would you be interested in seeing? A photo of my dashboard? If you want to compare charge rates, I could drain the battery to 2 bars and force charge the full. If you upload a video of yourself doing the same thing we can compare how quickly they charge?

 

@Chip

You said pretty much what I would have said.



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You guys do understand that the reason you're getting more 'battery' is because this battery uses "80% of it's range" as opposed to the OEM ~40%, right? There's nothing magical going on. Is it effectively a bigger battery? Sure, it's acting as if it's ~2x as big, because it's using ~2x as much of it's available capacity.

Straight from the Doctor:

The reason it uses 80% of it's range is due to the voltage curve of this chemistry being virtually flat compared to NiMH. So when you're down to 2 purple bars, where the NiMH is at ~42% SOC and the engine turns on to recharge, this pack probably has 10% or less true capacity remaining. Same thing at the top end. Good, bad or whatever, that's what it's doing. Based on the above quote, the actual CAPACITY of this battery is very similar to the CAPACITY of the OEM battery, as stated in line #3. What battery has more capacity? A 6500 mAh Lithium battery or a 6500 mAh NiMH battery? Exactly. If someone had a hack to open the range of the OEM battery usage to 80%, you would see very similar results. But why stop there, let's hack it to 99% of it's range, right? Toyo obviously designed it to maximize the life cycle of a NiMH chemistry battery. If this battery can get the same life using the 80% band, then great. Just don't f-up and end up at the bottom 10% area and have the engine not start on the first or second try, because when it codes out, you may or may not have enough in reserve to get another shot. Have any of our "testers" tried this? About 2-3 months ago, when my son's car failed to start while he was leaving a stop light, he was still able to drive a mile to a parking lot when it coded. We still got 7 or 8 start attempts by disconnecting the 12v battery and resetting. Then when the tow truck arrived, we tried one more time and the car fired up and we drove it onto the flatbed. That's what having 42% reserve on the bottom end can do for you. His battery was built over ~2.5 years ago using 2015 modules.

At the far end of the spectrum, if we made a battery that had a perfectly flat voltage curve, you could use 99.9% of the available capacity and the car would think everything was fine, until it just turned off. Everyone's "application and desired use" is different. Some people want that reserve, some don't. Some don't even realize it's there, or in this instance, not there?

 

I ran my Prius for 13 hours with a 2 amp constant discharge, with the SOC going from 40% displayed to 50% displayed during charge and discharge cycles. It never had any issues starting during that time, despite the SOC being low at the bottom end of the charge cycle.

 

I don't understand what you're trying to say. You ran it for 13 hours at a constant 2 amp discharge? Would that be saying it's a 26,000 mAh battery? or are you saying the engine cycled many times during this 13 hours, just like it usually does, and the engine started every time and recharged the battery? If that's what you're saying, then ?? It should run for thousands of hours and do that. The question is what happens when it doesn't start? How many attempts can it make before the battery is depleted to the point of uselessness?

My son's car (2005) worked perfect for 215k miles and never missed a beat starting the engine, until it didn't.
Deplete your battery to the point the engine starts and then IMMEDIATELY turn the engine off. Pull the fuse for your fuel pump, or whatever. Then see how many start cycles the car can attempt until the battery is depleted.

On an OEM car, Mr. Knucklehead can have a no-start event or run the car out of gas, deplete the battery a bit working his way to the side of the road or to a nearby gas station, add gas and then try to start the car. If the ecu thinks the battery is too low, he can disconnect/connect the 12v battery and the car will default to 60% indicated SOC and try to start the engine again. If it doesn't start, he can disconnect/connect the 12v again and try again. We did that 7 or 8 times on my sons car and never got to the point of the battery actually being depleted to the point of uselessness. Try it with your pack and post the results.
To be apples to apples, the starting point needs to be 2 or 1 purple bars.

Your 'displayed' SOC is likely absolutely meaningless, as it's based on NiMH chemistry.

