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Some insider notes on the 2017 Prius Prime

Discussion in 'Prime Main Forum (2017-2022)' started by Danny, Mar 23, 2016.

  1. RRxing

    RRxing Senior Member

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    Disclaimer - I am not familiar with the Gen I PIP arrangement, so bear with me...

    I noticed on the Prime that there are two battery vents - each one outboard of the rear seat backs. I understand the need for additional cooling air flow for the higher capacity battery, but, do the two ducts converge into one blower or are there two separate ducts, each with its own blower? Just curious...
     
  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i don't know about prime, but gen 1 has 2 ducts and 2 cooling fans. there are pics here somewhere.
     
  3. KrPtNk

    KrPtNk Active Member

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    I don't recall where I read it, but I think that the prime doesn't have a forced air cooling system for the batteries. It doesn't make sense, but I remember seeing it.
     
  4. Vike

    Vike Active Member

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    I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that, like the Li-ion battery needed to make a three-row Prius v for JDM, it just pushed the price past what Toytoa thought the U.S. market would bear. An option isn't worth offering if it sells in too low a volume.
     
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  5. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    It's not. It just takes up more space than under the cargo floor of the Prius.
    It ain't small. It is over a third of the size of the base pack in the Leaf. A car that doesn't have to also package an engine, with attending fuel, exhaust, and emission systems, nor leave enough buffer in the pack to ensure a long enough life to cover the attending federal and CARB warranties for said emission systems.

    The Powerwall is a box that holds batteries. In a car, the batteries have to be placed around exhaust, structural, safety, and suspension systems while also having space for any battery cooling systems that have to contend with the exhaust system and the car sitting under a hot sun instead of inside a building.

    It was a silly complaint. At the low range, ICE cars have around 400 miles, enough to cover a week of longer commutes, and on long trips, most don't, or can't, go farther than that before stopping anyway. The Prii are over 500 miles range, not counting daily charging. That's just icing for the large majority of drivers. In PHEV, more gas in the tank, isn't protection against it going stale anyway.

    Aside: if stopping at a station to fuel up is so much preferable to daily plugging in, why do people want to minimize the number of times they have to do so?

    The difference between the gen1 PHEV and gen3 Prius fuel tank was only about a gallon. Even with the smaller tank, most PHEV owners would go less often to the gas station than the Prius owner because of the grid powered miles.

    I don't think anyone can truthfully answer that until they take it apart or get the service manuals. The pack under the seat could be separated from the one in the cargo area for all we know.
     
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  6. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    there's a nice video here showing mechanical graphic drawing. it shows the pack as one big rectangle. can we trust it?
    MERGED
    this would be hard to believe. no cooling fans?
     
    #66 bisco, Mar 25, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 26, 2016
  7. Jeff N

    Jeff N The answer is 0042

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    It's been done before... by Nissan with the LEAF.

    I would be surprised if Toyota didn't have actively controlled forced air cooling.
     
  8. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    just read a post from paradox, chief engineer said pretty much the same as pip 1.
     
  9. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    It's not official (as in I didn't specifically ask them) but from discussions before (1-2 years ago), it's a weight issue. They wanted to ensure they hit the target that you guys wanted.

    It's not. It just intrudes into it. You guys wanted 22 miles, right?

    A battery in a garage has different specifications to meet than one sitting in a car.

    Me too. They do focus groups with the public so we don't know what they said. Once in a while, Toyota will tell us "oh, our focus groups said they really liked this aspect but weren't keen on this aspect". It's interesting to see how the public sees it because as enthusiasts, sometimes we can lose track of what a non-car person or a non-hybrid person will perceive something.

    It's one big rectangle.
     
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  10. KrPtNk

    KrPtNk Active Member

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    I was confused by the term "active cooling". I thought that a fan forced air flow would meet the definition of "active". Oops!
     
  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    agreed. did someone say it was inactive? pip 1 has two active fans.
    MERGED
    how can they possibly trust 'focus groups'? how do they represent a cross section of the driving public?
    when something doesn't sell well, (insert venza here) do they blame the focus groups?
     
    #71 bisco, Mar 25, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 26, 2016
  12. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Focus groups aren't necessarily the reason for the failure of a product. It could range from the actual vehicle itself that's crap, the marketing of the vehicle (ppl found it confusing or did not like the way it's packaged or didn't know what the vehicle was supposed to do or fit into their lifestyle), it could be the design, it could be the price, it could be the features/options (or lack thereof) or it could be the marketplace (right vehicle, wrong time)
     
  13. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    and a success may have nothing to do with the focus groups. so what have we learned?
     
  14. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Just let them have their focus groups :p
     
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  15. inferno

    inferno Senior Member

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    Was this vehicle made the "fans"? Which one of you said a 4 seater in a midsized vehicle was a good idea.

    Prius 3rd Gen couldve probably been 60mpg without the that middle seat. They wanted an efficient vehicle right? The login... I'm more bitter because that was absolutely a deal breaker.

    Not the fact it could've been 15 miles ev, or 20 or that it looked different from the gen 4 or is called prime.... Going backwards in seating.. For a prius.

    I know so many families that packed their cars for family trips. Now you can unpack your car and put happy meal toys in the center. Like one of those consoles in nice couches.. Ugh
     
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  16. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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  17. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    not me.:pMerged
    no prob, just include me sometime, because i know exactly what they need.:cool:
     
    #77 bisco, Mar 26, 2016
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 26, 2016
  18. jdenenberg

    jdenenberg EE Professor

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    From Autoblog:
    Told by Toyota's Nathan Kokes,
    "Back to the Prime, which is only a four-seat car. Making the Prime seat only four helps with the overall efficiency, Kokes said. Sure, there's a 3.3-kW charger taking up some space under the rear seat, but that could be moved if necessary. But, by eliminating the possibility of someone sitting in the middle back seat, the engineers could take out some structural weight. "They'd have to add more reinforcement just based upon how the tolerance is of passengers," Kokes said. "You've got to add another 250 pounds right there for that passenger because of us big Americans. This design, it was better to have four seats. In the future, there might be some changes, but for right now [this is it]."

    My wife says "No fifth seat; No Prime" and I say, "No eAWD and my 2004 Prius has to last another year."

    JeffD
     
  19. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Disappointing.
    The original Insight was the hybrid that focused on maximizing efficiency. The XL1 took this to a farther extreme with a PHEV.
    From the beginning, the Prius was about high efficiency and low emissions while still being a functional family car.

    When we finally see the actual cargo space numbers, I don't think people will be as disappointed in the Prime's cargo floor as they are now. The lack of the fifth seat is a deal breaker for many families. Toyota would have known this if they had paid any attention to the five years of comments about the gen1 Volt.
     
  20. inferno

    inferno Senior Member

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    Another thing about weight constraints is with our pip - we abuse it and love it. We used all 5 seats and towed a floating thule box with a spare on a 700 mile round-trip camping trip. Charged once but of course looking for chargers on the way but found none.

    Anyway. We had probably a 150 lb kid in one seat, a 75 in another and car seat with a toddler in the middle. Tents and blankets, bags out back with the spare and other camping gear in the thule

    Got 46 mpg without trying. We had a hitch installed and we utilize it. Others have racks on their roofs on pips. The point is, if there already is a weight limit there's less utility to do all these things.

    The "new possible" becomes the new "impossible" but with longer ev range..
     
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