Why won't Toyota make a hybrig with a plug?

The Prius could get 85 mpg and people would love Toyota.

Reply to
Clement Burkle
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The Prius could get 85 mpg and people would love Toyota.

Reply to
Clement Burkle

The Prius could get 85 mpg and people would love Toyota.

Reply to
Clement Burkle

Some people love Toyota even though they don't get 86 MPG.

Reply to
Ray O

Because plug or no plug, fully loaded with 18,000 LBS of batteries, the Prius doesn't get 85 MPG. The other issue is that most (me included) have never been able to get any gasoline from a plug. Therefore, increasing MPG via a plug simply doesn't work at all. Unless, of course, you're a Californian grant seeking researcher. Then, 250+ MPG is an everyday thing.

Reply to
FanJet

Has anyone done the math on the operating cost of a modified (no additional batteries but plug-in) Prius? How much electrical energy (in KWh) does it take to replace the electricty produced by a gallon of gasoline running the onboard generator?

Reply to
Travis Jordan

Not enough to power the car. The gas engine is required to charge the batteries when they get low. You reclaim *some* lost power through brake chargers, but due to losses it's only a very small amount compared to what is drawn from the batteries to drive the car, unless your trip is mostly downhill and at relatively low speeds. The higher speed you go, the higher percentage of power is used to overcome wind resistance (I believe wind drag increases eightfold with every doubling in speed.)

Reply to
Ernie Sty

Not only that, if you have an 10 - mile commute to work, a 10 mil long extension cord would cost and weigh a lot and people might trip over it!

Reply to
Ray O

Many car owners like to tinker. I've read that some Prius owners are hacking (modifying and experimenting ) to increase efficiency. The article mentioned solar panel charging and line (AC plug in) charging, but was not specific. The writer also stated that Toyota strongly recommended against such tinkering, fearing it could just as easily ruin the system.

I currently have an '05 Avalon Limited and '02 Rav4 L, and both are excellent.

A few years ago, when I had a bit less money for cars, I drove a 1990 Geo Metro 5 door wagon. (3 cyl - 5 sp manual) I consistently got 50+ mpg. Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't some readily available and popular small cars in today's USA market that get 50 MPG or higher withOUT going the complicated and expensive hybrid route. Perhaps the "micro" cars I've read about in car mags will penetrate the market with high efficiency, small commuter cars. The Chinese appear poised to enter the car market on a global scale. Maybe they'll do it. Somebody should! IO

Reply to
Just Me

Efficient small car is disappearing because of the threat of large heavy SUV on the road. SUV has been thriving due to cheap gas in the 90s. So, expensive gas is not a completely bad thing after all. Unfortunately I doubt people, especially well-off people, will sacrifice their safety and go back to small car just because of gas price. It's all about money and safety.

Reply to
XYZ ABC

LOL I was assuming they meant you plug it in while it is parked to charge the batteries.

Reply to
Ernie Sty

I was just making a point that anyone could claims of giant leaps in hybrid fuel economy or X number of miles range on batteries merely by adding more batteries and a separate charging system or even using a long extension cord. It's a little trickier to come up with a cost-effective, consumer friendly and commercially viable solution.

The whole story behind the electrical engineer who spent $3,000 tinkering on his Prius to boost the mileage to 80 MPG is that it only gets 80 MPG for his

20 mile commute to work, then he gets typical Prius economy after that. Of course, I'm sure his labor isn't included in the $3,000 so if you add those costs, the payback gets even longer, if it is even achievable.
Reply to
Ray O

Ah, but that was $3,000 by that electrical engineer as a one-off. If you added up a bill including the actual expert engineering and labor hours spent on the conversion (instead of just for parts and materials as I bet he did) it would be prohibitively expensive to do.

But done as a factory option that many people choose, or better as a regular part of the production car, the costs get spread out over the entire production run. And suddenly it isn't that expensive to add that feature to the cars.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

The premium for a hybrid is probably around $4,000 or $5,000 over a conventionally powered car.

Assuming the factory could get the $3,000 in parts for the additional battery packs and power source for half the cost and then add in engineering and installation, you're probably back to $3,000 for the additional package. Add that $3,000 to the original $4k or $5k premium and I'm not sure you can ever recover $8,000 or $9,000 in fuel savings.

Reply to
Ray O

Good point. In order to have accurate numbers for mileage, an MPG average over a variety of trips, driving conditions and terrain would need to be made. I could say I get infinite MPG on my way to work if it's down a steep hill all the way and I just coast without starting the engine...

Reply to
Ernie Sty

Absolutissimo! I'd prefer Turbo-diesel hybrids, or just turbo-diesels, but for sheer simplicity just plain, simple diesels built to last AND get great mileage would be even better because of the reduced manufacturing costs. Teeny cars built for city driving only with top speeds from forty to sixty MPH or so and just enough torque to keep from getting rear-ended when the light turns green. I'd buy one of those.

Reply to
Ernie Sty

If something sounds too good to be true...

Reply to
Ray O

This is true.

I saw photos of an Austin Mini and a Ford F-150 that had both been crashed into a solid wall at a certain speed. The Mini driver would have been in much better shape and probably would have survived, whereas the Ford driver would have died because the Ford truck was not designed well enough for the driver to survive that sort of crash. This was used to show how "safe" a small car can be. But this is very misleading because (as you obviously know) very few collisions involve a car hitting a solid wall head-on, most accidents involve two or more vehicles. If a Ford truck and a Mini hit head on at say 60 MPH, the truck will probably go from 60 to 20 MPH, and the mini will go from 60 to -20, in other words will bounce backwards off the truck, making the accident MUCH safer for the driver of the Ford and almost certainly fatal for the Mini driver.

Reply to
Ernie Sty

Unfortunately, most Americans have memories of GM's diesel problems in the

70's and since then, diesel passenger cars have not sold in large numbers in the U.S.

Toyota used to have a diesel pickup and turbo diesel Camry available in the U.S. but were not big sellers.

I think only VW and Mercedes and maybe BMW are still selling diesel passenger cars in the U.S. To get a diesel here, you have to go to a full-size pickup or larger.

Reply to
Ray O

Of course...fatality in a crash is almost directly attributable to the weight of the vehicles involved. If you're driving a train when you hit a motorcycle you may not even feel the slight bump that delivered a huge smashing blow to and killed the cycle driver.

Simple physics. What kills people in small vehicles is that there's less momentum due to less mass therefore the vehicle loses speed rapidly enough to damage the humans when they contact the inside of the now much speed reduced vehicle. Or even the seatbelts themselves.

Reply to
Gord Beaman

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