Dashboard: Jun-Sep 2013

Was it this one: HowStuffWorks "1980 Briggs & Stratton Hybrid Concept Car Development"
It was actually a plug in.

Or this: Lohner-Porsche - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course modern hybrids can trace their lineage to the work done at TRW by these guys:


Present at the Creation :

Automotive Design & Production

 

You can link anything to prove the former "spin"...

It seems, unarguably, that Toyota was the first manufacturer to mass produce a hybrid car...

...Which by the way, is still sold, leading, and spreading the finest technology among other vehicle classes.

And if anyone asks you if you would buy one again, your answer would be "yes", in 84% sure.

 

Yeah, the Prius was first by a few years, and it is a great all around car, but it still isn't a car everyone wants, and acting as if it is, isn't going to get more people into hybrids. It started the modern hybrid movement, but it wouldn't have happened without the work done at TRW, and the advancement of battery technology during the EV1 and gen1 Rav4 Ev era.

For commercial plug ins, the first was the Volt. Toyota could have been first if they had listened to their customers. The PPI only has 73% of its owners saying yes again. So Toyota is doing something wrong with it in that regards.

 

As Trollbait pointed out, the history of production plugin-in hybrids started with the Volt although the Prius, 3rd party Prius add-on battery packs, and Tesla were key motivators in the decision to approve its production. The Volt has a transaxle based on GM patents filed before the first Prius went on sale in Japan. The GM patents are, in turn, derived from the TRW patent although it had expired and was not referenced as legal prior art.

No doubt, Toyota's decision to design and build the Prius as a production car back in 1997 was a huge step forward for the automotive industry and they still lead the industry in hybrid vehicles by a far margin.

My memory is that the Prius was at or near the top of the CR satisfaction survey in the mid-90's and the current Liftback's 84% showing is still very strong all these years later. The fact that only 73% of CR's subscribers who own a Prius PHV say they would buy one again is a clear sign of significant dissatisfaction with it's battery range and EV performance capabilities which are the main differences that distinguish it from the regular Liftback.

Many of those less satisfied Prius PHV owners may have been more satisfied with a Volt but bought a Toyota based on the strong non-plug Prius reputation (or, alternately, based on GM's weak reputation).

Of course, 73% are happy and would still buy again. Perhaps some of the others are happy enough with the car's limitations now but would not buy another 1st gen Prius PHV but would happily buy a 2nd gen PHV with more battery in the future?

I personally like the Prius PHV and think it's a great choice for many people but a Volt works better for my own driving pattern, location, and energy sources.

 

I think it is interesting that the Prius gets 84 and the PIP 73, when logically the only negative difference between the two is the missing spare tire and lower trunk space -- and the price. I think a lot of it can probably be explained by self-selection of the purchasers. Those who bought a PIP are probably more aware of all the EV technology and options out there and may just be wanting a full EV (or more miles) after getting a taste of it.
I think if you randomly gave a thousand people a Prius and another thousand a PIP, that the PIP owners would be equally pleased or more so that the Prius owners.

Also, of course the same self-selection issue is at play with all the other models as well. With the Model S, even if there are a number of things the owners would like to see improved, in their price range there is no other car to switch to, so of course they'd buy another one. Same goes for the Volt...in that price range there isn't another option for a car that gets ~40 miles EV but has long range. But PIP owners could easily find another car, about the same price, that goes as or more in EV (Volt, Ford, maybe even a Leaf). You can bet that if there were a brand x PHV that went 30-40 miles in EV and was an average car in all other respects the Volt number would be lower.

Mike

 

The first hybrid produced in 1899, along with a modern porsche


40 mile range if you plugged it in, but engines and transmissions improved quickly and the hybrid did not see modern production until 1997.

 

Wow! Taking about avoiding any discussion about 2014 choices and the current market!

 

The 1899 Lohner Porsche, the first Hybrid Vehicle?

 

I think PiP was not well understood. Just look at how EPA rated it. So it lead to mismatched expectation and perhaps lowered the survey satisfication.

As we have more real world data and owners describing their driving conditions and results (what excels or not), I only see the sales picking up and satisfication going up. That's from a satisfied PiP owner with over a year of ownership experience.

 

Toyota could have done a better job of explaining the PPI to the public. It is their product to sell after all.

Besides the 6 miles AER in small print, which should have just been left off, what about the EPA sticker could have lead to mismatched expectations? It gets 95mpge while running off charge from the wall for 11 miles, and then 50mpg after. The mismatch was really because the Volt was available with an advertise range of an EV mode. People saw that, and expected it in the PPI, while it was really just a factory version of a conversion kit.

