Gen 1 Prius, worth it?
 

Long story short, my government doesn't like my recently restored, extremely cheap to run 90's diesel econobox, I might need a new car somewhere next year.

The sensible idea would be to get a small car on LPG, but I always wanted an electic car.
The government won't let me do a forkenswift style conversion (motor + controller have to be EMC/EMI tested/certified, no flooded batteries, etc..) so that plan died in 2010 when they changed the rules.

So my recent random idea was to buy a first gen Prius, since they've come down to what I could afford, do a plug-in conversion, and perhaps get rid of the petrol engine entirely so it becomes an EV, and get the car tax-exempt. :thumbup:

However, I wonder how practical a 1st gen Prius really is..
- It can't legally tow anything, (Toyota said "warranty void if you tow", government took that as "towing anything is dangerous")
- The boot lid is tiny so bringing large items (like a washing machine or fridge, which I did in my tiny hatchback) inside the car is not an option either.
- The drive train is really expensive if it breaks, and its apparently somewhat fragile. (looking at pictures of burned out motor windings) It might already be damaged when I buy it with 135k to 175k miles on it, if they reset the computer a fault might only show up after I buy it. A used replacement "gearbox" is as much as 2/3 of the value of the car. :(
- Its a heavy car compared to my hatchback, I assume most of the weight difference is in soundproofing and luxury/safety features, is it worth the higher price in tax and insurance?

On the other hand, its a piece of automotive history, and quite possibly a future classic..

So yeah, any NHW11 Prius owners out there, is it worth it? :) How practical is it?

Why doesn't the government like your diesel car?

Get a Lupo or an A2.

regards
mech

Sounds like its time to find a new government

The government thinks diesel cars are responsible for high levels of particulate emissions inside cities, and 1 city went as far as wanting to ban all diesel cars before 2001.
The law will be altered in 2015 to allow this to happen, also in a lot of other cities, unless they choose not to.

'They' expect 30% reduction in particulate matter in the air, but we all know thats not gonna happen if *all* diesel cars combined are only the source of a few % of the total particulate matter. Big polluters are (badly used) wood stoves, industry, trucks, and somewhere at the bottom of the list all cars (brakes/tires) and diesel cars.

For now, I'm just waiting to see what'll happen, because they're getting sued left and right, mostly because they can't just pick a date and ban cars before that while identical but newer cars can get in, thats unfair.
Regardless, my car couldn't get in even if they switched to a more fair system like in Germany. (Where they allow/ban cars by their Euro 1/2/3/4/etc.. emissions rating.)


I'm assuming you mean the 3L or TDI?
Also, most of them for sale are from before 2001, so useless to me. :)
I was going to go for a 306 or something on LPG, similar/lower cost while driving a bigger car.

yeah, I wish.. I would move to another country but I don't know which one.
Voting doesn't work either, because they always do things that are completely opposite to what they promised in their election campaign, and the general trend seems to be limiting individual freedoms and raising taxes.

I tow w/my prius, motorcycles, furniture, etc, on a small 4x8 utility trailer. Just go easy, it isn't going to apply more torque to the driveline than it is capable of.

:) Thanks, but I mean, I'm literally not allowed to tow anything by law with a Prius, because the vehicle papers say 0 kg trailer weight.
If I tow anything, and the cops spot it, they could pull me over, force me to unhook the trailer right then and there, (and pay to have it towed away if its on the side of the freeway), and write a big fine.
If I got in an accident, I would not be insured, even if the other party was at fault, they'd make me pay for the whole thing, etc.. So even if I could, I probably wouldn't..

One option that I did see recently, they're testing a new procedure for changing (raising) the tow weight on vehicles, they load the car up to full specified load, then hook on the desired trailer weight, then do 5 consecutive hill starts and 5 downhill stops/handbrake holds to see if nothing fails. Sounds a bit hard on the gearbox though, unless I specify a really low tow weight.

I guess I could rent a van if I needed to move something big though, so its not so much of a big deal..

Anyway, the question is, is owning a gen1 prius worth it, even with its flaws and not being the most practical car.

The Prius, especially in Gen1 form is a hybrid, it's electric motor was originally designed for maybe a 20% duty cycle. If you try going down the full EV route you can be quite certain that the OEM motor won't last.

