Gen 3 owner looking at Prius prime

1) yes
2) Normal driving, no. Going down mountains in EV mode, yes.
3) It could be time to get a Prime now while you can get something for your 2011. I would recommend the Advanced trim if your budget allows.

#1 in Easley,SC

 

This is my first Prius but I would say yes for the following reasons:

The 2017 Prime is a big improvement over previous generations in many ways.

You can drive 25 miles or more in EV mode per charge.

You can get a $1,500 rebate from CA and $4,500 tax credit.

You can still get some money for your 2011 and avoid paying for repairs as it gets older.

I came from a 2002 Camry XLE with 225,000 miles. I looked at Prius before but it wasn't good enough to buy one until now.
I have had it only 5 days and absolutely love it. The ride is not as supple as the Camry but good enough.

 

@Jnbrown, congrats !!! Welcome to the Prius family. Prime On !!!

 

Do we have a new catch phrase? "Prime On"

 

for me the switch from Gen3 was absolutely worth it, I have a 100 mile roundtrip commute too. I'm in SoCal and going up to Monterey at least every couple of months, haven't done it yet in the Prime though but in the Gen3 going down the Grapevine, about half way through the battery was full and thus brakes were needed, i expect that in the Prime it can stay in EV and will just charge the battery without having to use the brakes, I would expect similar behavior for your example, I would maybe start with a mostly depleted battery though.
Re your Gen3, i guess that depends if you feel that you got your money, I loved my Gen3 but don't miss it ...

 

Thanks and this is a great place to learn about about Prime

 

Hi Josh. Sparks, NV resident here.

 

Josh - I actually recently purchased, in early March, a 2010 Prius III w/solar package off a gentleman from Craigslist from North Reno. He was the second owner from Dolan Toyota. He had 55k miles on it. It's my first Prius. My wife and I are pleasantly surprised. I tend to by used cars so I'm not ready for a Prime yet.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I want to know if the engine charges the 8.8kWh battery when its discharged. I would hope so, since the engine is running anyway, would make sense if it did. Then once fully charged, you could drive another 25 miles on electric only. Does it do this? or is there a second battery (1kWh) which it uses like the normal Prius?

 

This may be useful in certain special cases. But in normal conditions, why would you want to do this? It won't save gas, charging the battery is not free, but will burn nearly a half gallon of extra fuel compared to driving without recharging.

 

I'm a little confused by this:

So I'm wondering if your "5.1-5.4 kWh" is the net charge?

If so, I've had two, instrumented 0% to 100% charge sessions and they were in the range of 6.2-6.4 kWh into the car. Then a reasonable estimate for charge efficiency might be ~5.4/6.4 = 84%. An obscure area, charge efficiency is seldom measured unless one has instrumentation in the car:

• charge kWh - input
• motive kWh - output
• round-trip efficiency = motive_kWh / charge_kWh

Thanks,
Bob Wilson