EREV got looks of askance or was poo-pooed when GM first used, but we probably should have embraced. A wider spread and understanding of it might have helped people in understanding the Prius plug in when it didn't use that term.

 

EPA did not test PiP as intended (nor revise it). EV for city and gas for highway.

They rated it blended 95 MPrange-based. PiP EV usage is driving condition-based.

If you think PiP is really just a plugin conversion, you need to learn more about it. I suggest go drive one. I consider this an outrageous trollish statement.

Power-split plugins dominated sales last month. Volt is the only EREV on the market because Karma was a failure.

 

Huh. I thought that porsche phev was instructive.

Things move on, but the basic idea was there. Note there are many similarities to a horse and buggy. The buggy has the same big wheels and ground clearance, along with an open seating area it was front wheel drive since horses were in the front. These things were slow, so aerodynamics didn't really come into play. It did have the basic idea of the volt though - 40 mile range 4 seat serial phev. It could be plugged in for all your daily driving, but worked well on long trips. One of the later versions even had 4wd with a hub motor at each wheel. Once we got well beyond horse and buggy days and hit mass production with the big gm and ford plants, things changed rather fast.

What does that mean for today? It means that a plug in is unlikely to be a success if all it does is add a bigger battery, unless that bigger battery changes the driving experience. For the lohner porsche hybrid, it just was too expensive to compete with ice cars, they did production for just 8 short years. This would wait for technology.

Most successful seems to be the tesla S, which tries to rethink the car as an electric. If you use any proper business metric other than raw world wide sales volume, the tesla S clearly stands out. Each of the other plug-ins have things rooted in the bp (before plug) past and need some more evolution.

Its not up to the EPA to bring in toyota's promises and manage expectations for the prius phv. I do agree that toyota did a bad job of explaining and marketing the car, some of it is corporate and some dealerships, and that likely reduced consumer satisfaction.

Sure and I know that both you and I hope that the next generation really increases sales.

 

That's because the Volt that got delivered didn't actually meet the very definition established for it. And still to this day, no clarification has been provided.

With Ford's Energi plug-ins and Honda's Accord plug-in, there is nothing obvious to the consumer what a label would mean anyway. It ultimately comes down to GALLONS and KWH anyway.

 

Are you actually suggesting the EPA should tailor the test to individual models? Toyota adjusted the top speed for EV mode for the EPA test, so the Government should meet them half way?

The PPI did get city and highway testing. It is how we got the combined number. I would like to see, or just make it easy to find, the city and highway numbers for EV mode for all PHVs. EPA had to balance the sticker with data overload though. Consumers starting to ignore the sticker doesn't help anybody.

So the sticker is what it is. It is Toyota's job to communicate what the sticker fails to. They are the car company, not the EPA.

Please inform us in how it is different then. It is how Toyota is relying on getting the word out.

Doesn't the gen3 Prius come with an EV button? It is, what, top speed of 30mph with a range of a mile or two. Put in a larger battery and that range extends. The PPI has a higher speed limit at which the ICE cuts in. I assume the other thresholds are also similarly raised. This lowers the EV only range to a conversion with a similar pack size. Which comes out ahead is going to depend on the owner's drive.

The emissions and ICE warm up times are going to be much better on the PPI. They should be seeing how the design team could more closely implement the PHV systems into the car than some limited budget team without access to the inner workings of the software. Refinement of the drive system should better for the same reasons.

The line is that the PPI wasn't about the EV experience, it was about the most efficient use of wall and plug fuel source to maximize the amount of gas saved. That is what the conversion kits do. Take wall electricity to further reduce the amount of times the the ICE is used, and reduce the load on the ICE when it is used with more electric boost. This increases the overall gas mpg for the trip. The factory option is, and should be, better at it.

Is there some fundamental difference that I missed?

Yeah, last month, and last month only so far. The PPI was out longer than the Energi's. Why did it take so long with 3 popular models to one?

 

In what way did the 2011 Volt fail to "meet the very definition" of EREV?

 

Nope, the same set of tests would have been fine. It is how the label projects the data (misleadingly at least for my usage).

EPA assumed that if you plug it in, you will use EV miles for both city and highway. Not the case for me. I use EV for city driving and gas for highway.

If EPA monroney say PiP is rated 130 MPGe City (EV) and 49 MPG Highway (HV) and 95 MPGe combined, the view on PiP will be totally different.

Because Volt and Leaf have been on the market for 3 years and available in all 50 states?

