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Old 04-21-2022, 06:32 PM   #27 (permalink)
Isaac Zachary
High Altitude Hybrid
 
Join Date: Dec 2020
Location: Gunnison, CO
Posts: 1,950

Avalon - '13 Toyota Avalon HV
90 day: 40.45 mpg (US)

Prius - '06 Toyota Prius
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I think the thing right now is price and existing performance vs options.

Let's say you have a budget. Maybe $40,000. In 2022, you can by a new EV that's pretty good for that amount. But you probably aren't going to go and rip the motor or battery out and try to modify them. At best you might change the wheels.

But take a new gasoline car that you could add a supercharger to, or headers, or a different muffler at least, or something along those lines.

Or we could go used. Getting an old used Leaf with a worn battery and putting in a much bigger battery would be cool in my opinion. But there aren't a lot of options still and they aren't cheap either, costing more than what the car is probably worth. Installing a 40kWh battery in an old Leaf would be some $10,000 USD. A 62kW battery would be $15,000. By the time you buy the old Leaf and installed the bigger battery, you probably might have just as well as bought a new Leaf.

Or you can get an older car, for a lot cheaper. My Prius was $500. I've tossed around the idea of installing a turbo in it, which has been done before, and I can garantee it won't cost near as much as an EV battery. Or a different muffler, which would be even cheaper. I've wondered if I could install an electric supercharger that uses the high voltage of the HV battery since installing a turbo in a Prius tends to keep the HV battery charged up. A bigger hybrid battery would cost in the couple thousand dollar range, not tens of thousands. There are also lots of suspention options for a Prius.

And even if I had a different car, let's say a Miata, I could also get a lot of options that are much cheaper than the few available for an EV.
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