I'm just wondering if anyone has looked into how many amps (or watts) are consumed by a Gen-1 prius when driving in EV mode at different speeds on flat gorund, up hill, etc. I'm just trying to figure out how many continuous watts would be necessary to deliver to the car to be able to drive in a sustained EV mode.
Bob might have a good graph of this. I can cruise at 60 km/h on the flat at about 15 to 20 amps. Slow acceleration takes between 20-30 amps. Above that, only someone who has driven with the ICE suppressed could say...
How did you measure this? I know I could use an amp gage but the problem is the wires are in the back of the car and it would be impossible to see while driving. Perhaps if I had somebody with me who could see the instrument.... Anyway, if what you are saying is correct, then at 15 amps that should be around 4,000 watts unless the voltage drops considerably during use. And 60 kph is roughly 40 mph. What I'm trying to determine is this.. My Enginer kit delivers 3,000 watts. I'm still looking into the possibility of making an engine kill switch to see if I could drive to work and back on electric only, every day. It is a short trip of 4 miles on 30 mph streets. I am able to drive most of that way with the engine off anyway when the kit is turned on. BUT - if 3000W isn't enough, then I might be able to add a second converter and set of batteries and that would give me 6000W of power, which very well could be enough. True, that'd probably add an additional $1,500 cost to what I have. But at that point, I could have a true EV when I wanted it.
I'm using a graham scanner. I will check the voltage to see how far it drops. I'm interested in your project because I'm planning to get the enginer kit at some point. You should check out Daox's thread. He's putting one in a gen II and is adding a battery management system to protect the batteries. Just a hint that for low speed EV use rolling resistance will make a big difference to your range. If you need to re-tire make sure you are getting a good LRR set.
I just put brand new tires on there when I bought it. But they are just regular tires, not LRR. I have thought about inflating them to 40 PSI or so. They are at 33 PSI right now. As for battery management, Enginer is supposed to be coming out with a new charging system that does that. I plan on upgrading to that.
Graham (Mini-Scanner designer) wrote an article about the Gen1 battery current meter DIY. Adding a Battery Current Meter to the Prius Ken@Japan
Thanks for the link. According to his website, it appears his experience is the same and that cruising in stealth mode tends to draw about 15 to 25 amps. That works out to a little over 6000 Watts. So it would appear that if I want to be able to drive in Pure-EV with the I.C.E. disabled, I will need two converters to get me around 6000W of continuous power.
