2010 Toyota Prius PHV Prototype Full Test and Video

Easy.

Do you have another car? If no, don't buy the leaf.

Do you want to save as much money as possible? If yes, keep your current car.

Do you wish to raise awareness of EV's, reduce your petrol use further, and make 99% of the people on this forum jealous? Buy the PHEV!

 

I could use some clarification on the use of the larger "battery"
-- as I understand it there are actually three separate batteries
masquerading as one. If I understand it correctly, as the PHEV is
presented in the Edmunds piece, at the beginning of the day/drive it is
run in pure EV for ~14 miles until the PHEV portion of the battery bank
is effectively depleted and then run as a non-PHEV, regular Prius.

Is this the only way to operate the car?

At the beginning of the day, could you chose not to go into EV, and
then use the additional electrical power at your discretion for on-and-
off EV power through out the day/drive.

I'm thinking about long drives, maybe 100 miles or so, perhaps most
at highway speeds. I would expect that just how you would maximize
your FE/MPG would be highly dependent on terrain, weather, speed,
etc... the usual YMMV suspects.

 

I don't think the user gets to pick:

Quick Spin: 2010 Plug-in Prius -- Autoblog Green

Clearly no EV button present

 

That's correct. Having a button would actually disqualify it from certain certifications.

Think of the PHV as an Iconic Prius that's highly caffeinated.

Stealth is a whole lot faster and more powerful, but there is no option choose that mode. If you drive within the tolerances, it automatically engages. If you exceed those tolerances, you get to drive with an engine that's assisted by the motor much more than it normally would.

So, there's a boost to efficiency regardless of how & where you drive.
.

 

Ah, so in europe we'll probably get the button. nice. as mentioned there would be situations (such as a trip to then through a large city) when holding back the EV mode would be desirable.

 

No, quite the opposite.

To qualify as free or discounted rates in emission-reduction zones, you'd need to have a system that does it's best to make the feature automatic. In other words, no button... since it could act as an override.
.

 

I'm glad to see that people like John are 'getting it.' If the car is good for x EV miles in a certain driver's hands, it just does not matter if the car went x miles or 3x miles before the next charge. X miles of EV were driven. We used to call this 'blended' driving.