Official Toyota Prius PHEV thread

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Timaz

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Joined
Jul 27, 2010
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265
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Phoenix, AZ
This article really helped give me some perspective on how far ahead Nissan may be with the Leaf. I bought my Toyota prius and marveled at the ingenuity Toyota had when developing this vehicle. What happened? Did they just stop investing in R&D? Why did they shy away from developing an electric vehicle? I think they have lost their edge with this Plug-in vehicle. 12 miles on all electric? The reviewer could not even truly get that on these test vehicles they received. I do not think there will be a market for this car. The current buyers would pick a Volt or Leaf much less the plethora of vehicles coming to market by the time they get around to producing these. What a waste in my opinion.

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I would respectfully disagree that the PHEV Prius isn't an attractive purchase.

PriusChat has a topic about a group who has test driven the cars with multiple drivers over multiple routes in everyday driving situations, with the group averaging 83 MPG. (Of course - there is a lot of commuting to work, so many of the trips are shorter and mostly EV mode to get that high a number)

A car that you might end up getting that kind of mileage, with the benefits of 3 hours to recharge, and more then 600 miles of range in the tank, at least to me, is quite attractive. I think it will be a big hit - and would be even bigger if Toyota decided to roll it out 6-12 months earlier then the projected introduction date. It would be great if the PHEV got more EV range - even 20-25 miles of EV - but it doesn't look like that is in the cards at this point.

The DOE study that we looked at a few months ago claims that even in California and the Northwest, which have the cleanest production of electricity in the country, a car that gets over 75 MPG produces less carbon emissions then an all electric vehicle. The PHEV is going to be right around that number when you account for it's power from electricity + power from gas.

5-10 years from now, I'd expect to see EV's with ranges in the 500-1000 miles per charge range. That kind of range makes the EV attractive for a much broader audience - although it will be interesting to see what needs to be done to charge 500-1000 miles of range into the car overnight. Maybe they'll have ultracapacitors figured out by then, so the charging will be fast - but batteries may be an interesting challenge.
 
LakeLeaf said:
PriusChat has a topic about a group who has test driven the cars with multiple drivers over multiple routes in everyday driving situations, with the group averaging 83 MPG. (Of course - there is a lot of commuting to work, so many of the trips are shorter and mostly EV mode to get that high a number)
That is a bogus number. It doesn't account for the electricity used to charge the battery.

I'm always fascinated by PriusChat people who use this kind of made up number and at the same time criticise Volt.
 
I think the Prius PHEV would be a wonderful 2nd car to the LEAF. Even 12 miles EV range would eliminate a LOT of gas in our 2nd car, but the batteries to support that range would not be too expensive or heavy so you don't end up carrying around a lot of extra weight when you do need to travel farther.
 
drees said:
I think the Prius PHEV would be a wonderful 2nd car to the LEAF. Even 12 miles EV range would eliminate a LOT of gas in our 2nd car, but the batteries to support that range would not be too expensive or heavy so you don't end up carrying around a lot of extra weight when you do need to travel farther.

From what I've seen on Toyota webste, phev prius battery weighs almost half of Leafs (40%?) - and yet gives only 1/8th the EV range. Not sure what to make of that.
 
evnow said:
From what I've seen on Toyota webste, phev prius battery weighs almost half of Leafs (40%?) - and yet gives only 1/8th the EV range. Not sure what to make of that.
Well, with a smaller battery they will have to use higher power cells since they will be pushed harder. Compared to the LEAF which uses higher energy cells.

So in general, PHEV batteries will have less energy per kg but EV batteries will have less power per kg.

That probably accounts for a large portion of the discrepancy - I'm sure that there is also some room for improvement since all the Prius PHEVs we've seen haven't even been pre-production units - more proof-of-concept units.
 
Toyota hasn't released the actual PRODUCTION PHEV range, yet. The fleet of 160 DEMO verhicles in the US for the last year for testing have the 12 mile range, with 3 battery packs. No one has said that is the EXACT vehicle Toyotal will produce in 2012, and that it will "only" have 12 miles of range. The test fleet is built around a modified 2010 Prius, Toyota always has a few tricks up their sleeves, such as teaming up with Tesla to reintroduce the RAV4 EV wth the Tesla drivetrain, etc. Don't coun't Toyota out just yet, they typically are very conservative and will not release a product until its ready, and they know they can stand behind it. I expect that is the situation here as well, with the PHEV.
 
5-10 years from now, I'd expect to see EV's with ranges in the 500-1000 miles per charge range.

I'm not so confident. If they could get it to 300, that would be an accomplishment.
 
Train said:
5-10 years from now, I'd expect to see EV's with ranges in the 500-1000 miles per charge range.
I'm not so confident. If they could get it to 300, that would be an accomplishment.
Well, Tesla already has 240 mi range - 300 mi range could be done today simply by using Panasonic's latest batteries instead of the older ones. Of course, the Tesla battery pack costs as much as the entire LEAF!

Not to mention, that anything more than 300-500mi range or so is overkill. I would be happy with 200mi range at highway speeds and the ability to recharge to 80% in 30 minutes. Usually after driving 3+ hours you are ready for a short break, anyway.

Sure, it would be nice to have 500mi range on those very rare trips where I am driving all day, but I can't think of an all-day trip where I did not stop at least 3 times for 10-30 minutes.
 
I'm sure that Tesla range isn't 240 miles with A/C on and going 70 mph.

I'm talking a realistic highway range of 300 miles at highway speeds. The speed limit in CA is 70 and in AZ it is 75.

