2012 Prius Plug-In Window Sticker

Bingo. Say the $4k tax credits gone in 3 years, then PiP is $6.5k more (Three is 26.5, PiP is 33, 51 years to make up on straight cost diff), big unkown in battery life, degradation on Li Ion, replace cost / availability, resale values after 8 years,

 

Hyundai just went from 10yr/100,000 mi battery guarantee to lifetime guarantee. That says a lot for their faith in their Li-ion batteries. So the PiP batteries may not be an issue. It's all about how you take care of them.

 

The main problem is it's made by Government Motors and I'll never buy a damn thing they manufacture.

 

We picked the same trim and color. Great minds, eh? But I chose to go with a non-perforated dark charcoal for the leather.

 

The numbers -

260g/mi Volt
230 g/mi Leaf
222 g/mi Prius natl avg. are from the drop down tailpipe + upstream GHG emissions.

 

Or it says something about Hyundai knowing the car will likely be sold long before its 10y old.. The warranty does NOT transfer. So in practice its actually shortening the expected battery warranty length.

 

Just figured out 0.2 gallons per 100 miles is the same as 500 mpg in blend mode (+ electricity, but I'm a Volt driver so never include that).

I'm still not sure on the relevance of off-board efficiency. I'm no engineer, but I thought efficiency was a measure of what you got out versus what you put in. The EPA figure seems to do a good job of addressing that balanced out on an energy equivalent basis.

If I get a quart of orange juice from 12 oranges and a quart of apple juice from 15 apples does that mean apples are less efficient than oranges?

If a quart of orange juice has 1000 calories and a quart of apple juice 1500 calories are apples more efficient?

[using apples and oranges for a reason here]

 

Yea, Prius PHV's numbers should be lower. According to eGRID 2010 report, the current grid CO2e emission is 590 gram/kWh.

Below is the graph giora did in a previous post. Set the X-axis at 590 and look at the Y-axis. If Prius PHV's 11 EV miles can cover 35% of all the miles, it's well-to-wheel emission would be around 200 g/mi.

That's why someone would get a plugin. A plugin that is well studied and designed after the SAE standard to measure the effectiveness of plugin hybrids.

 

For keeping the soldiers safe, I would argue that any car that gets 2x or more MPG than the average 22MPG reduces a person's gas usage such that the US could manufacture or purchase all of their oil needs from domestically or from stable, friendly countries without increasing gas prices. For example, I think importing oil from Canada has pretty much zero chance of putting soldiers in harms way of defending oil interest, so the purchase of either PHEV pretty much satisfies that criteria. I say pretty much, b/c pathologically, someone could buy a Volt, never charge it, and get less than 44MPG, but I'll assume people are generally more reasonable than that.

For supporting domestic products, I think with the government bailout, every taxpayer is now supporting GM. They should still make a vehicle that the market demands and the sales and profit of the vehicle are the measure of that success and GM has not met its forecast. For supporting domestic fuel, electricity is mostly domestic, though there are some oil burning plants which make the line a little fuzzier.

For owning a car that you want to drive, I hope there are more people who want the Volt so that GM is successful and the bailout is not a waste of taxpayer money. Unfortunately, neither I nor many others who have chosen the Prius Plug-in are one of them.

I think it's a little easy to say that you don't care about refueling speed, when you have a Volt that can be refueled with gas quickly. Perhaps you would actually go all EV, except there were no available choices at the time of your purchase?

I don't think you should get depressed about it. MPG makes it hard to see the actual gas savings.
Average car: 1/22 MPG = 0.045 G/mi
Fit: 1/30 MPG = 0.033 G/mi
Prius: 1/50 MPG = 0.020 G/mi

Which means a Fit saves 0.012 G/mi over the average car and the Prius only gets you another 0.013 G/mi, which means the Fit gets you about halfway between the average car and the Prius.

I suspect this is b/c of a US-centric view. Much like the Gen 2 was optimized for Japanese driving, I think this first (production) generation of Prius Plug-in is also optimized for Japanese driving. I think it covers domestic commutes just fine, but unfortunately we are not the domestic market for Toyota. I think the next generation of the Prius Plug-in will cover US drivers better, much like the Gen 3 did for the Prius Liftbacks.

For oil consumption, I think a wider perspective is useful. A $7,500 federal tax credit leverages $31,645 from a single person to get 35 miles of EV with a Volt. The same $7,500 federal tax credit leverages 3x $29,500 = $88,500 from 3 people to get 3x 11 miles = 33 miles of EV with 3 Prius Plug-ins. The latter case is easier to get less money per person from more people and generates more profit which allows more money to be spent on private R&D. While the latter has a lower range, 3 people are more likely to fully utilize 11 miles each, than one person is going to utilize 35 miles. If workplace recharging becomes commonplace, it becomes even more likely that 3x 22 EV = 66 miles are used vs 1x 70 EV miles. From this standpoint, the federal tax credit is likely to buy more EV miles nationally per dollar spent with a Prius Plug-in vs. a Volt.

It'll be even more interesting once the tax credit goes away. Anyhow my conclusion is that the Volt increases the EV miles for an individual driver. The number of EV miles nationally driven is what matters from foreign oil consumption perspective.