I'd suggest keeping your diesel for out of town trips, and building a DIY EV (if you want to haul fridges maybe a Citroen Berlingo). If it's only used around town you can start with just a small/ cheap LiFe battery and extend it when you can. If you start with a gen 1, you'll need to swap out the motor/ controller and batteries anyway, you may as well start with whatever car you want (and getting one with ICE/ trans problems will be cheaper).

Another option would be to swap your diesel engine to a later Euro X standard.

Ah.. well, thats pretty much that then, if it wont hold up to me driving it as an EV, its no use to me.

Something I considered, an EV currently doesn't get road-taxed, so owning two cars like that would be an option. :)

A berlingo won't be needed, but I might get a wagon instead of a small hatchback type car, the margin on battery weight and such is a little higher..

The big problem with that is the engine swap tech inspection. I'd need a certified motor + controller which is far too expensive, the only workaround is using a motor/controller from an existing road-approved vehicle, for example a crashed EV or hybrid. Perhaps one of those rear drive units off of a "4x4" hybrid?

I might get away with a lot if I copied the exact serial plate off of something else onto the parts I want to use. :P because factory EV's exist with forklift style series wound motors. Then I only have to fake an invoice for the parts being from a scrapped EV in a faraway country. :D Unless I can actually find one being scrapped..

Makes sense, the only advantage of a Prius would be that it already comes with all the approved bits, after I get it inspected as an EV, I could do whatever and nobody would care. :) But yes, its an expensive and not very practical way of going about it, so maybe I just need to find a Toyota MGR or the type plates of off an older EV with a series wound DC motor, and stuff it into whatever I like. :)

Yeah, it doesn't work like that, the Euro type on the papers stay, even if I swap in some 2014-made engine.. (The other way around though, I get to remove all the emissions crap *if* I put in a 2014 style engine)

I don't know what that would possibly be based on. it has two motor/generators and they are pretty much always either motoring or generating or both. With the power split driveline you are always using electrical power, car won't move on the ICE alone.

get a new country sounds like the right answer :)

Yes, but at speed the MG is only really acting as a kind of ratio multiplier. It might be spinning but it's not really providing motive power at that point. The 20% is just a guess at the time the MG is providing the bulk of the motive power.

Our government is less car minded than the USA government because the people who live here are less car minded.
Our public transportation system is quite extensive and intensive (we have the highest per mile rail use in the world).
Utrecht, the city that wants to ban old diesel cars, is the biggest rail hub.
Not having a car makes more sense over here.
Depending on your situation of course.

I too doubt using a Prius as an EV would cause issues. Especially if you don't overdo it and keep the speed low in EV mode. It would void whatever warranty is on the car though.

For practicality the second gen Prius is more suitable as the rear seats fold down and the boot is not small even with the seats upright. It is more economical and a better car, though less reliable than the 3rd gen.
Planetaire did a succesful EV conversion on the 2nd gen Prius.
Budget may be a problem, prices start at €5.5 K for a 10 year old high miler.

If budget allows I can recommend the 2nd gen Insight; comparable to the 2nd gen Prius in practicality and FE but cheaper to own.
The "Consumentenbond" tested it as the most reliable smaller midsize car on sale.
It is newer; prices start at €6.5 K for a 5 year old high miler.

It is less suitable for a EV conversion then the Prius as it has the motor bolted to the crankshaft so the engine always turns over adding some drag in EV ('D'FCO) mode.
But a constant surge of EV support will reduce the fuel usage greatly anyhow.
PM me if you like to test a parallel battery pack out on my Insight :)

And expensive, haha. (per km, I pay slightly less for my car. And I can totally bring extra passengers for the same price.
And I get there in half the time in my car (door-to-door).
And I can carry large/heavy luggage, I don't feel like carrying several toolboxes and boxes of material in public transport, thats why I have a car in the first place. (to take those items to my work locations.)
And I can travel between midnight and 6 am.
And in my car I don't have to share my legroom with others.
Etc.. (Yeah, I really don't like public transport anymore..)

True, but still, I'd rather not carry lots of cargo on foot/public transport.

Certainly makes more sense to not have a car compared to the USA, but theres still plenty of people with a car. :) And I wouldn't go back to the public sardine tins for the world.

Well, warranty is not the issue on a 10-14 year old car, since its already long expired.
The real question is, is the car practical enough? Worth the possible extra expenses? Reliable enough? And I'm getting a "no"s and "maybe"s on those questions so far, with more support towards electrifying a different car.

