2017 Prius Prime First Drive: Best Prius Ever

The Soul EV's peak observed charging rate is 68-70 kW on an experimental "100 kW" CHAdeMO station -- as in the station supports a peak of 500V at 200A even though the Soul EV has a nominal 360V battery pack that will never charge at much above 400V and as it approaches that at a high state of charge it will be slowing the charge rate to avoid stressing the battery.

The normal CHAdeMO standard peaks at 500V at 125A although they recently announced a standards effort is nearing completion to support 500V at 350A (known oddly as "150 kW" CHAdeMO).

 

Interestingly, the Japanese Toyota site lists two charge times for AC charging, on this page: トヨタ 新型プリウスPHV | 先進装備 | 充電 | トヨタ自動車WEBサイト

200 V 16 A: 2 hours, 20 minutes (that'd be 3.2 kW)
100 V 6 A: 14 hours (that'd be 0.6 kW)

Not sure whether there's any intermediate charge levels, but running things through Google Translate, they talk about how the 100 V 6 A charge rate doesn't need special circuits to be added. So, in practice, that's their L1 - plug into a random outlet and it'll just work.

That's right, they get 600 watts off of L1 charging. No wonder they need the 180 W solar panel.

 

Their {Japan's} 200v is 3 phase - and I've hooked up USA 208V equipment to it ... and it does work.
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Looks like they also have split-phase like we do, for what it's worth. That's probably what's going to residential uses.

 

Interesting. I would like to see the same parked photos at night to see the lights.

 

If that includes freeway and typical freeway speeds, then no way you'll get 30's from of an EPA 22 batt. All city streets? Then maaaaybe.

 

if you drive like me. not in the winter though.

 

With ideal Temps and slower rush hour speeds, I could probably get close to high 20s EV miles (similar conditions, I average up to 57 mpg), with EV Auto, I'm hoping that'll easily reach into the 30s. Pulsing with the gas engine and then gliding with the larger battery would net some incredible MPGe, no doubt, especially with the more dedicated Hypermilers.

 

@Danny, Is anything known about the smaller MFD of the base Prime level? Is it different from the hybrid Prius 2016?

Jan

 

I noticed in the pictures that Toyota is now incorporating "vortex generators" on the rear tail lights as Lexus does now on many of its models. Supposed to improve gas mileage by 1-2 mpg.

That large screen looks like a direct copy from Tesla. Definitely like the design of the Prime better than Prius 4.

 

Can't wait to see Wayne Gerdes get his hands on one of those Primes. He managed to get 111 EV miles out of a Gen 2 Chevy Volt, which is EPA rated at 53 miles. I look forward to seeing how many EV miles he can get out of a Prius Prime.

 

After managing several gen II mid 70's/tankfulls - be assured - that's a slooow lonng, & time consuming drive.

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In your case I'd be using EV auto on the way to work, and then drain the EV on the way home.


Unsupervised!

 

I think the Prime is a great product.
But it's all a marketing challenge.

It seems when one looks at the Toyota marketing of the entire Gen 4 Prius, that Toyota is clearly advancing Performance, lack of what has been a perceived Hybrid Compromise.
So instead of this being the next Generation Plug In Prius, this is the Prius Prime. And once you call yourself "Prime" it becomes that much harder to live up to the name. People go to showrooms and dealerships and look at "Prime" and then notice you can't even fold up the center console in the back seat...and you might have the greatest Prius ever, but it's going to strike people as far less than Prime.

Plus what I argue Toyota is missing and has missed, is that while the competition in Tesla and Volt has raised the bar, for many Prius and Hybrid owners, the bemoaned performance gap has never really been an issue. I never bought my Prius with a desire to be able to burn rubber, escape from the police, or turn the heads of supermodels. Even though the last advantage is one I would consider paying extra.

