In general, yes, the motors are very similar. The resolver feedback is identical. I'm banking on this for my future stuff. I think the smaller motors in the Prius transmissions would make excellent bike motors.
I'm looking at this whole concept as a prototype. As a first stab at things, the MGR is nice because the gearing is simple.
However, the Prius drivetrain is a lot more promising for a couple reasons: More of them out there, and more power.
Something that looks really good about the Prius "transmission" is the planetary gears. If there's a way to selectively lock the planetary, it might allow a robust 2 speed drive. This is sort of how the first automatic transmissions worked.
I don't know about the Highlander MG2 vs the MGR; I really don't want to hazard a guess without having one.
One thing the MGR offers is the possibility of experimenting with independant AWD, like the previously mentioned Mercedes. Yes, one or two bigger motors would be more straight forward; this was done years ago in a Subaru WRX with twin Siemans motors.
The available gearing is actually more than a side note. Seriously, look at the cost of drivetrain stuff in $$$ or weight. The standard stuff I removed from my car was really heavy (more than 2 MGR's) and the cost of a similar gearbox (example the Borg-Warner single speed gearbox) costs more than several MGR's. I know, it's not fair to compare scrapyard parts. However, the availability of extremely well made gearbox
parts rather than custom made gears makes this whole thing possible.
- E*clipse