 

@tmr

I understand what you are saying and was going to do that myself to better calibrate the system to the battery.

What you want to do is not normal and so will never happen in normal use.

By the time this pack is old enough and worn down it will throw codes.

You are trying to replicate a defeated battery on its last legs in which it will react like an OEM pack at that point.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

True, and any lithium battery discharged to 10% will significantly cause internal cell degradation lowering life span of battery, overall storage capacity and efficiency.

 

Yes there are definite corner cases here and the same people who say my concerns aren't valid with the design say that increased EV usage increases overall mpg/efficiency which is patently false. It's physics. It's proven.

The only time it is not true are corner cases in themselves like living on a mountain or running the engine as a heater for prolonged time without moving.

Running the car out of gas is definitely user-error, but there are legitimate reasons why the car may need to run on EV and keep a reserve. Failed inverter pump comes to mind which we all know is so uncommon it rarely happens to anyone right?

Toyota will allow you to get down to the sub-20% range if you force it to run in EV mode with a Christmas tree on the dash. Emergency situations. Design such that user is safe other than stalling in the middle of the road. Difference is when a NiMh battery is low, and pulled lower, the discharge curve is fairly linear. The pack voltage is low, but high enough to spin MG1. In a lithium pack when you get to that low end, you drop off a cliff and now you're screwed.

Again these issues were solved long ago but poorly. This new attempt solves none of these issues. I suggest the maker of the pack send some messages to the owners of Hymotion. They were either bought by or are a subsidiary of A123. Those were the plug-in conversion kits for G2 Prii and were really cool. Lithium pack, complete pack replacement. And an added plug (which will increase efficiency now that you have dual source fueling). Disregarding the charger failures (which don't count here), there were BMS systems, intermediary ECUs, and lots more. Not just batteries wired together. I am pretty confident they would have the same reservation I have. But I understand people dismiss me as being a "competitor" and just boo-hooing. I'm not, but nobody is going to change their mind with a statement like that. So reach out to a defunct company that tried this over a decade ago and had a multi-million dollar company succeed briefly then go down in flames. History repeats if you don't learn from the past.

 

So what happens in Toyota hybrids that have switched to lithium batteries such as the Rav4 hybrid which switched in the middle of the 2020 model year? How are they managed to prevent falling off a cliff?

 

The usable capacity range is also kept to be very shallow. And the cutoff for emergency use is lowered. Same thing can be done in a retrofitted older Prius if you have an ECU upgrade at the same time.

 

Stay tuned for the "pack of the future"

There is no better aftermarket battery than the Dr. Prius Lithium upgrade.

All others will be forced to lower their prices to compete and they will still not be better than this.

About half the weight of OEM.
Recharges faster.
Cooler battery temps.
More MPG!

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Az, you just have no concept of what you're talking about and apparently are incapable of comprehending what I'm trying to discuss. You think you understand, but you don't. Although basic to anyone with an understanding of how the battery works, it is obviously beyond your grasp. Just give up. You continually misunderstand, and you can't even grasp the concept that you misunderstand. I wouldn't let you test the operation of a pencil, much less try to evaluate a battery that's being developed. All you know how to say is "it's the greatest thing on earth". That's not testing, it's being a fan boi.

 

@jacktheripper, will there be a disclosure of what tests were done?

 

Sorry may have missed some posts. What is the voltage of the Lithium pack? I guess as compared to the NiMH? (Since I don't know that either)...

moto g(7) power ?

 

It is clear to me when people insult others on here that it doesnt matter.

As long as you know or are "cool" with a moderator they will remove your posts and say you are the bad one.

Terms Of Service does not just get to be used against someone a moderator doesnt like.

This needs to be handled better.
Not one sided attacks.

Once again this place needs to read their own TOS before telling me I am in violation of something that I am clearly responding to.

I guess it is ok to just let all these old forum users talk crap about anyone.
But you cant reply back in a way that they used against you?

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