Red bullet VVTI seloniod

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone is doing well and pulling out of the COVID-19 shadow. Unfortunate Taiwan is still on mask mandates and have 14 days of quarantine after arrival, I got myself a lot of Chupa Chups so I can be mask less outdoors, they allow going to the gym(indoors), karaoke(indoors), eating and doing sports without mask, thus why the outdoor masking is mandatory is pure nonsense to me, and till this day the CDC(center of dumb crazy ) is still trying to count positive cases on a daily basis for Omicron which is less lethal than a common cold. Fuel prices have rocketed, it cost $20 more to gas up vs my previous gas up of 39-40L not more than a month ago.
As many of you know I have traded in my awesome fuel economy Prius C (27km+/L)to a Prius Alpha(USA Prius V or Prius Plus in Europe) which is a 5 + 2 seater here in Asia.
It has the same engine as Prius Gen 3, 4, prime and V. The only difference is my trunk can be transformed into two seats when needed and the hybrid battery is a lithium Ion underneath the armrest with a higher delta SOC tolerance than the NiMh version.


After I drove the Prius V for the 1st week I immediately noticed how little the engine is charging the battery while running static or driving with ICE. The PC was doing 30+ amps during most ICE running periods while the PV is doing single digits to 12 amps when ICE is running static charge or moving the vehicle. Regen charge is mostly the same pushing past 70A on heavy load.
The Prius V really takes a lot of getting use to, the car is heavy, the pickup is like pushing a cow and the turn radius is not practical in Taiwan. With the PC I never have to maneuver 3 point turns but with the PV I sometimes find myself 2ft short of a u-turn and 3 point turns is mandatory.
We did not install a Red Bullet right away because I wanted a solid baseline of 1 oil change interval. We averaged just under 18km/l on our trip B log which gets a reset after every oil change or zeros out after 10,000km. The original solenoid was replaced after the second oild change and it was night and day experience again for me. As soon as I installed the upgrade and felt the difference pulling out of B7, I had so much regret that I did not do it sooner to reduce the sufferings coming from PC to a PV adaptation using the OEM. The Prius V/Alpha/Plus is as they say heavy and moves like a cow, but after the upgrade I can feel the engine rev lower for pickup and also fuel economy is up. When I need the power for going up hill or to catch up with traffic the engine rages like a mad dog, louder and louder as the speed picks up but not going anywhere fast with the OEM solenoid. With the upgrade I find myself having to back-off the throttle to not over speed and the engine rev is a lot lower to sustain acceleration.
I may be spoiled by the PC having the Red Bullet during most of my ownership but already we are seeing 2km/l improvement by comparing the fuel economy previous to my oil change running OEM and currently running the Red Bullet. We will need to see how much better at the next oil change but so far we have a very healthy lead over the OEM and the power delivery is just what this Prius Cow needed.

 

For anyone who ever owned a PC or a Gen 3, 4 or prime... no matter what you do, the PV/plus/Alpha cow is still a cow. There is nothing that can replace that 27+km/l on the PC and if you thought the EV mode on your PC, Gen 3, 4 is short or shallow... do smile and rejoice as the Prius alpha has no EV mode to speak of, i mean the button is there, but might as well remove it and save some space for something else. Unless i am topped up to the absolute max and then even some more on the battery... the EV mode will disengage as soon as any slight increase of throttle is applied past ECO. I will most probably never see any fuel consumption number higher than 22km/l on a fair stretch of road.
On that note... Today we did see 28km/l on the odometer fuel consumption meter, we were going downwind and downhill for the most of 68km road trip from window on china to Xizhi district in north Taiwan. If anyone has access to geographic elevations... the trip felt like it had at least 150 m to 200m drop along the way.

I am really sorry I did not post anything recently. I do like the idea of the 5+2 configuration on the Prius alpha, but I do not think it is really usable on a daily basis. I have the car for nearly 1 year... we have yet to use those seats under the trunk. My daughter did pull one out to try on a short trip, but other than that those two seats are folded flat for the better part of 2021.

 

Greetings everyone! I have just attended the annual automotive parts exhibition here in Taiwan by invitation of the solenoid manufacture and from what I can tell, 60% or more of the floor space was to do with EV directly or indirectly as supporting hardware. Another item which caught my eye was robotic arm operated 3D scanning. Without the need of a blue print, the 3D scanning can automatically generate CNC data for direct manufacturing of scanned parts on the platform ranging from a bolt or a member to a full crank case. One other main focus was autopilot and collision avoidance in which we may benefit greatly!
A lot of integrated technology coming soon I guess.
A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to the thread.
I know many of you have asked me for an OCC for a long time. Unfortunate there was not many CNC vendors this year for me to even see one.