Uk Prius Phev Cost Released (It Aint Cheap!)

[Grumpy Cabbie]

Mr Flan, you know my views on that but a 14 mile range for £31k when you can have 45 miles with the Volt/Ampera at £33k? A 14 mile EV range at £26k - £5k = £21k would be just about viable. I would also be gutted if the EV 'dream' backfired because of this profiteering.

[timberwolf]

Some people do get the Prius for reduced emissions more than anything else, and a PHEV system charged from renewables certainly supports that. Or, maybe people just want to use less oil/petroleum products, it supports that too. there's more motivation reasons than just saving money.

Yes, point accept.

I still think it is very poor value, 10K is half the value of the car over again. Toyota managed to make a whole car comprising thousands of parts for 21K but to add another Battery and a 13 Amp plug :) costs another 10K!

[Ancient Nerd]

Some people do get the Prius for reduced emissions more than anything else, and a PHEV system charged from renewables certainly supports that. Or, maybe people just want to use less oil/petroleum products, it supports that too. there's more motivation reasons than just saving money.

Yes, point accept.

I still think it is very poor value, 10K is half the value of the car over again. Toyota managed to make a whole car comprising thousands of parts for 21K but to add another Battery and a 13 Amp plug :) costs another 10K!

Don't forget these are Li-on batteries, rather than the Ni-mh of the current Prius. These have higer capacity, but need more electronics within the Battery, cost more, don't last as long, and have a tendency to spontaneous combustion.

Firework displays don't come cheap.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

The sums just don't add up for the Prius PHEV. Someone prove to me it isn't profiteering!

Leaf = £10k car plus £21k batteries (100 mile range)

Ampera = £15k astra plus £18k batteries (50 mile range)

Prius = £15k car plus £5k hybrid system & batteries (1 mile range)

Prius PHEV = £21k standard Prius plus £10k batteries (14 mile range)

General figures largely made up but they give an idea of how significantly more the PHEV is compared to the competition.

The pricing was made up by somebody in UK marketing who doesn't understand the market. I guess they tried to pip the price below the Ampera without realising that it goes at least twice as far on EV as the PHEV.

And Mr Flan has a £3k EV kit that allows increased EV to the standard Prius. This is an aftermarket kit including import duties and shipping. So how come a backstreet company can ship this to the UK for £3k but Toyota want an additional £10k with their buying power?

[Flaninacupboard]

I think it's extreme hesitancy with a new technology. Slapping a 100,000 mile gurantee on lithium is kind of gutsy. in the Leaf you can draw up to 90kw from 24kwh of Battery (3.75C) and you can do that once a day, or maybe a few times a day if fast charging. Average load (say doing 60mph) is ~15kw, 0.63C. The PHV draws maybe 35kw (haven't seen the final spec) from a 4kwh pack, that is 8.75C, and you want to do that twice a day, or more. Travelling at 60mph, 15kw, that is 3.75C.

Charging is tough on it too. the Leaf on 16A is charging at about 0.15C, the PHV on 16A is about 0.8C.

My add on kit discharges at 1C, and charges at 0.2C. It has a 2 year warranty. This is the equivalent to a Leaf on a 5 hour charge, and maximum power output of 24kw (35hp or so), or a PHV with a 5 hour charge, and power output of only 4kw.

They also know they have limited production, and will sell every single one they make, so some hesitancy over the technology can be offset by a higher upfront cost (the price increase can probably cover two sets of cells).

[cbcdesign]

I think it's extreme hesitancy with a new technology. Slapping a 100,000 mile gurantee on lithium is kind of gutsy. in the Leaf you can draw up to 90kw from 24kwh of battery (3.75C) and you can do that once a day, or maybe a few times a day if fast charging. Average load (say doing 60mph) is ~15kw, 0.63C. The PHV draws maybe 35kw (haven't seen the final spec) from a 4kwh pack, that is 8.75C, and you want to do that twice a day, or more. Travelling at 60mph, 15kw, that is 3.75C.

Charging is tough on it too. the Leaf on 16A is charging at about 0.15C, the PHV on 16A is about 0.8C.

My add on kit discharges at 1C, and charges at 0.2C. It has a 2 year warranty. This is the equivalent to a Leaf on a 5 hour charge, and maximum power output of 24kw (35hp or so), or a PHV with a 5 hour charge, and power output of only 4kw.

