What would a virtual engine need to work?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by donbright, Jul 6, 2019.

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  1. donbright

    donbright Active Member

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    I have been day dreaming about converting a Gen 2 to an electric only vehicle. I know it makes zero sense financially or logically, but that didn't stop my brain.

    Assume that hacking the computers themselves, to get working AC, speedo, airbags, etc, is more complex and difficult than creating a fake engine and sending fake signals to the existing CPUs to make it think an engine was still in the car.

    How would you reverse engineer the signals the ICE sends to the existing Prius computers?

    How would you create a virtual engine to mimic those signals?

    How would you translate control signals sent to the virtual engine, into control signals for a new electric motor?
     
    #1 donbright, Jul 6, 2019
  2. Elektroingenieur

    Elektroingenieur Senior Member

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    #2 Elektroingenieur, Jul 6, 2019
    jerrymildred likes this.
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    the only people who have converted prius to electric only are the people who are bright enough to know how to do it without asking. i think there have been two in twenty years
     
    #3 bisco, Jul 6, 2019
  4. Skibob

    Skibob Senior Member

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    Save yourself money and heartache and buy yourself a Leaf. It would be cheaper in the long run.
     
    #4 Skibob, Jul 10, 2019
    landspeed and fotomoto like this.
  5. landspeed

    landspeed Active Member

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    Agreed; I actually bought a Leaf for this very reason, but am sure to use the Prius periodically to keep it healthy, and also use it for all long journeys as the charging network is not good in NZ (or, at least, it is not good with the limited range of an older Leaf, when trying to commute between cities).

    It probably would be possible to make a virtual engine, you could either replace the engine ECU with a custom ECU that sends messages over the CANbus, or you could rig up a circuit to emulate all the sensors. However, this would be a huge technical feat. If you could do this, you could then buy a Leaf, and put the Leaf motor in place of the Prius ICE, however, you would then need to either hack the Leaf to communicate with the Hybrid Synergy Drive, so that it turns the motor at the same speed as the Prius engine, or control the Leaf motor directly.

    It would really only be possible with the full schematics etc of both the Leaf and Prius, and then it would take one person months (at least) as a full time job to get it working. I just use my Leaf as-is, and I end up having a spare car if one of them fails in some way! :)
     
    #5 landspeed, Jul 10, 2019
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