Most any gasoline engine car can go 300 miles at highway speeds without stopping for fuel. Then it's 5 minutes to fuel and another 300 miles or more. Many, considerably more.

Until they solve this issue, and the long charge times, EV's will remain urban commuters. And expensive urban commuters at that.
 
The boffins believe that the future killer battery will be Lithium Air. IBM, GE, and the DOE are investing billions in trying to figure out the chemistry to make this happen. They project the energy density of Lithium Air will be high enough to give an electric car a range of 500-1000 miles with a reasonable number of batteries.

Will they be able to make this happen? They think so, but who knows - clearly there is still a lot of research to be done. In the mean time, there will be other, more modest advances in batteries. Reports are that Nissan is already signed onto an altered chemistry which will give the Leaf a 200 mile range in 2015. (Google will help you find that reference somewhere).

Accounting for excess burn rates due to speed, temp, hills, AC, etc. something between 250 and 500 miles starts to sound like something many would consider. Something pushing 1000 miles (even 700-800 miles) which can still be charged overnight sounds like something very hard to argue with!

ETA - Lots of articles about this - here is one example: http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/0...um-air-battery-rescue-electric-car-37498.html
 
Train said:
I'm sure that Tesla range isn't 240 miles with A/C on and going 70 mph.
No, it's about 175 miles. So for 300 mi range without charging you'd, need about 100 kWh of battery.

Train said:
I'm talking a realistic highway range of 300 miles at highway speeds. The speed limit in CA is 70 and in AZ it is 75.
You should have been more specific.

Train said:
Most any gasoline engine car can go 300 miles at highway speeds without stopping for fuel. Then it's 5 minutes to fuel and another 300 miles or more. Many, considerably more.
Maybe so - but how often do you actually go that far before having to stop for for a break anyway? For me, anyway, it's usually every 2 hours or so to use the bathroom, get a snack or stretch my legs. Never mind that I actually only drive more than 100 mi / day a couple times a year.

Train said:
Until they solve this issue, and the long charge times, EV's will remain urban commuters.
See above on comment regarding frequency of long trips. BTW, many people have already taken their Tesla out on long highway trips - and that's without any quick chargers - without drama.

Train said:
And expensive urban commuters at that.
There are worse things to spend money on (oil, for example), but really, a $33k LEAF isn't much more or less than what most people pay (which is apparently around $30k) so I would argue that it's not really all that expensive. Compared to my other main vehicle (Toyota Prius) which cost substantially less ($23.5k), but it also lacked a lot of the features that are standard in the LEAF. In fact, to get similar features I'd have to pay close to $30k - which is basically the same price as the LEAF (ignoring tax credits and other rebates).
 
IBELEAF said:
I would be happy with true 100 mile range, no "IFs"...
Since the worst case range of the LEAF is around 50 miles, you'd need about double the battery or "200 mile range" to make it. Even then, that's not really "worst case" since you could just sit in the car without moving with the heater blowing and eat up all your power without moving an inch - in which case no amount of energy storage will help you.

Toyota is reported working on a "true 100 mi range" with the RAV4 EV they are working on with Tesla. I'd expect them to have a battery pack capable of 34 kWh or so in daily use.
 
I'll believe a better battery technology when I can buy it. I remember as a kid reading about all kinds of cool batteries in 1968 - sodium-sulfur, iron-air (?) etc. 2015 seems kind of early for a doubling of energy density in a Leaf.
 
Thin alternating layers of PV material and waste radioactive material to "stumulate" the PV layers ...

Yep, probably heavy for the yield, and perhaps too "hot" to handle,
but ... (JOKE) the Russian version of "Mrs. Fusion"?
 
DeaneG said:
I'll believe a better battery technology when I can buy it. I remember as a kid reading about all kinds of cool batteries in 1968 - sodium-sulfur, iron-air (?) etc. 2015 seems kind of early for a doubling of energy density in a Leaf.
Search for NMC.

My prediction is doubling every 5 years.

Barring breakthroughs, which could increase the density 10x by 2020.
 
I drive 56 miles round trip to work and do not have the option to charge there. For me, the PHEV Prius would offer literally nothing over the current model.

LakeLeaf said:
I would respectfully disagree that the PHEV Prius isn't an attractive purchase.

PriusChat has a topic about a group who has test driven the cars with multiple drivers over multiple routes in everyday driving situations, with the group averaging 83 MPG. (Of course - there is a lot of commuting to work, so many of the trips are shorter and mostly EV mode to get that high a number)
 
1) either the Leaf is much more expensive than i thought or the battery pack for a Tesla is MUCH more expensive than the entire purchase price of the Leaf. (battery pack cost estimate for the Tesla; $53,000)

2) remember; Toyota PHEV are simply prototypes. i fully expect them to fail unless they boost the EV range to 20 miles. then again, if they sold them for say? $1,000 more than the standard car, they would sell.

3) we still cannot get around the fact that nearly EVERYONE needs an extended range vehicle, so whether you have a Volt with a 35 mile EV range or a PHEV Prius with 12 mile EV range or a Prius with a 4500 FOOT EV range, when you hit a certain distance, it really does not matter.

so we go back to the weight issue. if the PHEV Prius still gets 50 mpg in hybrid mode, they will win. the Volt will only work for people that do most of their commuting of 30 miles RT (that covers waaay more than half of us) daily. but the Volts hybrid mileage is simply a killer. they needs to get to the mid 40's. real life drivers will probably see averages as low as the high 20's, low 30's. the 4 passenger issue is simply the last nail in the coffin.
 
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