2010 Prius Gas Tank

Or in other words, 45 litres - same as EU 2004-2009 model.

Oh no, the new Prius petrol tank is only 11.9 gallons!
In the words of Maxwell Smart, "missed it by that much!"

Before I got my 10th anniversary Prius, Dec 07, I asked the sales rep here in Tokyo about the bladder. Blank look. Went to ask in the shop. Blank.

It seems to have been a US (only?) thing. Anyone know any different?

I have obviously missed earlier posts, but - if some kind soul would quickly summarise - what problems have folk had about the tank besides it not being very big?

The US - more specifically, California and the other states that have signed up to California's emission standards - have an emissions level termed PZEV - Partial Zero Emission Vehicle - where emissions of fuel vapour have to be controlled. The bladder contracts as fuel is used so there's no spare volume for fuel to evaporate into.

The EU and Japan have no regulation on evaporative emissions, hence, our cars don't have the bladder.

The bladder expands as fuel is added - it always keeps it under pressure. Overfilling can, IIRC, 'burp' fuel out of the filler or into the charcoal filter, contaminating it. The car has to be filled slowly so that the return pressure doesn't cut the pump off too quickly. (Does Japan have locking fuel pump triggers? In the UK, at least, we have to hold down the trigger continuously to keep filling - there's still a cutout to prevent overfilling.)

The other problem is that the bladder material gets stiff when it's cold, so it doesn't expand very much, leading to low fuel capacity.

I'm surprised to hear that the bladder has been removed, as the Prius would surely no longer qualify for AT-PZEV status. I thought there were incentives/penalties for producing a greater or lesser number of such cars.

Not U.S., but North American.

The problem is one of specifications and uncertainty. The specs for the car say 11.9 U.S. gallons, but that is gross capacity without the bladder. The bladder reduces the usable capacity down to 10 or 10.5 gallons (roughly).

The roughly comment is the other problem. You never really know how much gas you have in the tank. The capacity varies from fill to fill, and the uncertainty drives some owners nuts.

Tom

I thought I read in this or another thread that some other change or addition had been made that would deal with the evaporation in another way (sucking it back into the engine somehow).

The 2010 has a dedicated pump for controlling evaporation.

Tom

Toyota has been doing AT-PZEV without the bladder since 2005. The 2006 Highlander Hybrid and the 2007 Camry Hybrids are AT-PZEV and have no bladders.

They seal the gas tank well and I believe that they then suck the vapors into a charcoal canister or something. When the ICE is running I believe that they then burn the vapors off by feeding them into the air intake.

Or something like that.

The bladder is obsolete...

it's a shame they didn't increase it just a tad, say 12.9 gal..but its no biggie. At least now the car has a consistent fuel tank.

This is one big draw for me to trade up, But Im waiting till 2011. I was going to get a different car, but I will keep this one and get another prius after plug in most likely. Or wait longer for the coupe

Hi all,

The maximum capacity reported by Ken@Japan is 60,8 litres.

The maximum I have ever made was 57 litres, but I flooded the return pipes while doing so without noticing it, not good.

I can put consistently about 48 litres without any hassle: I try to go to the gas pump the least I can. I always wait for the last dot to start blinking, reset one of the trip meters, and wait for 100 km to go by.

The reserve, again as reported by Ken is 6,5 litres. Doing 100 km is a no-brainier since I hardly get close to 5 litres per 100 km (doing now 4.2 on current tank).

That makes me wonder whether the quoted 45 litres, and gauge calibration, is to the top of the fuel pump's cooling pool. 45 litres is 75% of 60 litres and it's supposed to need a 25% sump of fuel to submerge the fuel pump, to keep it cool and to prevent it sucking air, preventing it being damaged.

Generally I refuel with two blobs remaining on the fuel gauge, which is about 35 litres. That's still normally over 400 miles of range.

I get over 900km out of a tank now, that is 41 litres at most, can't complain about that!! If I get 10% better from a 2010 that's 1,000km or about 600 miles, how can anyone whine about that? No doubt they will.

You can check this text table here:
Luis Alexandre - Prius-PT

Never mind about the post text, the table has 3 columns: Gauge dot, litres left in the tank, litres that one dot represents.

10 dots (full gauge) represents 47,8 litres of fuel.

We created a sub-group at our Prius-PT community for members that have proved to do over 1000 km with one single tank. A kind of hiper-miler prize, with our own logo and all:



There are not many there, but it is not that hard to achieve:

Prius-PT

I bet you can do it too, you just have to let it run into reserve