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> Their hybrid power trains had everything needed, they literally had power mgmt, battery, electric motors etc. They don't have what they would need in the bat
by danans 5y ago
> Their hybrid power trains had everything needed, they literally had power mgmt, battery, electric motors etc.
They don't have what they would need in the battery dept - and the battery is the most important part of an EV. The Prius has a NiMH battery, which has lower energy density than Li-ion and other newer chemistries.
The (non-plugin) Prius can get by with the NiMH battery because the battery is only used for regen braking energy capture and acceleration at low speeds, not for high amounts of energy storage or power output. For those it uses gasoline and the ICE engine.
- oflannabhra 5y agoYep. Interesting that a 3rd party has developed and released a LiFePO4 battery pack for the Prius [0]. It is cheaper than the OEM NiMH pack. I'm on some Prius forums and it has been interesting to see the amount of detail owners get into, from replacing cells in their OEM packs, to upgrades, to eeking out every bit of performance. Toyota had a huge advantage with their brand and some fanatical customers that they totally blew by not going full EV. [0] - https://projectlithium.com/products/prius-lithium-replacement-pack https://projectlithium.com/products/prius-lithium-replacemen...
- JonathonW 5y agoThe Prius had a NiMH battery. Current production Priuses (Prii?) almost all* use lithium-ion batteries, from the 2016 model year (fourth-generation/XW50) on. * A subset of fourth-gen Priuses, those equipped with all-wheel drive, went back to NiMH for better cold-weather performance.
- fomine3 5y agoLatest Toyota's Ni-MH density is 1000Wh/L that outperform latest Li-ion. Maybe Wh/kg isn't good for BEV but maybe fine for HEV and possibly PHEV. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890676