Gen2 Prius work vehicle

[veloman]

This is my previous thread where I was deciding on what vehicle to buy:
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...e-34460-3.html

So I got a 2004 with about 175k miles on it. Most of my driving is for work, which I do lawn mowing. (Efficient Ventures LLC – Electric powered lawn mowing!) My business model is a bit different, using all electric equipment and a car for transportation instead of a fuel hog truck/trailer.

My mower goes on a rear rack attached to the hitch. In the near future I'll detail my work on that part. The hitch comes in tomorrow. It's faster and easier to load/unload than any other mowing setup.

Today was the first real day of driving, did 31 miles, had 8 stops(parking). 52mpg, with about 2/3 under 40mph and the rest highway at 60-70mph. The bigger drain is the accelerations which are between 10 and 25mpg for the most part. (a little slower than the average driver).

If anyone has any ideas on how I might best charge the hybrid battery with an extra 25-50v battery, let me know.

[ThermionicScott]

Very cool! Time for some custom graphics on that Prius.

[Stubby79]

Charge the hybrid battery from another battery? As in topping it up while you're out and about?

Hmm.

I'd probably use an inverter (get one to match the battery voltage, or just stick with 12v) and "center tap" the hybrid battery. To put it in it's simplest form, the positive half of the AC wave charges half of the battery, and the negative half of the AC wave charges the other half.

Maybe someone else will chime in on how they did it, assuming someone has.

[LittleBlackDuck]

Originally Posted by Stubby79

Charge the hybrid battery from another battery? As in topping it up while you're out and about?

Hmm.

I'd probably use an inverter (get one to match the battery voltage, or just stick with 12v) and "center tap" the hybrid battery. To put it in it's simplest form, the positive half of the AC wave charges half of the battery, and the negative half of the AC wave charges the other half.

Maybe someone else will chime in on how they did it, assuming someone has.

Sounds like a recipe for destruction!

I would not waste the time as the Prius' HV battery is not too large and I don't think that it will add much to your economy by topping it up.

Simon

[Stubby79]

Originally Posted by LittleBlackDuck

Sounds like a recipe for destruction!

I would not waste the time as the Prius' HV battery is not too large and I don't think that it will add much to your economy by topping it up.

Simon

Only if you didn't control it. Like any other way of doing something like this.

[ME_Andy]

Congrats on the new wheels! This will probably be better than a Leaf anyway as you won't have any battery degradation issues.

[RedDevil]

You no doubt have seen this thread about a selfmade Prius plugin conversion?

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ius-30107.html


Planetaire did great things by invoking the EV only mode and keeping the speed down:

[vskid3]

Congrats! They're silly cars and everyone will make fun of you for it, until you remind them that you get 50MPG.

Regarding acceleration, I've found that quicker acceleration seems to work a little better, provided you're not going to have to slam on the brakes right after getting up to speed. I usually end up going at least as quick as traffic. Your money maker in the Prius is how you drive after accelerating. P&G is easy and very effective if you're under 40MPH and traffic allows.

[Ecky]

I believe it's not possible to simply charge the Prius battery without doing something to the computers, too. It uses a type of battery whose voltage doesn't reveal the state of charge, the computer has to "guess" how much it's charged based on how much it takes out and puts in, so if you're charging it, you're going to completely throw off the system.

[Daox]

Its been done a few times before. The Prius pack has an ammeter in it. So when you charge, you just have to hook up before the ammeter so it can take it into account. Enginer did it, Hymotion also did it much better than Enginer. It is no simple task though.