New PHEV kit on eBay. Any good?

[Puzzler1]

Hi everyone. I've searched PriusChat and didn't find anything on this. I just found this auction on eBay and was wondering if anyone knew anything about it.
eBay Motors: Toyota Prius Lithium Ion Hybrid Battery With Charger (item 320323870674 end time Jan-07-09 13:55:37 PST)

There is very little information on it both in the auction and in the company's site.

The company web site is: el-drive.biz. They claim to take Prius power trains and modify them for use in boats.

Sorry if this is a repeat post. I couldn't find anything on it. (Lousy searcher??)

Terry

[efusco]

The site's pretty thin, I've not heard of them at all and am skeptical about their claims.

[Puzzler1]

That's what I thought too. Without much info I was wondering if they have a BMU (battery management unit) or if they just use the original one which wouldn't let you use most of the power anyway. Also, if the battery goes dead, would the car still work since the original is removed?

[nugget]

Caveat Emptor. It always sends off warnings with me when I see small typos on a website like the eldrive.biz Alan...you are trying to sell people and gain their confidence to give them a high tech piece of equipment for $7500, at least get the grammar and typos correct!!
I don't know anything about this operation, but I am on the waitlist for a A123 hymotion L5 conversion, and from what I see this is no do it yourself task....high voltage! Even the hobbyist who have converted Prius prior to the mass market release this year of the A123-Hymotion kit claim that conversion requires some level of electrical knowledge way above 'joe average.'

[efusco]

They list no specs, they don't tell you how the system integrates. There's much more to a PHEV conversion than a charger and batteries...and that volume of Li will NOT give you 8x range. They don't talk about a controller, they really have no photos, nothing.

[Puzzler1]

I knew the smarter ones out here would know better. I agree with all. I was debating if I should even bother trying to ask about the details such as kwh capacity and controller and or battery management systems, but it seems that if it were truly a well thought out product, they would have provided the info up front.

It almost sounds like they just took out the Prius battery and replaced just the battery with the equivalent voltage of lithium ion batteries and think that is all that's needed.

I'm not going to be the first guinea pig!!! Any volunteers??



Terry

[hybrad2]

smells fishy to me...8X battery capacity would require 8X larger Ah batteries. So let's examine that-

Prius has 6.5Ah batteries

so 8X capacity would be 52Ah batteries

That would be an impressive engineering feat to cram 80 each 50Ah Lithium batteries of any sort into the space of the existing NiMH pack..read impossible..

Oh and don't forget to return your old battery pack so you don't have to to pay the "core charge" too....

Hybrad
junglemotors dot com

[hybrad2]

Whaddaya think PeakOilGarage, could you fit 80 A123's in the stock Prius battery pack? Is A123 even selling the cells to anyone?

Hybrad

[aminorjourney]

I'd run away, screaming if possible.

There's just not the data here to make me feel that this place is trustworthy. Their site is even thinner on the ground.

For a start, the photograph seems to just be of a stock OEM battery. It looks like there's a vent tube there, which of course the stock NiMH need and unless I'm wrong, the A123 cells they claim to use don't.

They don't mention how they plan to integrate the setup in a stock Prius. You can't just plug any battery configuration into the Prius and expect it to use the extra power without any probelms.

Technically, the website is very vaguge. You'd be better off going for something recognised and tested...

[orenf]

Reads like a scam. Note seller feedback - <10 positive as a seller, and all of it old, so no detailed info.

Their website claims they're getting batteries form A123 - if you're interested, you should call A123 and ask if they know them at all...