I would argue that PHEVs and EVs are actually more correctly priced since they minimize or eliminate gasoline usage and gasoline has significant externalities which are not priced in. With air pollution's negative effects on health and national security threatened by instability in Middle East oil producing countries, I think the gas costs are artificially lowered in favor of the ICE cars TCO.

 

I think sales will be similar because of the slightly lower cost, Prius reputation, slightly larger size and better fuel economy after electricity runs out.

Those old dirty power plants should be cleaned up regardless of whether or not we're plugging in.

Only for long trips.

You are cherry picking numbers and misrepresenting data. Look at the chart - only about 20% of people drive 11 miles or less a day. The 12.6 mi distance is be one way trip distance. If using commuting distance, 95% are less than 30 miles which means that Volt works for nearly everyone.

That would be nice, but having workplace charging is a rarity. If I could charge at work - the PiP would just about let me commute the entire distance in EV mode. But I don't, and I'm only aware of a few businesses that provide charging stations for their employees, and those that do only have a limited number of them. Certainly once charging stations are ubiquitous, smaller batteries have larger advantages.

Multiple charges per day only makes things better for larger capacity EVs as well. Using the daily driven distance distribution from the article you linked to above and assuming your typical commute with ~8 hours between arrival and departure which is long enough for at least 1 recharge, the PiP could go from 20% EV miles to 40% EV miles, the Volt could go from 60% EV miles to 85% EV miles and the LEAF could go from 85% EV miles to 95% EV miles.

It may. But that's the first time this entire thread you've almost admitted that another car besides the PiP may have an advantage over it.

 

Since when has the EPA testing ever been accurate? Since when has its testing procedures ever really equated to the real life usage? What is all the quibbling about over who has the best toy, Volt, PIP or what ever? Use the vehicles, enjoy them, drive safe, and use less gas. Forget the EPA numbers they never were accurate to start with, and the way they test they never will be. Let’s hear from the real world users first, before we start pulling the wings off the fly. Lets welcome the future.

 

I think for some the quibbling is part of the enjoyment. I like the bits of info I pick up from viewpoints other than my own.

 

I want to see running MPG averages for daily driving, CONS, .... if it's not over 50, what's the point?

 

Um, now. I'm averaging about 48.9 with mixed driving, BUT, lots of 3 mile trips. When mine is good and hot on the highway, CONS is 49, 50 which is about 48 actual and climbs to about 52 or so city. pretty gosh dern accurate IMO. yeah, short trips, cold weather drag it down, but PiP should be immune to short trip blues.

btw, on long trips, would think you need to compare Volts 40 MPG highway figure to whatever the PiP highway HV figure is.

 

I'd like to see the proof in the fuelly.com PiP stats in coming months. 2010/11 Prius are basically 48 MPGs on fuelly with hundreds of cars. Not counting the kWHrs, we'd save 1.3 gallons per 480 trip IF the PiP can show 55 MPG on fuelly. We'll see.

 

I find the EPA numbers for gasoline to be close but I can easily exceed the EV estimates by 20% on an annualized average in a mild climate like most of California where electric heating needs are lower.

 

You don't need to go through the EPA to know how it performs in the real world. You just need to drive it in the real world. In my real world driving, the Enginer kit got on average, over 90mpg. I drove 1271 miles on 11.36 gallons. http://priuschat.com/forums/attachm...-has-bigger-thank-than-you-think-zz1271-6.jpg Another member drove 1421 miles on 12.58 gallons. http://priuschat.com/forums/attachm...er-system-back-track-total-miles-tank-gas.jpg
I can't tell you the consumption break down but I can tell you that during that tank, I used about 190kw of electricity.
So what you're saying is that if a PHV has a weak electric motor, the ICE will kick on to assist the car on getting over the hill? If a PHEV has 30kw battery that can do 100 miles EV under normal driving, it's only going to rate at 6AER because the ICE kicks on the assist going over the second hill? That's a f'up testing method.
Unfortunately I could care less about emission. If converting a Prius results in worse pollution so be it. I just want to drive on electricity as much as I can. 6AER just won't cut it.
Aftermarket kits don't have mileage limit on warranties,only length of time. Average warranty on conversion kits are 2 or 3 years.

 

Major league issue ... Toyota wouldn't stand a hint of a chance selling Plug-in Prius with 3 year warranty on traction battery.

What was parts / labor on the Enginer kit?

People are free to buy an aftermarket 5 to 10K add on battery with 3 year warranty and sing the praises of 100 MPG ... until the battery poops out in x years.

 

I want a PiP too but the EV range is discouraging me from spending almost $20K to trade in my 2010 for the advance PiP. There's no doubt that the Plugin Prius is far superior than any aftermarket converted Prius. I've tinkered with the Enginer kit for the past year so I know how valuable a trouble free plugin hybrid is. Conversion kit's warranty is so short because it rely on the battery's manufacturer's warranty. Most Conversion kit manufacturers are own by 1or 2 people so there's no way they can offer CARB warranty. Toyota on the other hand is a multi billion dollar corporation. They can afford to offer 10yr/150K warranty on the hybrid system.
Does Toyota warrant battery capacity? I know Nissan doesn't. What if 8 years down the road the PiP ony gets 8 miles to the charge and Toyota won't replace the plugin battery because it's not battery failure but a normal loss of capacity of li-ion due to age?