Poor Experiences with the Dr. Prius Lithium Battery in Cold Climates

the Prius App is not really a good predictor of battery life, it's like "Nostradamus".. it can be interpreted in different ways and you could always twist the results. I will only use the Prius App for checking before and after reconditioning results (just to verify how much improvement or for comparison) Who knows that 50% life you see on the original battery is 10years of use (or weeks or months...)

 

I generally run the original Toyota battery into the ground The bus bars are green nuts frosted . Build up in abundance etc. I know that all the Eev makers are having trouble in cold climates with batteries batteries generally have trouble in cold climates are they always have even lead acid. So when I heard that they were making a lithium battery for the Prius I thought to myself well yeah cool but with all the problems that other people with electric cars and semi-electric cars are having in the cold with batteries maybe not a good idea to spend $600 more dollars for that type of technology from my Prius even though I'm not in cold climates per se so I'll just keep my $600 and buy the Panasonic Toyota pack in Central North Carolina so I don't have a lot of hills and any other obstacles per se. So I'm kind of glad I kept my 600 or so bucks and just went with the original Panasonic Toyota battery business seems in my situation this will be okay like I say all of you other folks are getting 50 and 60 mi to the gallon in a generation too I commend you and good on you I have never seen 60 miles a gallon displayed on my MFD in the miles per gallon consumption meter area of the display I saw 50.1 a few times but at the end of the tank when I do the math I'm always around 47.1 which is what the car is rated for from the factory so I don't believe changing my battery is going to magically push me into the 50 mi per gallon club for any length of time or to make any huge differences in my actual miles per gallon traveled.

 

Could be one reason why Toyota continues to use NiMH in colder climates. I guess they probably spend a lot on R&D........

 

This falls into the

if your gonna offer something that can’t really get cold…

my view is that a lithium pack should be handled like the linsite where you have a 12v starter backup and lock out the battery or you have some method of warming the pack and plug into a wall in cold weather.

AC current applied directly to frozen lithium has been found to be more affective at warming the batteries than an external heater but it’s still a prototype on a couple diy guys conversions.


Seems like I and a couple others mentioned cold climate as being a big problem.

 

Well, I put a Project Lithium protoype pack in my 2007 for cold weather testing 3 years ago and haven't had any of these problems. But it's always great when you get oustanding customer service.

I was just talking to Jack and mentioned this post and I'm super impressed that he straight up shipped you a brand new pack to swap out your old pack with even before identifying the problem.

Suspect this going above and beyond what's provided in the warranty is possible because the amount of packs needing that warranty coverage is small enough to allow for being generous and giving the customers a better experience than most because things are goign well with the pack design. Even better, he's always looking to improve and some of the new design ideas he's testing are amazing!

That's quite a contrast to my recent Mini-PC purchase from Geekom where without any notification in the specs, they sold me a computer with a locked bios that prevents me from installing another other operating systems beyond Windows 11 . Today is day 45 since I made that purchase and not only did I return the old computer close to 2 weeks ago... Not only did they charge me an extra $100 for different computer that doesn't lock you into one OS, but they still haven't shipped me anything. So infuriating.

 

i'd say toyota was (is?) using nimh in awd to use up their paid for nimh supplies. more and more lithium is being used in toyota hybrids, and they can't determine where the lithium batteries are being used.

it sounds like the op shouldn't have upgraded to v2, i couldn't find in his post what was wrong with v1.

 

From the OP: Unfortunately after placing it I learned that they were having issues in cold climates with failing prematurely (within the really narrow 2 year warranty...), and I moved to Utah for work which not only has cold climates but also high elevation with lots of hills/mountains. Because of this, I upgraded to the V2 a couple weeks ago. Since then, the V2 packs have discontinued due to poor performance.

Any comments on this from our local lithium battery experts? First I've heard of this.

 

I suppose if jack is sending a new battery, he doesn’t feel it is the cold, but a defect

o/p, what is the average temperature?
Are you parking the car outside, in a cold separate garage, in an attached unheated garage, or heated garage?

Since the mpg’s didn’t drop until it was upgraded to v2, perhaps a problem with the upgrade, or at 335,000 miles, a coincidence?

 

Priuschat is not a good place for product recommendations because too many scams and influenced “demo” installations occur. One thing for sure, this product has low transparency on how they emulate NiMH and now why versions continue to pop up.