Test driving a Prius PHV... a dream come true

Sorry Hobbit but I am not authorized to go into technical details.
It would serve you no good anyway since the specs on the trial model are already public I believe.

 

No sir. This mule had both higher capacity and higher instant power. The 2g original would never zip in EV mode at 100 km/h.

 

Yes, I know the car you are talking about, that car was the base for the mule I rode.

That car (the one you are referring to) was not a mule, it was a prototype 2G PHV test car just like the 3G PHV ones that are being delivered now.

What I'm saying is that the one car I drove is not that one, it only looks like that one from the outside, but the PHV battery packs and ECUs are completely different.

The car I rode was as close to the 3G PHV as it could get, although it looked as a 2G PHV on the outside. Hence the term "mule". The car was not what it looked like from the outside.

 

To be honest I did not check under the hood, but I also doubt the engine would be the 1.8L.

The main thing being tested on that mule AFAIK was the battery pack, so I don't think a complete HSD system with new ICE, new MGs and SRU and all would be necessary.

I may be wrong. What I know is that we did high speed driving in EV mode alone. To my knowledge the 2G PHV also could not go beyond 70 km/h on EV mode, or could it?

 

Yup, you are absolutely right, I stand corrected!

I looked for this on my notes from the visit and on the 2G PHV press release, and the only thing that differs greatly is the battery pack.

I can not tell you the wattage and capacity for that mule, so I'll only say it was far greater than the one on the 2G PHV one.

The chief scientist that showed me the PHV around was the engineer responsible for the battery development on that R&D site, so I guess testing new batteries on that mule made sense.