Not exactly, but... I own a 2004 Prius with 100,000 miles. Next week I plan to take it to Jungle Motors in San Juan Capistrano, CA. Jungle will install an EV button and a 4Kwh Enginer Kit. They will modify the kit to add a better battery management system that should reduce the need to tend the batteries, and to add a spring so I can easily get to my spare tire. As for performance, I expect to get 4 electric miles per Kwh, giving me 16 miles of all electric travel from the Enginer batteries and 2 more from the main Prius battery which can be charged by the Enginer system before starting out. This would be slightly better than what is expected from the 2012 Plug-in Prius. To use these all electric miles, I expect that acceleration will have to be mild, and the speed 40mph or less. That should do fine around town. I doubt the 2012 plug-in Prius will have these limitations. On the highway, I expect the extra batteries to improve my gas mileage, with the amount of improvement dependent on how far I travel between electrical charging. As for cost, the Enginer Kits are on sale through August for $1,000 off the regular price. I expect to pay Jungle about $4,600 including tax. Next year I expect to be able to reduce my Federal Income Tax by $430 for the plug-in conversion, thus making my net cost about $4,170. I am, of course, hoping my plans work out and I end up with a Prius which functions much like the 2012 Plug-in Prius.
I would double-check about the Federal Income Tax credit. I don't think it is $2500 for a 4kw kit. Maybe for a much larger battery though. Also, and this is important to check too, I was fooled out of the rebate for buying a Prius because I had children and the rules were set up in the "fine print" so I couldn't take the deduction. Also, see if it can be deducted if the Alternative Minimum Tax kicks in for you too. The politicians still haven't changed the limits on that, which for 2010 reverted to as low as a $48K annual income, IIRC.
I just want to set your expectations correctly. The EV button will only allow you to drive up to 33 Mph, as soon as you hit 34, even if you are coasting down hill, the engine will come on. Also, getting 2 miles from the built-in battery is a bit unrealistic. Yes, it can be done on very flat ground or down-hill slopes, at slow speeds. Under normal conditions, about half a mile is more realistic. Also you might want to double check if you are getting the 3000W or the newer 5000W converter in your kit. The 5000W kit should be capable of giving you mostly EV driving under slow conditions, but the 3000W kit can only do it for a few miles before the state-of-charge of your main hybrid battery falls too low and the engine kicks on for a while. Either way, and enginer kit is a good choice with a 2004 model. I wouldn't want to put a PICC kit or something in a car where the kit is worth more money than the car.
I would love to hear more about the spring to allow access to the spare. I was going to do something like that myself.
check the posts here about jungle motors. i don't know anything about them, but have read some serious complaints here. p.s., what you describe sounds incredible.
Thanks. Upon checking the Enginer website, the Federal Tax Credit is 10%. I revised my post accordingly. About the alternative minimum tax, I will just have to let TurboTax do its thing.
The Enginer BMS will limit your depth of discharge, so you will only get about 3.5 kWh of energy out of the batteries. As others have stated, there's less than 1 mile of usable range from the traction battery, since the allowed SOC range is only 40% of the traction battery capacity. If you find that you are unable to make it to your destination in all-electric mode, you are far better off to engage EV after the car has warmed up. Falling out of EV mode due to low SOC (two bars) at 34+ mph with a cold engine is the worst case scenario for fuel economy, as the engine will be working very hard to propel the car and recharge the traction battery while in its highest emitting and lowest economy state. Please do ask questions of your installer. The most important ones are: have you wired the EV switch separately from the Enginer switch? Has the converter been adjusted to deliver 14 amps? And, is the battery string balanced? Please have your installer familiarize you with the BMS16C, it will show you output current and output voltage when the system is running, and the voltage of the 16 pairs of batteries. If the pack is fully charged and properly balanced, you should see at least 3.34V for each cell in the BMS readout screen when idle.
Keep us posted as to what sort of results you actually get (REAL MPG data from the gas pump over entire tanks as opposed to short trip MFD results which can be extremely misleading in many cases). I'm curious to see how an OEM battery with 100,000 miles on it fairs with a system like this. Typically the OEM battery already has significantly reduced range / capacity at that age... Unrelated note, don't hold your breath on the tax credit--nobody really knows who all qualifies for it and who doesn't at this point. Everyone claims they do but if you read the fine print there are requirements that few conversion systems seem to be meeting... The big difference between the 2012 PHV and an aftermarket conversion is that the Toyota PHV has ~35 kW of sustained acceleration power whereas an aftermarket conversion is restricted by its respective transfer medium (in this case a DC/DC converter that is restricted to ~5 kW for sustained acceleration). Andrew
The 10% Federal Tax Credit is available regardless of where you live. Any state tax credit would depend on which state you live in.
An Enginer system is MUCH different than the 2012 Prius. With the 2012 Prius you can really put your foot into the accelerator and the gas engine will still not have to come on because that is how it is programmed. This is not the case when you add the Enginer system because the Enginer does not change the normal Prius software in any way, other than the EV mode button of course. The EV button does NOT magically turn your car into an Electric Vehicle. The Enginer system slowly recharges the main battery pack. But since you have the ability to take the power out of the main pack quickly the Enginer system can not always keep up with how fast you deplete the stock pack. The Enginer system does not try to maximize electric-only miles. It simply can't keep up with how quickly you can take out the power from the main pack. The Enginer system works better when you have time for the Enginer system to slowly fill back up your stock pack. I don't want to see people buying a kit with the wrong expectations otherwise they are headed for disappointment. Feel free to talk to your installer to clarify some of your expectations/questions or you can always PM me too and I'd be happy to call you back.
To add to Eric's post, this kit is a blender: if about 4 kw is coming out of the extra battery, then the mpg improvement can be though of as an EV/ICE ratio. If 5 kw total power is being used, 80% will be EV, 20% ICE; if 20 kw total power is being consumed then 20% is EV, 80% ICE ... Alternatively, if the distance between charges is over ~ 20 miles, then ~ 12 was EV and the remainder ICE. I personally think the idea of blended mpg is *great*, and have my fingers crossed that the implementation proves reliable and robust.
I don't want to see people buying a kit with the wrong expectations otherwise they are headed for disappointment. I really appreciate the input I have received here. I am hoping that I can drive in all electric mode to a few places I frequent that are within about two miles from my home. The roads are slow speed, and these trips really hurt my current gas mileage. On longer trips, I do not intend to use the EV button, but to improve overall mileage. Most of my longer trips are 60 miles or less. Currently my overall gas mileage is 48 mpg. With the Enginer Kit, I would be fully satisfied if I could increase that overall mileage to 58-60 mpg. We will see what happens. I have a solar system that generates more electricity than my home uses, so maybe I can put this extra electricity to good use.
Not really. The PHV Prius will be compatible with all the public charging stations. With the kit, you're stuck to whatever 110V outlet you can find. the PHV prius max speed will be 61mph, while this will still be limited to the regular max speed of an ordinary prius. Plus the cost of installing the PHV kit could probably buy you enough gas for 4-5 years on your regular prius.
