Official Toyota Prius PHEV thread

[astrorob]

yeah, its definitely weaksauce as an 'electric' vehicle.

having said that i've got 88mpg lifetime. i think i've filled the tank 4 times since i took delivery of the car in late march. of course, i'm using it primarily for around-town; if i had to make long freeway trips i'm sure the average MPG would look a lot more like a regular prius. and as it turns out electricity costs so much here in northern cal that i'm not really saving any money. but together with the leaf we're almost completely off of gasoline and that's a great thing.

it *will* go up to 65mph on electric alone, but the point at which the gas motor kicks in is really dependent on how much torque you call for. around here there are some hills that i have to crawl up at 25mph to stay in electric mode

[cwerdna]

^^^
There are some pretty big incentives going on in some states for the PiP right now.

See http://www.buyatoyota.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and try putting in 95136 or 10027 zip codes. For example, for the NYC area, I see 0% APR for 60 months WITH $3,500 bonus cash. For Nor Cal, I see 0% APR and $1500 bonus cash (CA CVRP is another $1500 and one can get the green HOV lane stickers).

Once you subtract out the Federal tax credit and any state incentives, it becomes not much more than a comparably equipped regular Prius which ineligible for Federal tax credit, CVRP and any CA HOV stickers.

[mitch672]

yeah, its definitely weaksauce as an 'electric' vehicle.

having said that i've got 88mpg lifetime. i think i've filled the tank 4 times since i took delivery of the car in late march. of course, i'm using it primarily for around-town; if i had to make long freeway trips i'm sure the average MPG would look a lot more like a regular prius. and as it turns out electricity costs so much here in northern cal that i'm not really saving any money. but together with the leaf we're almost completely off of gasoline and that's a great thing.

it *will* go up to 65mph on electric alone, but the point at which the gas motor kicks in is really dependent on how much torque you call for. around here there are some hills that i have to crawl up at 25mph to stay in electric mode

I'm around 102MPG, but I plug in at home and at work, and 11 of the 15 mile 1 way commute is in EV.
I've filled up 10 times since mid April, 7424 miles total: http://www.fuelly.com/driver/mitch672/prius-plugin" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm waiting for the Model S, though it won't save much more than I already am with the PiP, just won't be burning any gas at all, but it's minimal at this point anyway.

A friend was going to buy a standard Prius package 3, with the $3500 Toyota incentive in MA, and beating the dealer up a bit (another $1,000 off), she bought it for about the same as a regular Prius, plus she'll get the $2,500 federal credit as well.

[cwerdna]

Not sure if this has been discussed as I don't follow this thread much, but it just occurred to me the other day that another reason why Toyota might've gone w/such a small battery size/short AER range is that the chances of someone driving and partly depleting or draining the li-ion battery (to the level that the car allows) is very high. So, it helps reduce the amount of time the car might sit in high temperatures w/high SoC, which is bad for the battery.

I'm not sure if the PiP will use any power by itself to run the AC to keep the battery temp down while parked. Can anyone w/a PiP chime in? Will it run the battery fans when not in READY mode? If there's no AC and it's just battery fans when off, then the battery temp can't get below ambient or cabin temps...

[Kataphn]

We just got a PiP as our second car, sending off our Honda Accord to our niece for a second life. It took me a bit to get the roof rack reconfigured and procure a compact spare but all is set now. We can go quite far in daily errands in all ev mode. We like it fine as our long distance car. Thanks very much to Paul Scott who walked with my spouse up the street from his Nissan dealership to Toyota dealership owned by same folks and smoothed the way with sales staff there. We called Paul to help us and he did!

[hill]

Congratulations Kat !!
What an ideal situation - having a 50mpg (even in charge sustain mode) plug-in, and still being able to call it your "Gas Guzzler".

[GRA]

Cross-posted here and in the Volt thread.

Motor Trend does a comparison test of the 2012 Volt and PiP:

http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/alt ... ewall.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Summary: The Volt is for your right brain, the PiP for your left brain.

[LeftieBiker]

My housemate, who doesn't like to drive my Leaf at all but loves the Prius she has leased for three years, just put a deposit down on a 2013 PIP. Not because it's a plug-in, but because...it's currently cheaper to lease than the regular Prius II. We both have a commute that is about 21.5 miles each way; there are several possible routes to work, with me taking the medium to high speed route (also about a mile longer) and her taking a route that is 75% 30, 40 and 45MPH speed zones, with about 5 miles of highway driving at 60 as well. Her route runs through several small cities and ends up in a larger one, so she plans to use EV mode in the low speed zones, and Hybrid mode for the rest. It's going to be interesting seeing how well she does with MPG, because she's averaging 53MPG (year round average) with her Prius II now. I'm hoping for about 60MPG overall from the PIP. We will probably also share my EVSE, unless I can come up with a good, cheap outdoor L-1 unit for her. I think that Leafs and PIPs are like cats and dogs: as long as they reside in the same household, they can peacefully coexist.

[Berlino]

I've mentioned in other threads how so few Leaf's are offered for sale in Canada.

Apparently it's even worse for the PiP.

There are no demo vehicles available and it can take six months for orders to be fulfilled.

[LeftieBiker]

After almost losing our chance at leasing a PIP due to a local dealership that took our deposit and promised a car, (knowing full well that they'd get none, I suspect, but wanting to lease or sell us a Prius II or III when the sale ended), we put another deposit on what may be the Last Green PHEV in the Northeast. We will hopefully be picking it up on Monday.