Quote:
Originally Posted by S Keith
I could have sworn we've already had this conversation. Toyota is still selling the Gen2 batteries. They are their highest volume battery. There are just supply issues at this time. I've bought 4 in the last month.
Your plan would work, but you would pay about $600 more for the battery and do a lot of excess work.
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That's the rumor, yes, and I hope it's true. If I had my Prius fixed up more to the point the dying HV battery were the next step in fixing I'd try to get a Toyota battery. But I personally haven't heard of anyone who's been able to get one. But I don't know a lot of people looking for a Prius battery either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by S Keith
I'm extremely confident these will prove to be of lower value than the Toyota NiMH packs. These are simple drop-in substitutions of 5S LFP modules in place of the 2X 6S NiMH modules. Zero provisions have been made for managing the LFP cells as they should be. The car will treat them like Nickel.
They will likely be better than the horrifying cylindrical cells.
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Project Lithium does add a balancing circuit in each module. As long as the cells are balanced, the max and min voltages and currents of the Prius BMS do not go out of the range of the LiFePO4 cells. That's the beauty of LiFePO4 is that they charge up to full at 3.6V but can tolerate up to 4 just fine. 4V x 5 = 20 volts per block, which the Prius BMS will never let the battery reach. They can also tolerate faster charging currents, which is why the LiFePO4 Teslas charge faster than the traditional Li-ion Teslas. But if there is no balance circuit then yes, the LiFePO4s will eventualy fry themselves in a Prius. I haven't heard of anyone having problems with the Project Lithium drop-in modules even with many now running them in their Toyota hybrids. But as you will surely agree, they haven't proven themselves yet like Toyota's own NiMH batteries have either, and won't be able to until some 15 years later, if they make it that long.