Wish list for next generation Prius Plug-in

But for those of us who replaced their previous Prius solely to get the HOV decals, any enhancements on the 2015 PiP will be moot. Unless they increase the count for the plug-in (green) decals (not likely), I simply am not in the market for a new car until the decals expire on Jan 1, 2019. My wife has vetoed any vehicle that cannot go 300+ miles on one fueling, OR cannot be refueled at plentiful fueling stations in 5 minutes.

 

+1. I'm really glad they extended the HOV access to 2019. By that time I expect to be doing less freeway driving in general. If at that time I have an urge for a new car, I'm hoping to have a wide range of EVs with Tesla-like range, but at Prius-like Prices.

 

$30 a day is a lot of money for carpool lane access ($40,000 car, 5 years, 260 workdays per year). Regardless, everything about any car is moot other than whether it qualifies for HOV access.

 

Sounds reasonable to me.

To be a bit more serious, my Gen I Prius had 165000 miles on the original battery, and I was dreading each day I got into it that I would be greeted by the "triangle of death". With the warranty expired, I would be on my own to replace the battery pack, so getting rid of it was definitely on my mind when I heard about the PiP in middle of 2011. I finally sold the 2002 Prius about 8 months after getting the PiP in Februry 2012. If the PiP hadn't come out, I probably would have gotten a new standard Prius. At this point, for me, it would not be worth a few more miles of EV range or faster charging or possible additions like lane-keep-assist to lose the carpool access. My 25 mile each way commute would be horrendous without it.

 

It's not $30/day. You still need A car. Say you were you going to purchase the cheapest Prius 2 versus a base PiP. That's a $4000 differential after rebates.

It's more like $3/day. I accidentally drove through one of those idiotic HOT lanes in LA last summer. $4.75? something like. $3 is a bargain.


iPhone ?

 

And you do get a few more features in the PIP...maybe you want/need them, maybe not.
And the PIP does get better mpg and lower fuel costs (for most people)

Mike

 

1.) A manual remote trunk release for when the battery dies.

2.) An easy way to put the car in neutral when the battery is dead.

 

I would like to add a
#5 AWD. This seems like an interesting idea for the 4th Gen Prius and I was hoping to maybe see it offered on the PiP as well. In fact this may be the only reason I would even, possibly think about upgrading although my real desire is an all electric car (I always thought the Prius and then PiP were gateway electric cars ). Here's a chart of data with the proposed 2nd electric motor. I did the same thing they did on the HiHy and Rx450h and used a smaller powered motor on the rear axle, in this case, the motor from the Prius C. The data is from a couple of charts on PriusChat and the Prius simulator.

The power for the Prius C motor (MG3) was calculated using the same percentages as MG2. I stopped some of the data because the rear motor is suppose to cut out at 37 mph.

Looking at the chart I noticed a couple of things, the ICE would come on sooner if the battery power output remained the same, 27kW. In fact the ICE would also come on sooner in the 4th gen Prius even if Toyota was able to get the same battery capacity as the HiHy and RX450h, 32kW. So Toyota must have seriously increased the available battery power or they would have to use even smaller motors.

Also the amount of torque at the low end is huge. This would make the PiP feel much more livelier.

 

1. Am I the only one who thinks that the handling could use significant improvements?

2. It would be nice to have navigation that works as well or better than my portable Garmin...

 

there are some others, it's not specific to the pip, that's why there are threads on cross braces and etc. the majority probably don't drive in a way to feel the need tho.

 

None of this stuff really bothers me, so I must be easy to please.

 

no question.

 

My current wish is it wouldn't take so looong to get one.

 

This thread kinda reminds me of when Homer Simpson designed a car with everything he felt it should have.

 

if toy went thru these threads and tried to build accordingly, that's probably what we'd get.

 

You said you replaced a Prius with the PiP. That's a $40,000 unnecessary expense as you could have kept the Prius and paid nothing.

 

I find that I like getting 60+ MPG on the highway too much to use the HOV lane. Since I can't bring myself to drive in the HOV lanes under 75 mph, I never use them. There's not much traffic I hate more than some guy in the HOV lane going slower than the traffic on the main line, or something ridiculous like 1 mph faster.

 

That is typically not a problem here in Northern California. On the freeways I use during rush times (like 101), the choice is typically between 40mph in the HOV lane, and 5mph in the non-HOV lane.

 

Help me out with this math. You get no resale value for the previous Prius? You just donate to charity and don't take the deduction? I wouldn't do this myself, it is clearly not the smartest thing to do ... replace a relatively new car...but if someone was to do this I don't think I'd account for it as a $40K expense without considering the resale value, tax rebates, etc.