Sep

Prius software cuts possible electric only range by 80 percent

Posted by admin Published in Emerging Technologies, Hybrids, Toyota

I went to the PHEV Symposium in Washington we mentioned yesterday. I talked to Bob Bruninga about his solar powered Prius. Bob’s pitch is solar ability is perfect for electric cars and hybrids considering that’s where you get the payback. Solar capability for your house makes less sense says Bob considering your house has easy access to cheaper electricity. You can watch Bob talk about the logic of using solar capability on electric cars below the fold.

I asked Bob how much of an improvement he got in the electric-only range of the solar Prius. Bob said the batteries are doubled but he gets increasingly than a double in electric-only range. How? You would not know that unless you looked at your Prius battery indicator constantly but: The Prius battery never goes below about 60 percent

charge. At some point around 80 percent charge, the Prius software starts to do things to manufacture certain the battery never goes dead.

So whether you increase the capacity of the battery, you could get larger than expected improvements in electric-only range considering the point at which the Prius pretends the battery is dead is much higher. Logically, Bob should get four miles on electric potential only but Bob says he can get 6. Before you run off to hack your Prius software to increase your mileage and save a lot of money on gas, remember that Toyota has set the software to increase the life of the battery.

[Source: YouTube]

Original post by Lascelles Linton