Plug-in Prius goes on sale

[CHARGED EVs Mag]

Toyota opened up the next stretch of the electric highway on Tuesday, as it began taking orders for the new plug-in Prius hybrid... Newswire >

[voltage692]

I hope the NTSHA, or whatever it's called, tries 6 ways til Sunday to get the battery to catch fire in the Prius too. Are they doing this testing with the Leaf?

[bonaire]

Leaf has different cell/pack manufacturers than the Volt and Prius. What you have to look forward to are the crash tests to come on the Ford Focus EV, which shares LG Chem as the batt maker.

[DonC]

Leaf has different cell/pack manufacturers than the Volt and Prius.

Chemistries are very similar. The bigger difference might be that the Leaf lacks a thermal management systems and hence doesn't use any coolant.

[scottf200]

Leaf has different cell/pack manufacturers than the Volt and Prius. What you have to look forward to are the crash tests to come on the Ford Focus EV, which shares LG Chem as the batt maker.

Can you imagine the testing that the Ford Focus EV is now going through in-house. Imagine the meetings at Ford and LG Chem (and Argonne) in the past few days. Would love to be a fly on the wall just for the novelty of it. I have zero ill will toward any other EV manufacturer on these battery issues as I want them to succeed. I think GM took one for the team here!

[tboult]

Toyota opened up the next stretch of the electric highway on Tuesday, as it began taking orders for the new plug-in Prius hybrid... Newswire >

Anyone know where they are getting their 87mpg and 16mile EV range? I though 87 was their MPGe rating, and 49mpg was ir gas rating?

Also I thought the EV was more like 10 (maybe its 10-16.. where the volt is 25-50)

[scottf200]

I'm not that thrilled with the teaser snippets from charged ev mag at this point. Perhap it is there complete intent to just have a few paragraphs with the overview of other articles? (vs more research) Anyhow, a google search quickly shows the details of articles and from the manufacturer.
http://www.google.com/search?&q=Plug...s+goes+on+sale

From this site and the clickable "hidden" [2] footnote: http://www.toyota.com/prius-plug-in/specs.html

Prius Plug-in EV mode works under certain conditions up to 62 mph for approximately 10-15 miles on a full charge. Quick acceleration and braking, road and vehicle conditions, or climate control use may prevent usage of EV mode.

Like the diff between the standard PiP and Advanced version. So far I've only seen the diff of halogens vs LED & fog lamps. See: http://www.toyota.com/prius-plug-in/features.html

[saghost]

Anyone know where they are getting their 87mpg and 16mile EV range? I though 87 was their MPGe rating, and 49mpg was ir gas rating?

Also I thought the EV was more like 10 (maybe its 10-16.. where the volt is 25-50)

To the best of my knowledge, the EPA hasn't tested the PiP. I haven't yet seen anything stating how much battery can be used in 'CD' by the car - from their 120 v charge times, it looks like 3 kWh or so. Given that, the EPA thinks a Volt or Leaf could get 10-11 miles on that charge.

Of course AER is a difficult subject for a plug in hybrid like the Prius, where hard acceleration or speeds over 62 mph require engine use. I don't know if the car can complete the EPA cycle in EV mode or not. I believe that Toyota is touting 87 MPGe, comparable to the EPA tested 94 MPGe of the Volt and 99 MPGe of the Leaf, but I'm not sure where they got that.

[DonC]

Of course AER is a difficult subject for a plug in hybrid like the Prius, where hard acceleration or speeds over 62 mph require engine use. I don't know if the car can complete the EPA cycle in EV mode or not.

I'm guessing it can complete the drive cycle because it's been engineered to do so. No hard accelerations on either the City or the Highway Cycles. Here's the Hwy Cycle. Note the speed doesn't go over 60 MPH: http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/cycles/hwfet.php

I think the PIP is lame but I do like the V. It provides an alternative for people wanting a larger vehicle.

[Noel Park]

I'm guessing it can complete the drive cycle because it's been engineered to do so. No hard accelerations on either the City or the Highway Cycles. Here's the Hwy Cycle. Note the speed doesn't go over 60 MPH: http://www.dieselnet.com/standards/cycles/hwfet.php

I think the PIP is lame but I do like the V. It provides an alternative for people wanting a larger vehicle.

Our local paper reported this AM that the local dealer had taken 24 orders for PIPs. "It starts at $32,000 in the United States". I agree that it's lame, but still......

I wonder if the PIP qualifies for the CA HOV lane sticker. If so, that would explain some of it, because a lot of people in our area commute on the 110 freeway.