I hope Oct sales momentum continues and help Toyota's decision to roll out PiP in all states.

Regarding the plugin conversions, name one that provides 38 kW EV power (even near depletion), crash tested, eAT-PZEV emission certified and 10 years battery warrenty. No disrespect to the conversion vendors but you asked me the differences.

 

Easy one.

1) Gas engine turns the wheels. It was supposed to only charged the battery. Fisker Karma fits the EREV definition but it is no longer in production.

2) Range Extender was supposed to kick in when EV range depleted, hence EREV. This is not the case with the override by Mountain and Hold mode.

Despite calling it EREV, both EPA and SAE recognizes the Volt as plugin hybrid. It is more series than parallel but a hybrid, no mistake about it.

 

IIRC toyota did not want such a label. They wanted a charge depletion range. Either way should it not be up to toyota and its dealers to communicate the information. If its misleading they may be dissatisfied. I understand you frutration with this information, but most of what I heard from toyota was that you would get up to 15 miles of range, and batteries are too expensive to put more in. IMHO that is bad messaging, but its up to toyota to change that not the EPA. Toyota has a much bigger advertising budget than the EPA

Yep leaf definitely improved by working with dealers and changing some things about the car being in the market longer and rolling out to all the states. The volt is doing about the same as last year. Toyota needs to look at the 50 state strategy and different dealer training and messaging.
+1

yep, you can't really say corporate has given the car much love.

I don't think the concept is very different than a conversion, but it definitely should help that toyota has a dealer network, massive engineering, and is standing behind the product.

 

I'd like to see the source. From what I've read, they have been saying smaller battery is better. They also said the cost of the battery (in kWh) is not as low as the conversion hobbyists/enthusiasts were quoting (non-automotive grade).

We found out the real reason why smaller battery capable of more charging cycle is better. It is better for the environment as emission for production and recycling Lithium battery is not good. Combined with the state of grid electricity emission, there would have not bren a step forward from gas 50 MPG.

Smaller battery also does not rob interior space and drag down gas efficiency. It is not good to qualify for big buck tax credit but Toyota said they decided to do what they SHOULD rather than what they COULD.

 

The EPA test primary purpose is for emissions. Fuel economy was a happy by product of the test. In order to keep the testing fair and consistent, it is assumed the driver has the minimum interaction with the car's control outside the basic accelerating, braking, and shifting. Unless I was misinformed, the PPI defaults to EV when the car is started up(another advantage of the PPI over a conversion). That is how the car is tested. It is also why the Prius is tested in normal mode and not eco mode.

Yes, you can do better than the EPA being proactive in efficient driving. That is actually true of most vehicles out there. The EPA fuel economy numbers main goal is to allow comparisons between models. A lazy, clueless, and/or careless driver assumption is the easiest to replicate. If they did allow EV mode to be turned off when least efficient, it would lead to more repeats of the test for each time the tester didn't switch off the EV mode at the exact time. Thus more gas, and cost for the test.

The sticker should have the city and highway should be posted for the EV mode and HV mode. Selecting which number of each is on the sticker itself can be misleading. The manufacturers can do that in their ads.

I hope they roll out the PPI too. It has been available for nearly as long as the Volt, and even with the poorer sales, a national roll out would have had the blendeds challenging the EREV sooner.

My intention wasn't to portray the PPI at the same level of quality or performance as a conversion, but to point out that its core operation is the same.

I don't know about the 38kW power, but likely none for the same reasons a conversion doesn't have the higher speed threshold for EV mode. I did mention better emissions and warm up for the PPI. No conversion will be crash tested or not interfere with the factory warranty. I saw no reason to mention that because it has no bearing on how the drive train operates. I readily admitted when the PPI was better than a conversion. Better doesn't make it different.

In what way is the PPI different from a conversion in operation?

First off, EREV has always been a subset of the plug in hybrid definition. Just like mild, assist, and full are subsets of the hybrid one.
1) Is disappointing with how marketing handled the Volt progress. What is the SAE's official definition regarding that?
2) Is picking nits. When running off wall electricity, the Volt operates as an EV. What does it matter that the driver can choose when that wall energy is used? Isn't that actually a good thing in terms of efficient use of fuels?

Then why bump up the speed threshold of EV mode for the North American market? If EV mode is meant for city driving where it is most efficient, they should have left the limit at the 50-something mph the PPI had for markets in Japan and Europe. That might actually add to the confusion over PPI expectations. While the EPA city test cycle has some 60mph spikes, most consumers don't think of 55+mph as city speeds.