Honey, Did you Plug In the Car?
Here’s a bit of futuristic fun. The nice folks in the Toyota press division did a very cool thing: they loaned me a Prius Plug-In Demonstration vehicle for a week to get a feel for what they’re doing in the evolution of the hybrid platform. They did this despite the fact that, years ago, I may have just been the first person on planet earth to hit a deer with a Highlander Hybrid. Hey, in my defense I didn't hit Bambi, Bambi literally flew out of the woods and hit me. Much damage but fortunately all of it cosmetic and I was able to soldier on and review the machine. Loved it, too, but I totally dig the Hybrid lifestyle. It’s the biologist in me, and the fact that I hate waste and love efficiency.
So, what’s up with the plug-in Prius? The initial differences are quite straightforward: instead of the nickel-metal-hydride battery pack the “normal” Prius uses, a lithium-ion battery (actually fairly similar to the one in the laptop I’m using right now) is employed in the Prius Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle (PHV) and a plug receptacle is found just in front of the driver’s door, with a flap very similar to the flap covering the gas cap that's simple to locate. This was all set up for totally turn-key at-home charging, where you literally just plug in a 110V extension cord for about three hours to get all juiced up (it can also be charged in half the time using 220V). This allows you to drive the Prius for about a dozen miles (depending on conditions) in electric-only mode, thus saving fuel. When you exhaust the bulk of this charge, the car reverts to normal hybrid operation meaning it is propelled by the gas engine, or the electric motor, or both. Both the engine and regenerative braking keep the batteries charged up like the regular Pri.
In practice, this is a pretty easy-to-live with way to get even more miles per gallon out of a Prius. The household power required for a nightly charge was no big deal, using about 3.45 kW hours for the task (pulling around 12 amps, at about 1290 watts). With our pretty expensive electricity here in CT, this amounted to less that $4/week or about the cost of one gallon of gas. Impressive. Mileage in the dead of winter amounted to the mid to upper 50s, which is quite good as some engine running is necessary to help heating operations (although far less than you might think thanks to the amazingly complex yet efficient heating system on the PHV).
The obvious question here is how will this car (available in select states about a year from now) stack up to the new Chevy Volt. GM has not graced me with one to test yet, but the two cars are very different in that the Volt is an all-electric car that has an engine for supplemental battery charging. It’s much larger battery array means more Electric-only operation, but much longer charging times as well. The Prius PHV is just an extension of the Prius family, whereas the Volt is a totally new venture for GM. I will be commenting more about this stuff once I get quality time in the groundbreaking Chevy, which hopefully will happen soon.
As for the plug-in Prius, I really enjoyed it. We own a ’08 Prius ourownselves, so I’m very familiar with the breed and this newbie (based on the 2010 Prius) is much improved over an already superb greenie machinie. The only think about the PHV is you have to remember to plug the sucker in for maximum fuel efficiency. And the price? It’s not set yet, but I doubt it will be too big a bump over the cost of a regular Prius. We shall see.