Drivetrain between Gen 1 and Gen 2 is the same though, just different body style (the gen 2 is is slightly better for aero).
Planeraire is the one who inspired me in the EV direction. :D

Indeed, and thats pretty much out of my reach financially. I'm willing to spend about 2k~2.5k on the car, then an additional 2.5k to 5k for batteries.
Currently working on filling a jar with money, and obtaining cheap used laptop batteries to assemble into a pack. :)

Still well out of my price range though. :) But sounds good. :)

I always wondered though, what would happen if I buy 2-3-4 extra of those IMA motors, stack them all together instead of the engine, and built a bracket to the stock motor mount, custom controller, an a pile of batteries... Bit pricy though, those aren't cheap motors..

Thats always nice, and using a plugin pack like that was 1 of my 3 hybrid based options. (stock hybrid, modified with a "small" pack to have constant assist and get very low fuel consumption, or a bigger battery and rip out the engine to make it tax-exempt, saving something like €624/year in tax alone, which is nice to offset the battery writeoff cost.)

I might, I might. :) First I gotta build the pack though.. :)

The PHEV Prius has no changes to the motors vs the hybrid verson and it propels the car just fine up to speeds of 62 mph. That is on the 3rd gen after they downsized the HSD twice. The whole system is also liquid cooled. I'd wager it can handle it.

I did some research, the 3nd gen prius drivetrain is slightly different, they added a gear reduction that made sure the motor generator on the engine side didn't over-rev (the limiting factor in EV-only speed in the gen1 and gen2 Prius), which did raise the electric-only top-speed. They also got rid of the chain drive.

Not to hijack, but that's unfair to do retrograde bans like that. Weren't a lot of European governments promoting diesel cars as late as the 90s for their fuel efficiency?

That is true, and that will actually increase the amperage draw of the motors (for the same acceleration rate). More amps = more heat, and it handles it fine.

I wonder, would a 3nd gen drivetrain fit in a 2nd or 1st gen Prius? Would the electronics freak out because of the different drive ratio's?

Yes, yes it is very unfair.. Getting pretty sick of this ****, government forcing retroactive rule changes for reasons like "bad economy", "terrorism" and "the environment".
Especially if they've been promoting something, then suddenly turning around and banning it. Luckily its just 1 city center for now. We'll see how bad it gets in the future.

Nothing else I can do, except leave to a different country. But where?

@AlexanderB

The only plug-in I have seen on the gen 1 prius is the enginer kit.
For exemple this one
This system may have serious overheating problem in the dc-dc converter.
They use 48v battery and the converter have a lot of job to do, with high amperage in the low voltage side.
They have small power and not regen capability. So you cannot drive in "high" speed during a reasonnable time in ev.

On the gen 1 a good thing is that there is no boost converter between battery and the MG.
But the gen 1 can power a turtle light on the dashboard. I suppose because heating limitations.
This society seems selling an enginer system. I don't know if the quality is good or bad.

The gen 2 have a boost-converter that can handle 22-25kW and peak over 30kW. This is the main power limitation in ev mode. But there is not heating problem in 100% ev mode. The maximum electric power is when using MG1, MG2 and battery, so 33+50+22kW, then in hybrid mode which everybody use.
The MG and electronic components are water cooled via an electric variable speed pump.

The speed limitation without spinning the engine is near 110 km/h. This is MG1 limitation.

Removing the engine in a prius 2 have been made :) but is it legal in your country ?.

In Netherlands, for the gen 2 prius, you have some info here

You probably know this forum
They talked about the NicoAep system

Maybe you can also find old ev car like 106, kangoo and saxo ?

I can think of two times that Toyota began offering options that contradicted previous statements. The first was that solar panels were not cost effective and the second was that the batteries were not designed for electric-only use and that using them in that fashion would cause them to degrade quickly.

I believe the argument that changed their minds was "Take my money."

The NiMH batteries they used at first degrade relatively quickly if you keep charging and discharging them fully on a regular basis.
That's why the plug-in Prius uses lithium.
They did not change their mind, they changed the chemistry.

one advantage of the 2nd gen Insight is the lower voltage on the pack; see http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/hev/batteryinsight1748.pdf.
A parallel pack of about 117 Volt would do, no DC-DC conversion needed just 36 LiFePO4 cells in series.
That could be split into 3 '36V' packs or 9 '12V' subpacks and have standard 36V or 12V chargers per subpack.
Using lithium, 32 cells would do too, which can be split into any power of 2 sized number of subpacks.

