Disappointing Prius plug-in

[Dan & Nan]

4) Volts, Prius, Leaf do there best at lower speeds and stop and go. Not at 60+ mph in an HOV lane.

Volt's do 70-80 MPH just fine, EV range and MPG takes a small hit because it's designed so well.

[DonC]

GM appears to have the earliest patent which most closely describes what people think of as the Prius transmission. The TRW patent filed around 1970 has strong similarities to the Prius hybrid design but there are some differences in how the elements are hooked up to the planetary gear.

Very good history of the hybrid system invented by TRW researchers can be found here: http://www.autofieldguide.com/articl...t-the-creation

[Jeff N]

Very good history of the hybrid system invented by TRW researchers can be found here: http://www.autofieldguide.com/articl...t-the-creation

Nice article. I hadn't seen it before. It obviously references Ford at the end but unfortunately doesn't discuss GM or it's 1995 patent.

[Brian Loves Cars]

For the price differential between the PiP and the Volt,... even if the PiP got 40 miles of range, not a quarter of that, it'd be the worst buy in the car world. The difference in experience/luxury/quality of the car from Prius to Volt is a fair shot less than Toyota to BMW. Its not even a comparable drive, I drove a Prius Gen 3 around all day today, borrowed from a friend. Still noisy, still absolutely awful driving dynamics (almost as if they wanted it to be bad), still rattles over really junky streets. Nice interior design, but low grade execution, and just isn't a great car. Great mileage, bad car. It just breaks even. The Volt knocks it out of the park.

[2BeLivingGreen]

The PiP is a very weak plug-in vehicle in my mind. I know it "optimizes" the use of the battery on almost every drive, meaning it depletes the battery every drive. So this uses the battery 100% of the time. So it was a way to further reduce the operating costs of a Prius driver. However I suspect that a high percentage of PiP owners will be asking for more EV range out of Toyota. If that is true then that speaks for whether their approach was a good one.