Rainbow Prius Hybrid Powered by Lithium!

You have opened the door to questions, so I'll keep asking. Are manufacturers of EVs and plug in hybrids using LiFePO4 batteries? If not, why not. If the technology is available to an independent developer like yourself, you would think that vehicle manufacturers would use it.

Edit: I've been reading about it via Google. It looks like there are some trade offs that might affect manufacturers choices.

 

Having a lithium battery that follows the nimh curve would allow you to oversize it to about double the capacity and have a short plug in range if an interceptor were developed.

too bad really, Prius has always deserved a drop in plug in device without all the hassle

 

short answer is that automotive companies really only start using a certain tech until it has been around 25 years and only after some other industry uses it a while.

LIFEPO4 is too young still

 

Which is why Tesla is now many, many years ahead of their competition because they're more like a software company where you ship the product as its earliest unfinished version and send out software upgrades that fix problems and optimize as you go... The rest of the auto industry is entirely antiquated in that regard and come the next economic downturn, there's going to be some big names in car making that will be no more.

 

Totally agree with the advance fixes - Tesla's LCD screens are failing because the eMMC memory inside the MCU Media Control Unit ceases after a certain amount of reads and writes. These memory NAND chips are turned on and off rapidly for binary data, although fast to respond and smaller than typical computer RAM, life span is limited and must be replaced.

Replacement part- $1,700 to $1,800
Labor - $165/hr.
E-Waste disposable pile - growing by the minute

UPDATE: Tesla Cars Have A Memory Problem That May Cost You A Lot To Repair

 

I'd rather use some antiquated, reliable stuff than paying to be the guinea pig for some company /

 

Do you still use a flip phone too?

 

says the one with a 13 year old prius....

 

At least I'm ok with and understand the entire basis upon which my two year old phone is built upon and don't live in denial of the dozens of corporations using me as a guinea pig...

 

Wow, the car looks great! I'm excited about your battery project and will be looking out for updates!

 

I would love a bigger and stronger battery so my plug in could give me more miles to the charge

 

Smaller battery and higher amp hour are on my wish list. Bigger would undo my MPGs.

 

If we could get the size of a tesla module it would be great. They look smaller and have more punch in power.

 

This is also why the shift from ICE to hybrid is way easier than Hybrid to all electric.

When Tesla first started building electric cars they built the vehicle on a lotus chassis, which failed all the crash tests because you can't just mount a bunch of batteries on a chassis that wasn't designed for it in the first place.

In other words, you have to build a chassis that's designed to the exact load and distribution of the battery pack and Tesla has done such a good job at that, it's routinely given the highest crash test ratings.

Meanwhile all the other major auto makers have all their money tied up in long term chassis tooling for non-battery pack carrying crumple zones / crash test designs.

The amount of long-term investment required to create a proven chassis for long-range all electric vehicles is a huge driving force in auto maker resistance to building all electric... The only issue greater is that they sell four times as many parts in an ICE car compared to an electric car. And that's a really dangerous economic ship to downsize and not sink in the process... That's the reason why Toyota is so adamant about hybrids being the solution of the future and not electric cars.

 

I think the same idea was on the mind of almost everyone that owned a PiP 5 years ago. See the 5 year old thread here at PC with a title something like "What do you want in the next gen Prius Plugin" ... I'll see if I can find it and post the link.
Looking to the future: what hybrid should toyota build next? | PriusChat
I thought there was another thread too.

Scangauge will work in both Honda and Toyota Hybrids. But, programming many of the more meaningful hybrid gauges is required in most cases. There are codes for some well known ones here in an old thread and » ScanGauge II

 

I'm interested especially if the battery has lower internal resistance than NiMH allowing faster charging and more regen braking. It also depends on capacity, price, and how easy it is to find replacement battery modules.