Sounds like its not really worth spending a lot of money on. I plan on using my own design, so it would hopefully work better.

So you can push more electric power in?

Also for when you run out of battery, and the car has to push the engine hard to drive MG1 just to power MG2. It becomes a lot slower without 20~30kw of battery powered boost.

Interesting. :) On only 22-33kw its obviously not going to be very fast though, I drive a car with 44kw and 2/3 the weight, and I think it slow above 80 kmh.
Removing the engine, welding the planet gears, and also driving MG1 might add some extra power for use as an EV only. :)

Oh, thats a lot more, I though it was 90 km/h for the gen1 / gen2, and 110 for the gen3.

That would be legal, the electric drive system is already in place and approved for road use, so no problem there. :)

Not yet, I'll read into it. :)

Those were never sold here, but I could import one from France if I wanted.. :) Theres a few on leboncoin.fr but most are still somewhat expensive for a car with a 90 km/h top speed and 80 km range.

They might be ideal candidates for boosting them a bit though, adding range and power after the car is been approved for road use is not so hard, and replacing the wet cell nickel batteries with lithium should reduce the weight while adding capacity and power. Even completely upgrading it to an AC motor is possible, nobody cares, as long as it passed the initial inspection once, all they check later is safety stuff (brakes, tires, lights, rust, window wipers, etc..)

You could in the gen 1, but the hybrid computer logic decide how many will be used. I don't know as much the gen 1 then the gen 2 but the ev power must be lower, the car is lighter too.

In my plugin I use a device called bms+ that increase the Nimh Soc and then the Hsd want to use more electricity. So you can use very bigger battery then the stock nimh.

I have done testing before adding aero mods. A prius 2 use about 22kW at 130 km/h (81 mph) (This is the max speed allowed in France). So you could drive at this speed on a flat road, no wind, in ev. But you will have to wait a long time to reach this speed. At such a speed the cells will be depleted quickly.

The 22-25kW power limitation is a problem if you have to climb a hill and speed is "high". You have to be carrefull if using out of gas mode. In hybrid mode if you need more power the engine came and help the MG2 motor.

The prius are not ev cars. There are limitations. The main is not ev speed but ev power allowed. It can be used in ev mode keeping the ability to use engine if having a out of ev-range situation. It is a "low cost" solution. Gen 2 can be found at a good price. A diyer can add battery and some device like bms+ or orion bms.
Actually i have added gasoline in august. 3300 km later. I have drived more then 3100km in ev-only mode.:)

The gen 2 insight have less ev power and the engine is allways spinning.
There are losts in the cvt between MG and the whells.
In the gen2 prius when engine is spinning there is about 1.5kW losts. That is wy I love the out of gas mode, the engine is stopped.
It would be perfect adding say at least 10kW so 35 kW max ev.
The gen 3 plugin have 38kW ev power before adding engine. But the range is too small for me.

;)

For moving big loads, hire a van or truck. Unless you spend a lot of time moving big things, in which case I wonder that you're spending any time at all even considering a Prius.

As much as I like the Prius in general, I wouldn't consider a first-gen Prius in any case. They learned a lot with that first generation - which is to say, that first generation wasn't everything you could hope for. Second-gen and up, says I.

I find it very hard to believe that the government could make such rules that would effectively disallow the vehicle you already own. To make rules that would prevent you buying one as your next vehicle, that I can understand. But to obviate the ride you have in hand, well - that's not right. It's like outlawing a certain kind of shoe when that might be the only pair you own. You cannot go get new shoes because you don't have allowable shoes to wear while shopping.

There must be some kind of grandfather clause that would permit you to keep rolling in your existing car.

Are they just going to crush all old cars? Would it be feasible to sell in another country?

This reminds me of the episode "Half a Life" From Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Come on, they just rule out a type of vehicle in the city center. Some cities ban all vehicles. You can own them, just not have them in the city.

In the case of Utrecht you don't want to drive a car in the city center anyway unless you have to. Think medieval town, lots of canals and narrow passages, hardly any parking space and lots of people in the street.

