Okay, well Searching isn't working very well... Sorry! Q: Any problems with high spray car washers getting water splash around corners past charge port cover and into the cable connection? Are all pins dead until a certain signal is applied? Q: Noticed that a second vent (lower left bench seat) was added. Are there any concerns about situations where the lithium battery would cause any unwanted gas entry into compartment through these now two vents?
I doubt there'd be any issue due to J1772 connector/standard requirements. Take a look at My Nissan Leaf Forum • View topic - Why the EVSE at all? and What Is EVSE And Why Does Your Electric Car Charger Need It?. Hopefully Toyota did the same type of testing that Nissan did at Nissan Zero Emission Website | Quality Check | Waterproof Qualities of the Charging Port. The video shows the CHAdeMO (DC quick charge port) having water poured over it. I'd imagine they did the same thing w/the J1772 connector.
I am over-reacting to wording "Lithium vapor" in the thread title. It is great to question safety but I am not even sure it is chemically possible to have lithium vapor form, because the lithium is in ionic solution, not metal form. So I liked the more generic wording in the post better "any unwanted gas" ...that is better way to ask the question. Of course, the question applies to all battery types, so same question applies to the 12v battery and NiMH battery in regular Prius.
Can't change the title but I can reword that part of the question better perhaps... How does the ventilation system into the passenger compartment for the lithium battery work? Do both vents only draw hopefully cooler air from the compartment across the battery that exits elsewhere? Is there even a risk of exposure to whatever the lithium battery might give off? How is this ventilation even helpful when a Prius bakes in the sun reaching maybe 130 degrees F when you get in the car to drive off. Sure you turn the A/C on immediately and it cools down slowly. Is the battery 'struggling' to stay within limits? If the battery is to hot to work safely is this sensed and driving is prevented until temperature returns to within limit?
Yes the vents inside draw air into the battery and it exits the rear of the car through vents you cannot see behind the rear wheels under the bumper cover.
NO. The charging port has a door, and a cap, over it. Much like you gas tank filler neck. NO. Only "wet" batteries (batteries with a liquid inside them) expel a gas. It's almost like you are looking for things to worry about. Relax.
Interesting.. using cabin air like that will impact heating cooling, though it would help heat/cool the battery, which may be the goal. If the driver is cold the battery probably wants to warm up too.. and maybe this provides a connection the "condition" air in the cabin to make the active air-temperature management of the battery a bit better. Clever. Any battery with an electrolyte can still develop gas.. just may not be designed to vent it. I've had "sealed" AGM and lithium batteries vent in very non-pleasant ways. But those are rare events and unlikely related to any venting in the car. Seeing vents should not make you worry.
It's the same setup as Prius has been using since 2004, with an extra opening in and possibly an extra/bigger out, that's all. I don't blame ya' bisco...
Re: Batt Safety First of all, you should check PiP op manual or email Toyota for details. Thankfully, that does not stop us from speculating here. Do we know the type of Li battery chemistry in a PiP? or is it proprietary? We can safely assume Toyota/Panasonic has done torture testing etc to ensure the utmost passenger safety. Recall GM recently had unwanted gas cause lab accident in torture testing (fire scenario) of experimental Li battery. To my knowledge there is no hidden gas danger whatsoever associated with PiP's Lion batteries in normal use. If we want to go beyond the "generally regarded as safe" assumption, we'd have to get a battery expert to assist us.
There isn't really any proprietary chemistry out on the market right now. Kits such as the Enginer add-on use LiFePO4, or Lithium Iron Phosphate composition. I believe the plugin does too, but I'm still looking for verification.
1. Unlike the fuel cap that seals tight the charge port cover does not seal tight at all. But we have learned that none of the pins are active and that the design drains water well enough. My initial concern was not rain or water entering under an ambient pressure but a high pressure spray jet from a car washing station. Also, the plug does have a seal so, it is well protected when charging in the rain. End of this subject. 2. I did not know that the Li ion battery was solid state and had no liquid so it could not expel a gas. That in itself is very interesting and good to know. 3. Have you heard of, "is the glass half-full or half-empty" before? I'm not looking for problems to worry about. I'm resolving problems I then don't have to worry about. Prius Chat's purpose surely isn't to create problems but to mitigate them.
