How Often are you doing a Prime Traction Battery 120v Recharge

A car is a different application. To ensure performance over the life of the vehicle, NiMH is limited to 40% to 80% SOC. Honda didn't follow that, and had reliability issues with angry customers. A hybrid will see more charge and discharge cycles on a drive than the one a battery providing energy from solar during the night.

There might be some advantages to NiMH over Li-ion in a hybrid, but they aren't big enough to stop production of a car to wait for NiMH while Li-ion is available.

 

The "best" battery for the job depends on the job. If you want a battery to last hundreds of thousands of miles in the desert heat and arctic cold without losing much of its initial capacity, NiMH is your battery. Most automakers prefer the weight savings and power density of lithium over the benefits of NiMH. I would guess they don't have any financial interest in a battery that performs nearly was well on day 5,000 as day 1.

 

NiMH has been available for a long time. That's what the Plug-in Prius uses.

 

The trick lies in matching the characteristics of the batteries for a project to the way you want to use it. For instance, the way the original Prius design worked was to never over charge the battery pack when doing regenerative braking or charging. That means that it limited the amount of current that flowed into (or out of) the battery as well as how long the current was applied. Because the system did not allow the battery to be abused, the result was battery packs with extraordinary longevity that were as likely to die from mechanical failure as they were from chemical deterioration.

With the Prime's larger pack, it can absorb more power without damage and it can provide more power to the larger motors without damage. But you will not see (or need) CCS rates of charge simply because the charge to each individual cell would be excessive.... and, of course, because the best use of the car is to charge it when available and use gas when charge is not available. For instance, if I wanted to, I could make the 10 mile drive to the store and plug it into a level 2 charger for the 30 minutes that I was shopping. The end result is that I'd leave the parking lot with a fairly full battery and a full tank of gas.

The difference between the BEV way of thinking and the PHEV way of thinking is that I can charge the car when it's convenient. A BEV driver makes it convenient to charge their car.

 

I wish I could do that. Even in urban Southern California the charging infrastructure is still woefully inadequate. For example, there are no public charging stations within a mile of my work even though I work in downtown Los Angeles. Not a single store I visit on a regular basis has any chargers available nearby, nor do any stores within 10 miles that I don't visit regularly save ONE Whole Foods. Even stores that boast chargers (like Walmart) only have CHAdeMO chargers, except a few stores have one J-1772 that's invariably broken or occupied. Places with J-1772 chargers always have 2 or 3 when you can manually count 20+ electric or plug-in hybrid cars in the lot.

I've been driving a plug-in hybrid for 9 years and a combined ~200,000 miles. I've only had the opportunity to charge somewhere other than my house on less than 10 occasions.

 

Location, location, location.

I’ve had my Prime since late April and I have already used a public charging station 15+ times. There are more than a dozen within two miles from my suburban house (I don’t typically use those) and several hundred within range of my battery (downtown Montreal is chock full of them).

However, in the NH city in which I grew up, there are fewer than ten. In every town/city of the same size in Quebec, there would be at least 50, most between 75-100. Eventually it’ll even out.

 

What, the PiP? It had a 4.4kWh Li-ion pack.

I was referring to last year's Rav4 hybrid production. For about half the year, Toyota was putting the Li-ion pack into it instead of the NiMH. I'm guessing there was supply issues with the NiMH.

 

no, pip has lithium. know i understand your confusion

 

i have to disagree. the li-on batteries are working as well or better for hybrids as nimh overall.

 

Correct. I meant the Gen 3.

 

There's no confusion. The characteristics of battery chemistries are independent of the vehicles in which they are used.

 

You're missing the point about specific jobs. There's a reason Toyota still uses NiMH in some Prius models.

Why 2021 Toyota Prius Uses Both Lithium-ion and Nickel-Metal Hydride Batteries | Torque News

Toyota has decided that the tradeoffs are worth it from their perspective, but it's not as simple as lithium > nickel.

 

huh? you sai plug in prius had nimh

 

you're missing the point of the thread. i answered the o/p, and you took my answer down a whole nuther road.
the only reason toyota still uses nimh is because they have touse up their storehouse which they heavily invested in.

 

NiMH being better in lower temperatures was a stated reason for the AWD Prii having them. Yet, Toyota didn't hesitate to use Li-ion in the Rav4 AWD hybrid last year. Nearly every Toyota hybrid uses NiMH though much of the continent has a mild climate.

There are times when NiMH could be the better choice, but Toyota's decision making seems mostly to do with profits and investments.

He corrected it to gen3.

 

That's a strong assertion. Where did Toyota officially say that?

 

The OP wondered how nickel compared to lithium battery technology. You answered by saying NiMH was a "distant second," which I rightly pointed out depends on your metrics. Nickel battery chemistry will provide more power and last longer in some use cases and lithium is superior in others. It's just the physics of the chemistry. It has nothing to do with Toyota or their decisions.

 

why would they admit to it. it isn'thard to see that nimh is doing nothing for them or their drivers except for profits and availability.
they have stated their isnt enough lithium currently

 

op: it will be interesting to see how these lithium batteries compare to nickel hydride over time.

i always find it funny when someone buys their first li-on prius, and thinks that toyota just started using them.
i would say that after 10 years in n/a, and longer around the world, the 'over time' comparison has been done.

 

The Prius Prime will not go into drive or reverse when the vehicle is plugged in.

I recall asking whether there had to be power to the charging cable and someone in this forum said it did not matter. Having it mechanically connected to the charging port was enough to disable to vehicle from driving away.