No, but they did offer people who live inside the city center and own a diesel car thats "too old" a $1500 discount on a new car if they crush their current ride..
Can't buy anything for that though, unless you put in a ton of cash yourself, so its kind of a hollow gesture.

It happens a lot, and they usually pay around market value, so its a good alternative to sending cars to the scrap for the regular $150 reward.
However, I don't think my car would be in demand, and certainly not for the amount of money its worth to me.

I have not seen that one I think..

Thats all fine and well, but:
1: I have to be there to install wireless acces points all over the city center, government paying our company to do that. :D I'll just borrow or rent a car to go there, I suppose.
2: they include the Jaarbeurs and some of the large acces roads, its not just the pedestrian-filled center.
3: It gets worse, theres apparently some roads that are one-way into the 'zone', with no way to turn around. So stop and go back against a one-way street or go into the zone to turn around and get fined €230 ($290) by an automated license plate scanner. :thumbup:

I'll have to, work. :)

Parking garages are a very usefull thing. :)

I would demand a company car.

Does it need to be a brand-new car, or just one new enough? I would not expect many people go to from a car worth fifteen hundred dollars or less to a brand-new one, although I guess that my brother-in-law does. He drives his car until it falls apart and then my sister purchases him a new one.

They work with a scientist that is turning sixty and in his culture, in order to prevent burdensome old people, they put them to sleep.

http://millionaireplayboy.com/mpb/wp...om_trappy.jpeg

The last time that I drove in the San Francisco area, I realized that I was approaching a toll bridge without any cash, and I there was not any way to turn around. They did not accept debit. I believe they told me to call the department before they issued the citation to get a discount.

A brand new one, yes, so you see how thats really not helping people but makes the government sleep at night, because they offered people a 'fair deal', right?

The government here worked hard to root out "old" cars before, with a "cash for clunkers" type scheme where you could turn in any car you wanted to get a fixed $1.5k (I think) discount and the car was crushed. Completely emptied the market for sub 1k cars, because they all got bought up and scrapped by people who used them as discount coupons for the new car they wanted anyway. "Worked as intended", right?

Lots of perfectly fine cars went in the shredder. Oh well, can't save them all, I suppose. Made lots of cars into rare cars by shredding all but a hand full of them, including my own (only 7 or so left with this engine and 3 door body.)

Ah, yes. Similar storylines also show up in other works of fiction. :)

Yeah, exactly...

That's the episode where Diana's mom falls in love with that guy that's going to commit suicide, no?

It was not his idea, it was the way his culture was set up, you are only allowed to live to be sixty.

I would recommend a civic hy over any 1st gen prii, they are close in price, the civic has more headroom, the 1gen prii parts are crazy high, no refurbished batteries are made, and the civic would do better for hwy mpg (my guess).

€1400~1800 versus €5000+, not really. I could easily buy a second gen, or perhaps even a somewhat poor condition third gen prius for 5k (I don't have 5k)

Probably true, the first gen Prius looks pretty small to me, hence this topic. I've driven the civic, they're pretty nice.. Back seat doesn't fold flat though.

A valid point, I might be better off with a Gen 2, even if its only a parts donor for my EV wishes (Not too attached to Prius, I just want an electric car..) A third gen would be eve better yet, but probably way out of my price range, even for a crashed one.

Doesn't bother me so much, Theres still used cells, and otherwise I'll just replace the whole thing with lithium cells and a custom BMS.

Trying to do a full EV conversion, can't afford a new drive system, can't use used parts (like forklift stuff) unless its from an existing car. Just taking MG2 (and maybe MG1 with the planetary gears welded) and driving it from a lithium pack in the boot.

The tricky bit will either be hacking the ECU or replacing it with a custom programmed microcontroller to drive the MG2 at speeds over 54mph. Easy in hardware, its 99.9% a software problem.

The prices must be way different there, Around here the 03-05 civic hy is about the same price as a 1st gen prii, 06+ Civic about the same as similar yr 2nd gen. prii.

Well, the cheapest Civic for sale is a '07 one for €5k, in fact, most of them are '07 to '11, for €5k and up. Theres a single '05 one for sale for €7k.

A '01 Prius is a couple years older, so probably a little more depreciated. The gen 2 Prius'es ('05 to '09) are more expensive, like €5k and up, so pretty much comparable to the Civics here in both age and price. :)

Give you a solution: add a PHEV hybrid conversion kit on the car