It is my unscientific belief that I regenerate more than I use, based upon my observation that I am in the green a lot and hardly ever go below half of the blue. Thus, I would like to use the electric moreso that it does by default.
Doing it (controlling it) manually, however, would open up the possibility of hurting the battery on both ends inadvertently - by over and under charging.
What I would like is the ability to tweak it within limits. (Adjust it to be a bit more on the electric side.) Tomes
You're redesigned Prius actually (according to what I've read and heard) does go further and faster in all electric mode under similar conditions than my '03 Prius. As far as installing another battery pack, if it were my project I would make it so the second battery pack was for *overflow* only and not to be charged simultaneously or better put, not a priority. For the past two very cold weeks (mornings 5 degrees and daytime not much more than 20 degrees) I've been driving with the speedometer set for kilometers instead of miles. My fuel efficiency *seems* to have improved and I can only surmise it's because I can only relate to designated fixed speeds so I tend to accelerate faster than normal. In the past when I'm on the highway I noticed 62 mph seems to be the sweet spot. It just so happens to be 100 kilometers per hour. And the double nickel 55 is the double infinity
In every case I have read about where people have wanted to tweak or adjust how the hybrid system operates, their desire has been to have the vehicle run in pure electric mode for a longer period or distance. I believe that Priuses sold in the UK have an EV button that forces the vehicle to operate in electric mode as long as possible, and that real world fuel economy changes very little by using that mode often.
How about charged from 120VAC line? When you get home or where an outlet is available. Then you use cheaper,more efficiently generated mains power for charging,not expensive gasoline.
All this stuff is technically feasible. The question is whether it is commercially feasible, that is, whether consumers are willing to pay $2000 to $4000 for the additional battery packs, chargers, etc. and give up trunk space. My guess is that people would probably give up trunk space but would be a little more reluctant to part with the additional money since the payback period may be longer than they intend to keep the vehicle.
The break-even point in terms of fuel costs is somewhere between 3 and 7 years, depending on the cost of fuel, driving conditions, etc. Adding an additional $2k to $4k may push the break-even point out further than most people would keep the car. While there are plenty of people who keep their car for 10 or 20 years, even if all of them purchased the additional battery capacity, the sales numbers may still not justify an automaker to put it into production.
A driver is a total weenie if he or she cannot get > 50 MPG from a Prius, even in cold weather.
I've been getting high 50s lately, and am looking forward to summer-mix gasoline (non oxygenated) with 5% higher energy content so I can cross 60 MPG per fill-up.
The exact numbers are not to hand but, in general, the efficiency of charging from a wall socket is not as good as people generally think. It may be $cheaper to the householder than what is put in in fuel tank; but that's a red herring in the efficiency puzzle.
Consider these stages when charging:
burn fuel at the power station and convert to electricity (hard to compute the efficiencies if the energy source is, say, hydro or solar or one of those, so skip them for now);
convey the electricity to wall socket and charger unit (if long journey across country, losses not negligible);
convert electricity to form suitable for battery (low volt DC), then convert to chemical energy, then back to electricity (huge losses overall).
Compare this with the clever juggling the full hybrid setup does. Often the battery stays idle, as engine drives generator and that drives electric motor. If it does involve the battery, we do not have to pay for transmission losses. The higher-than-usual Prius petrol engine efficiency... hmm, I'd be guessing irresponsibly if I estimated how it matches up to the power station and would like to know more.
The first Prius was available in calendar year 1997 as a 1998 model year (the NHW10 model). The 1998-2000 model year Prius was only available in Japan. Beginning with the 2001 model year (available in
2000 calendar year), the Prius was redesigned and available for sale internationally (the NHW11 model). The 2001-2003 model year Prius is what is usually referred to as the "Classic" Prius.
A small handful of the original Japanese Prius were brought out of Japan for some testing, to see what updates were needed for an international release. Was this one that you had tried in 1999? It's best identified as a compact sedan, no rear spoiler, the center display is all in Japanese, and had dash buttons for the display rather than a touch-screen. Oh, yeah, and it's RHD. (The NHW11 added the rear spoiler, a touch-screen, and has a more powerful engine and a more powerful (different design) battery pack, so better fuel economy and acceleration.)
To my knowledge, there has always been just the brake pedal and the accelerator pedal... So how were you controlling the gasoline engine with your left foot?
There's always a possibility the engine will start anyway even if the car is sitting still. If both battery packs are topped off ahead of time then there's no place else to store the electricity. Then the so-called savings from using AC utility power are diminished. By how much I don't know. All I can say is if an extra battery pack allowed me to travel 20 miles I would be hauled off, tarred and feathered by everyone behind me for going so slow.
It was a dealer 'teaser', that was available for show before actual sale. It was LHD, but this one was at the dealership months before they were actually available for sale here. One side was white, due to an accident. The other side was a huge billboard "PRIUS 60MPG Hiway Mileage Hybrid"
snipped-for-privacy@deltrak.demon.co.uk (Andrew Stephenson) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@deltrak.demon.co.uk:
I suspect that electric generation is more efficient any from 120VAC source than any hybrid auto,and also outputs far less pollutants.
Transmission losses are present regardless of whether the auto is charged from the line or not.Losses from corona discharge/leakage are far greater,I suspect.
and you neglect the conversion losses that the auto has in going from electric to mechanical and back,also the self-discharge the batery pack has.
Unbelievable! 11 answers and counting and no-one answers my original question! Are you all a bunch of politicians!?!?!?!
OK, enough ranting....
Ignoring, increased wear and tear on the batteries or engine, total energy equations involving my old coal powered power plant; and any disturbances in subspace temporal harmonics....
DID THE EV only switch increase peoples mileage? and by how much?
I considered listing each last tiny cause of inefficiency I could imagine then decided to group them, eg: "* convert electricity to form suitable for battery (low volt DC), then convert to chemical energy, then back to electricity (huge losses overall)". Leaving it to technically minded readers to fill in details seemed good.
Did you actually READ all the responses, to your questions and the others you no doubt found when you no doubt Googled on the recent traffic in this NG, and THINK about them?
The implication was that it's not worth doing. The car is set to care for itself and the battery. "Mileage" is another word for "efficiency" in this context. Greater efficiency turns on making better overall use of the fuel put into the tank. Read my past posts on my EV experiments (see recent Google). EV is purely there to solve local problems unrelated to efficiency.
GOT IT? Thank you. That ends this party political broadcast.
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