Found a "Electric Supercharger"

No, it will not help. Installing this thing will cost you money and will make gas mileage worse.
1) you will use electricity (12v) to spin the little turbine = energy use
2) more air (IF this thing will be able to provide it) will automatically result in more gasoline injected to keep proper fuel mixture ratio = more gas consumption
3) when not turned on this thing will create a flow restriction = losses
4) turbine blade will fall off the shaft and damage the AFM sensor and throttle plate or more = big mess

Just waste of money, IMO.

- Alex

 

Understand Why Electric Superchargers Are Scams

 

Do you need all your rear view mirrors? (In my case, the answer is yes)
Can you do grill blocking some part of the year? (very rarely in Mississippi, more of the year, if you live in the north)
Michelin Energy Saver A/S tires are among the most fuel efficient.
Doing all the routine maintenance Toyota calls for using Toyota parts will save gas.
Wheel alignment and balancing.
Ruling out changes in the driver really limits your choices.

 

Buy a set of good LRR tires. That could boost mpg by 2-3 or even more if you have non-LRR tires on there currently.

 

increase tire pressure to max sidewall.

 

You could do this:

 

First of all, what kind of mpg are you getting now?
The 'fix' to get from 35 to 50 is different than what you would have to do to get from 65 to 67.

 

I checked the outfit out with the BBB. They have THREE DIFFERENT SCAMS listed under the phone number listed on the website. All are listed F!!

 

No doubt that there are lots of scams around.

However, to state that all electric superchargers are scams seems disingenuous.
Here is why. Lots of cars have been made with belt driven superchargers for decades. These take power from the engine, but the engine ends up producing more additional power then they take out. We can take it for granted that supercharges work. If the ICE can provide enough power to compress the air enough to get more out of the ICE then the naturally aspirated engine, then there is no reason why a properly designed electric motor cannot do the same. Now, why you would want to use an electric motor to do this is not clear to me.
And I agree, putting a supercharger (or turbocharger) of any type on a Prius is not the way to go.

 

Sorry I was not able to answer for a while, and knowledgeable people of PriusChat took the opportunity and suggested a lot of tricks. Make sure to go over old posts - lots of info here!

- Alex

 

The longer form of that sentence would be "Understand Why 12 volt Electric Superchargers Are Scams" there are 60 volt systems that run out of battery just AFTER the 1/4 mile, for drag racers. An Electric Super charger than ran off your HV Battery might last 30 seconds before the battery was 'empty'.


Thomas Knight Turbo Electric Supercharger - Tech Review - Turbo Magazine

 

Its possible for a electric supercharger to flow enough pressurized air to make a difference. It takes a little of 1 HP per psi for a small displacement engine. Of course I am talking about a electric supercharger that uses a real compressor and not the ebay sheet metal fan or marine bilge blower scam.

Home - B2BElectricSupercharger.com

 

However, a simple power calculation should reveal that an ordinary automobile's 12V system will be unable to operate such a properly designed electric supercharger motor.

 

The OP's referenced unit is a 1 HP blower, but it is only rated for short-term burst use. Our Prii can continuously supply up to 100 amps (1.2 kilo-watts) via the inverter (not the little 12v battery which would be drained quickly) so an electric blower would be feasible if you could make it fit.

In the early days of the Prius (Gen1) an experiment was done adding a turbocharger to a Prius. It maintained the same MPG and slightly improved acceleration. He limited the boost to about 5 psi to avoid complaints from the ECU.

AutoSpeed - The Story of Turbo'ing a Hybrid Prius, Part 5

JeffD

 

The OP's blower claims to draw 900+ watts. That leaves less than 300 watts for everything else the 12V system must operate.

But how much mechanical power is needed to provide the claimed 5 psi boost to a Prius at WOT? Assuming an intake displacement of 1.3 liters (the nominal 1.8 liters is only for the exhaust) at 5200 rpm, the engine is consuming 56 liters of air per second. The 5 psi boost is 34 kpa. The net mechanical power required for this compression is 1940 watts, or 2.6 HP, at perfect efficiency. But accounting for typical electrical resistance, conversion, mechanical friction and turbulence losses, it seems that the gross electrical demand will be closer to the 5 HP (~4000 watts) suggested by b2becharger in post #16.

So I'm still labeling this as a scam.

 

How about if we just say that all aftermarket electric superchargers are scams.