National testing of plug-in Prius

[PurdueGuy]

INL to test plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in Seattle area

Seattle, Wed., Oct 24 - Mike Hagood, Jim Francfort and Tim Murphy represented INL and DOE’s Office of Vehicle Technologies during a news briefing held by Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. Nickels announced the establishment of a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) testing program in the Seattle area. He detailed the one-year demonstration project using 13 hybrid Toyota Priuses that will be converted to PHEVs by adding additional diagnostic equipment, a second battery pack, and other plug-in features – including the ability to recharge the battery from electrical outlets. These advanced vehicles are expected to get more than 100 miles per gallon in city driving.

The news release from the mayor’s office quoted INL’s Energy Systems Business Lead Mike Hagood. “This project will collect valuable performance data needed to help the U.S. Department of Energy support development of a cleaner and more efficient transportation,” said Hagood. “The participants in this study will provide real-time, real-life information vital to ensuring these technological advances become viable on a wide-scale basis. We couldn’t do this important work without them.”

Energy Storage and Transportation Systems Manager Tim Murphy, and Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity Lead Jim Francfort also participated. They met with program participants from King County, Port of Seattle, and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, who will be demonstrating these vehicles in their respective jurisdictions.

Francfort has led DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity since 1994, in association with Phoenix, AZ-based Electronic Transportation Applications.

Here’s the Web links to Mayor Nickels’ news release; a King TV Channel 5 news report; and DOE’s Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity Web pages:

http://www.seattle.gov/news/detail.asp?ID=7850&Dept=40

http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_....1a144cded.html

http://avt.inl.gov

INL is the Idaho National Laboratory in southeast Idaho, where my wife works. This article was sent out as a news e-mail to employees, and is assumed non-confidential since it links to public website sources. INL has traditionally been largely a nuclear technology development facility, but is expanding/changing to other areas of study.

[siegen]

I saw this on the local news this morning.

40 miles on electric-only, 100mpg overall. Seems pretty good. It's kind of hard to calculate MPG when the vehicle can run on electric only so much. Are the Prius's electric motors powerful enough to propel the Prius in most driving situations?

[gm4life]

Prolly won't make it up a 15 percent grade. And I am sure it will over load your 115V wall outlet! :AH-HA_wink:

[GXT]

Interesting link here to actual test data:

http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/phev/toyotaPriusHymotionFact.pdf

Looks like the bar has been set. In early 2008, for $33K (21K for a prius + 12K for the conversion) you will get you ~160MPG city for the first ~22 miles, > 70 MPG for the next 8 miles, and just over 60MPG for each subsequent mile. ~3.6 kWh of A/C energy used.

Looks like this is the 5kWh pack from Hymotion/A123.

http://www.hymotion.com/pdf/Specs_PHEV_L5.pdf

The A123 kit looks very good compared to this Valence kit they also tested:

http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/phev/prius.pdf