They also know they have limited production, and will sell every single one they make, so some hesitancy over the technology can be offset by a higher upfront cost (the price increase can probably cover two sets of cells).

A very well thought out post if I may say so!

[Opifex]

I think it's extreme hesitancy with a new technology. Slapping a 100,000 mile gurantee on lithium is kind of gutsy. in the Leaf you can draw up to 90kw from 24kwh of battery (3.75C) and you can do that once a day, or maybe a few times a day if fast charging. Average load (say doing 60mph) is ~15kw, 0.63C. The PHV draws maybe 35kw (haven't seen the final spec) from a 4kwh pack, that is 8.75C, and you want to do that twice a day, or more. Travelling at 60mph, 15kw, that is 3.75C.

Charging is tough on it too. the Leaf on 16A is charging at about 0.15C, the PHV on 16A is about 0.8C.

My add on kit discharges at 1C, and charges at 0.2C. It has a 2 year warranty. This is the equivalent to a Leaf on a 5 hour charge, and maximum power output of 24kw (35hp or so), or a PHV with a 5 hour charge, and power output of only 4kw.

They also know they have limited production, and will sell every single one they make, so some hesitancy over the technology can be offset by a higher upfront cost (the price increase can probably cover two sets of cells).

Oh dear, I'm a bit confused by your numbers. IIRC the symbol C is the ISO symbol for a coulomb (a current of 1A flowing for 1 second), but I can't see how the figures work out if that is what it means here. Can you explain a bit more please.

[cbcdesign]

I think it's extreme hesitancy with a new technology. Slapping a 100,000 mile gurantee on lithium is kind of gutsy. in the Leaf you can draw up to 90kw from 24kwh of battery (3.75C) and you can do that once a day, or maybe a few times a day if fast charging. Average load (say doing 60mph) is ~15kw, 0.63C. The PHV draws maybe 35kw (haven't seen the final spec) from a 4kwh pack, that is 8.75C, and you want to do that twice a day, or more. Travelling at 60mph, 15kw, that is 3.75C.

Charging is tough on it too. the Leaf on 16A is charging at about 0.15C, the PHV on 16A is about 0.8C.

My add on kit discharges at 1C, and charges at 0.2C. It has a 2 year warranty. This is the equivalent to a Leaf on a 5 hour charge, and maximum power output of 24kw (35hp or so), or a PHV with a 5 hour charge, and power output of only 4kw.

They also know they have limited production, and will sell every single one they make, so some hesitancy over the technology can be offset by a higher upfront cost (the price increase can probably cover two sets of cells).

Oh dear, I'm a bit confused by your numbers. IIRC the symbol C is the ISO symbol for a coulomb (a current of 1A flowing for 1 second), but I can't see how the figures work out if that is what it means here. Can you explain a bit more please.

C represents Battery capacity normally expressed in Amp hours or AH for short.

[Flaninacupboard]

In a simple manner, imagine a 4 kilowatthour Battery. it can provide 4 kilowatts for one hour, or one kilowatt for four hours, or many other combinations.

A 4kwh Battery discharged at 4kw, is being discharged at 1C.

A 4kwh Battery discharged at 8kw, is being discharged at 2C.

The higher the C rating, the more power per unit of energy the battery is able to deliver. With chemistries having low C ratings (my LiFePo4 cells can only be discahrged at 1C) you need a lot of capacity if you want a lot of power. if i wanted 21kw of power, i'd need 21kwh of cells. the prius nimh battery is able to provide 21kw of power from 1.4kwh of cells! That is 15C! That is why toyota haven't switched from nimh to lithium, getting 15C ratings from lithium packs is hard and expensive. if you go the "whole hog" with a Leaf you can have a very large capacity pack so your C rating remains relatively low (3.75C) but something like the Volt is tough (110kw from a 16kwh pack, 6.9C), the prius PHV is even harder (8.8C). If they wanted to provde maximum MG2 power (60kw) from the plugin pack they would need 15C. You can do that with nimh easily but lithium is a real struggle. A hybrid battery pack (part lithium, part nimh) would be good from a power/energy balance point of view, but two unique battery management and charging systems (and connecting the two in parallel ahead of the boost converter) would be even more expensive.