Any mods for charging a plug-in battery once the main hybrid battery is fully charged.

Hi everyone, I've been a way for a while... Wow! This is the most confusing thread I've read in years. Seems like OP needs someone to privately have a conversation with so they can understand the basic terminology so their misuse of terms doesn't cause further confusion/chaos with people responding. Hopefully someone in this thread is willing to help OP out in that way?

 

It will burn gas as efficiently as the cordless hybrid.

The difference is that you will lose all the bonus efficiency that a plug-in normally gives you on top of what you get from a hybrid.

Generally, the point of a plug in is to buy some of your energy from the plug, and some of it from a gas pump. In many places of the world, the energy is cheaper from the plug, so you get a bonus.

The downside is that the car costs more and you're lugging around a bigger and more expensive battery.

If you can't plug it in, you might as well buy a cheaper car with less technology and pocket the savings directly. That way you'll be ready to upgrade that much faster once you are in a situation where you can plug in.

 

Yes, the Prime gets better mileage in hybrid mode than the regular Gen 4 Prius. But not enough to make that the primary factor in the choice. It's like 2 mpg or so difference. People see more impact from buying new tires.

Electricity where I live is pretty reasonable. It comes to around two cents per mile in electric mode. Hybrid mode is about five cents a mile. I imagine that you are on Duke energy like we are, so costs are probably similar in your area.

If I could not charge at home, I would get which ever model had the most desirable features at the best price and ignore whether or not it's a Prime.

To reinforce what's already been stated, those are three different terms for the only battery that's used for propulsion. It's also sometimes called the HV battery or the high voltage battery. My manual refers to it this way:

 

That's technically possible, but I think you'll find that the rate of savings is quite slow compared to the rate of expenditure in EV mode.

 

as long as you don't mind not having a spare, or the under hatch floor storage, plug in is the way to go.

if you need space, get the regular hybrid.

if you're looking at gen 3, educate yourself on the egr circuit/blown headgasket/brakeactuator problems

 

you were fortunate, but we only see the problems here for the most part. no one signs up for priuschat to tell how many trouble free miles their gen 3 has gone.
it's not all bad, but there are a lot of bad ones. toyota had to change the pistons and rings in the 2015.

some gen 4's have spare, some don't. and the ones that don't have styrofoam that can be removed and a spare added.