My opinion is that the primordial soup that gave birth to the success of The Prius has never been a single celled creature that valued acceleration, 0-60 times, or even sports car looks. The evolution and success of Prius has always been about efficiency and technology.
In my opinion, in a NECESSARY step to evolve the Prius Toyota has forgotten too much of this truth. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with making The Prius absolutely better in terms of looks and driving performance, I have to think this whole generation of Prius would of been better accepted and heralded, if the evolution included more attention to efficiency gains, and some newer cutting edge technology.

In the simplest of terms, I think The Prius Prime is a great product.
I think the Gen 4 Prius is a very good evolution of Prius, and clearly steps forward.

But since the gains and improvements are mostly in areas I don't necessarily value 1st and foremost in Hybrid or Prius ownership? I can wait as far as actually owning one.
Had Gen 4, and Prius Primes, calling card been "Major Step Forward in Hybrid Fuel Efficiency and available Technology" I might be considering making a change ASAP. Since the calling card is..."Better Looking! And Drives like a Sports Car!"...I can wait.

Does this denote a mistake by Toyota?
Well they need to expand the desirability of Prius beyond people like me. I think this is a necessary attempt to do so, and probably just a level of evolution that was and IS needed. But I think for many of the long time fans of original Prius, it seems a diversion from the original priority path and genetic mission of what use to be what most of us embraced about owning a Prius.

 

The new Prius/Prime did make a step forward in efficiency, and I doubt they sacrificed it for performance. The loss of the fifth seat was supposedly because they wanted to keep weight down in order to keep efficiency up.

2016 model year MPG numbers aren't directly comparable to previous years because of the changes to the testing rules. Since many report getting better than EPA with the gen4, I'd say it is a safe bet that its numbers would have been higher if the car arrived in 2015.

On the other hand, the 10% efficiency improvements we've seen between the first through third generation simply can not be maintained forever while keeping the Prius a midsize hatchback with 2 rows of seats that is affordable. All the energy used to propel it comes from the gasoline burned in its ICE. 40% thermal efficiency is great even if it is just a peak value. To get better, you have to increase the cost by adding a turbo or super charger, or go diesel, and then it is only a few percentage points more. To see bigger gains in an ICE, you have to move up to the house sized engines in ships and power plants.

 

I'm hoping that the Prime will start introducing more people to plug-in vehicles. It's definitely a long term outlook, but the more plug-ins on the roads, the more demand there'll be for charging infrastructure in places like parking lots at shopping centers and apartment buildings. Not to mention more gradual demand for longer ranged EV's.

If the Volt had the Toyota nameplate on it instead of Chevy, I would've bought it in a heartbeat. Not that GM did a bad job at it. Just that they're facing a massive uphill reputation battle in a way that Toyota doesn't really have to due to the EV1 debacle (yes, some people are still holding a grudge against GM for this), the bankruptcy, and the stereotype of American cars being junk.

And that's in addition to their dealers not wanting to push plug-ins very much due to higher price, more education requirement for customers, and lower maintenance requirements compared to a gas car which means less money for their service department in the long run.

I suspect that unless they overprice the Prime, it'll be easier for Toyota dealerships to sell the Prime than Chevy dealerships trying to sell the Volt and Bolt (and hopefully they install charging stations at the dealerships like Nissan, BMW, and Chevy did).

If nothing else, they can just explain that "it's a Prius that you can plug in and use even less gas". Which should be a lot easier for customers to grasp since the Prius is pretty synonymous with hybrid cars and high mpg now. Coupled with Toyota's stellar reliability track record, most people buying a Prime will probably feel it's a good purchase, especially once they find out how inexpensive they are to run on electric compared to other non-plug-ins.

Hopefully in the long run that'll also teach them to research other plug-in vehicles and give those cars a test drive as well, and get over the fear that plug-ins, or at least plug-in hybrids, aren't death traps that will strand you in the middle of nowhere.

 

I wonder if there's any significant distortion looking back through the wavy rear glass.

 

With Toyotas quality control It'd easily be less than ½ of 1% - & if there were issues at all ... they'd remedy it.
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