The Waiting Room - Double Dose Prius

You need this bumper sticker with lyrics from Fugazi's Waiting Room.

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

Indy - Guy said:

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

[would] a HV pack fit in the floor board behind the driver's seat or passenger's seat?

I'll check into it and report back, but I'm doubtful.  Are you planning a "hot rod Prius" build ?

I want to keep any forum reader "safe" from hospitalization due to incredulous expulsion of hot beverages through their nasal passages; as well as keep prius threads from incessant posting of the "hellcat swapped prius is only hot rod prius" meme.

caveats aside, I've done some "napkin modeling" of a 2G Prius on track... and I'm arriving at around 3kWh of capacity required for multiple laps.  Hopefully I'll have more track-based kWh usage (expended and regen'd) data later this year.

so... planning?  more like "contemplating".

Here's the size of the pack with out the metal case or any other wiring: 23.5 inches long, 12 inches wide, 5.5 inches tall.  Pics below reference.

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Now to that it's daylight here's the size of the area behind the seats. 

So, yes and no. 

No, the pack won't nest down into the bottom of the footwell, but you could squeeze them in above the area.  The center console might need to be shifted forward a bit.

Will the Prius computer accept having an extra battery ?

Indy - Guy said:

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

Now to that it's daylight here's the size of the area behind the seats. 

[...]       So, yes and no. 

No, the pack won't nest down into the bottom of the footwell, but you could squeeze them in above the area.  The center console might need to be shifted forward a bit.

Yeah, looking at that, I wonder a little about yanking the carpet and coming up with thinner end caps to shave off ~1.5in of pack width, and maybe gaining some footwell width.

what might be the best thing to do for the console is notch the bottom, and set it up as the "new" cooling air feed.

Thanks a lot for the measurements!  They'll help keep my machinations bubbling for now.

californiamilleghia said:

Will the Prius computer accept having an extra battery ?

there used to be kits offered to "plug-in-ify" the Gen2 Prius with an external Lithium-Ion pack placed in/around the spare tire well (iirc).

AFAIK, The main thing is to keep the existing BMS contacts (voltage/temp) on the pack, and connect the additional packs in parallel at the "main bus" area.

I think there's a few members on here that could probably help brainstorm the details.  But, I'll wait for sometime in the future in its own thread, and try not to hijack this thread any more.

The rear portion of the center console is a fold down drink holder and the whole thing snaps in place.  Easy to remove.  When your kid uses the drop down portion as a foot hold to climb into the front seat the whole thing comes off and you get to snap it back into place.  Ask me how I know!   

Sample photo:

As for second battery in the cabin...cooling!!  My Torque app often has the battery temp at 100* under heavy use.  The battery pack has a blower.  The cool air is drawn from the cabin interior which is often a relative constant temp (comfort zone) due to cabin AC.  The air that has passed over the battery then exits the car via plastic vent tube in the rear quarter panel area near the trunk mounted 12v battery.

The air enters at rear seat cushion:

Here's a good visual:

Hidden by the rear bumper cover is a flapper vent sort of like a home dryer vent:

Quick update.

The hybrid battery repair has proven to be successful.  Did a quick 1,000 mile road trip last weekend, no problems.  Had the cruise set around 78 mph most of the time.  Car delivered 39.1 mpg.  I'm up over 270k on the odometer now.

Also changed the cabin filter.  It's a quick job, right behind the glove box.  Mouse trying to nest in there.

Quick update.  Car is now at 275,000 miles. 

I'm averaging about 37 mpg on a mostly "city" type driving loop.  That's not as good as it could be, so I've been reconditioning a spare high voltage battery from one of my other Priuii (the red shirt).  It's just about ready to swap out.  That should get me back into the mid 40's mpg.

Quick update: just continuing to live the High Mileage Prius Life.

The Mrs. & I got away for a five night get away to the Smokey Mountains. It was about a 6.5 hour one way trip from our house, so of course we took the highest mile car we own.  It rolled up 280,291 miles.

Not a single problem.

Here's some pics:

It got 45.4 mpg in the mountains:

Nice 

Think the graph chart was trying to tell me something?

Brief update,

Just barely missed the mark 

As the odometer rolled up to 288,000 miles.  So far so good 

I might be selling this one in the next few months.  It's probably getting replaced with a Prius V wagon.

NEW Shoes!

Craigslist score: $150 for all four (rims and tires)

$150... killer deal!

I have had General Artics on my various Prius over the years.  

Some very pleasant, sure footed, travel!

In reply to John Welsh :

These are Bridgestone Blizzaks & It should be noted that I bought these about 4 months ago, when the weather was still warm.  I just now got 'em installed.

It was like buying a motorcycle in the winter ❄️ 

WOW!

I don't normally run dedicated snows on my cars, but I might have to start.  These things transformed the car:  it's a beast in the snow ❄️

It's more confidence inspiring than the 4x4 Armada.  I actually chose to drive this to the store tonight instead of the Armada.

It's hard to argue with an efficient appliance that delivers 40ish mpg for a total investment of what...$2000?  Bless Toyota's heart!

No doubt all the information you and John share on here will helps dozens of other Prius owners in the future.

Finally, do you have a YouTube channel yet?  My suspicion is that older Prius content would be super popular.  My channel: https://youtube.com/@thingswithwheels1?si=tuiCSCYMNIxnvajF

I'm only about 30 subscribers away from monetizing (at a really low level) primary due to my EV content.   My bet is your channel would explode even faster.

In reply to Indy - Guy :

I used to run General Artics on my Prius fleet.  They are amazing and do make for super confident. 

In the early days of my fleet I had a LeSabre and a Taurus on real winter tires.  The LeSabre was my first go at real winter tires and that year we had hella amounts of snow (2013.)  That heavy fwd LeSabre with all that weight on the drive tires...exceptional.  That car could falsely lure ya into believing you could drive through open fields!    

In reply to Loweguy5 :

There is a lot of scattered Prius content out there on youtube.  It is where I get most of my best info from.  I agree that a well done channel could take off.  I think one of the secrets would be the possibly slimy effort of "curating" other peoples works.  That is to have a site that organizes all this otherwise scattered Prius content rather than re-invent all that content.  

Maybe this could be a good route for Indy-Family given that he has highschooler aged boys and likely to be "new media" savy.  I wonder if they would be interested in this off screen curation or even on-screen presence.  

Further curation:  We have added good content here on GRM but it also is scattered amungst many threads.  A tighter presentation could also be helpful

In reply to Loweguy5 :

Now 29 away