Weekend Rental of Plug in Prius

Very cool! What dealership is it?

 

Wow, I am surprised they would rent out that Vehicle.

 

how much did it cost. I am thinking of
doing the same..

 

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas..

 

Janie,
If you can charge the car at night at home, and make most of your short trips using EV, to me that sounds like the best use of the car as designed. Then on weekends, don't worry about charging it if you are away from home. My plan is to take advantage of EV around town, and charge every night. But I don't worry if I drive enough locally to have to switch to ECO mode, or if I head out on the freeway on a longer trip; it's still getting fantastic mileage. I don't even plan to take the charging unit with me.

 

Our TRAC rental arrives this next week. It's a silver base model. We are also renting it out at $99 a day.

 

No offense intended but if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it.

 

Sounds like PiP would favor short commutes like 15 miles or so, but not quite so much benefit for long trips all the time.

I used to rent 2010/11 Prius a lot for a day, drive about 150 miles and indicate anywhere from 53 to 56 when returning. Never got an accurate # on small fillup sample. Now I know gage is 5 or 6% optimistic. Minor bummer.

 

I agree with Roger's comments:

We use the car for either short stints about town or longer runs on highway/freeway. We plug the car in every time we come to the house - so, that could mean 2 or 3 charges in a single day.

At this point, we don't even bother putting the cable back in the car - I think I want to set up a permanent plug in station; but have not found it at the right price point (currently @ ~$1000). I would do it for a couple of hundred bucks; and I am able to self-install.

Given my experience, my only recommendation to Toyota would be that the driving distance for EV mode should be longer (say 25-30 miles). I understand what they did and why they did it (weight, space, costs); however, from a consumer point of view, I would like to get more bang out of the "hassle" for plugging it in... My hassle factor is also worth something and should have biased the answer to a larger Li+ battery.

I believe one opportunity for this is to delete the 12V battery and replace the occupied space with more Li+ battery cells - the functionality of the 12V Battery can certainly be taken over by the Li+ battery.

Another factor to consider is that the plug in is 275 lbs heavier than my '06 Prius. While this car feels more substantial (we think it drives better / quieter than the '06), it also means more energy consumption / worse acceleration than before. At a technical level, I would suggest the car go on a weight diet to bring that weight back down (e.g., lighter steel alloys).

A key reason for buying the new Plug-in is because of how reliable / trouble free the '06 Prius was for us. It gave us confidence that the product would blend in easily into our lifestyle (and not become a center of attention onto itself...)

Based on the little data we have so far: The car is a winner - I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone!

 

I agree with all three of these comments...

 

Peef has started a business that upgrades the Leaf power cord so that it works on either 120 or 220 volt outlets. I believe it will work for both the Leaf and the Volt. I wonder if he offers it (or will soon) for the PIP. It is only $238 + something extra for shipping and something more for the 220 volt pigtail, IIRC. (Forgot to add that you have to send in a Leaf power cord for upgrade, though.)

Here's a link: http://evseupgrade.com/

 

Wow, ok. FYI: I always ask the price for anythIng I buy, just common sense...

 

With a few $ in parts you can make a decent install for your EVSE which make plug in real easy, and still easy to take down. Takes me seconds to "plug in to charge", and only 30seconds to take my unit down when I need it to charge on the road. Takes a long time to recover the 1K for a 240v install. I'm waiting for EVSEs to drop in price (its about 40$ in raw materials but $250 in "off the shelf part", so I expect to see < $200 units in 2 years. I may just build my own using openEVSE guidelines). FYI The EVSEupgrade is 240 to UPGRADE a unit, > $950 to get a new one

Multiple mounting ideas in this thread over at gm-volt.com

L2 charger ceiling mount

 

You don't think it is worth comparing rental prices? I think that is what the question was about.....

 

it is a rental not a purchase

Are you buying one?
I am probably the original "cheepskate charlie" .
I was in the market for the PIP and I didn't like having to choose to put down a $500 deposit on a PIP sight unseen NO TEST drive and a lot of unknowns and wait 4 months but I did it.
If I could have gotten a PIP rental for a weekend , I would have paid dearly for the chance.
On pretty much anything else I am the ultimate bargain shopper.
And I did say no offense intended.
so again , no offense intended.