Quote:
Originally Posted by rocko0002
That is odd. My typical trip involves a highway section sandwiched between suburban roads. My mileage is greatest when I can go on EV mode only for as long as possible on the suburban roads, but that means the battery is drained to a rather low level. I am seeing a consistent draw down to 20-25% at the end of every trip.
My commute is 50 mile roundtrip. I do not believe adding additional battery pack is an economically viable option for the current hybrids. A car would have to be designed from top-down to do a 50 mile roundtrip on EV only. The closest I know is the volt.
On the other hand, I would like for Toyota to provide a "retrofit" plugin to the current hybrids that will keep the charge on the existing pack to the optimal level and keep all engine part warm enough so that I can go on EV immediately at the start of the day as oppose to 5 mins later.
Regarding your comment on replacing battery, I just dont see your reasoning. Why woudl you replace it and for how much gain in mpg? Also,doesn't Toyota cover it for 8 yr?
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I don't think you understand, when the gauge on your dashboard or Nav system shows the batteries are empty, they are not, but are at 60 % of full charge, when they show full, they're at 90%. Batteries are under computer control and computer decides at what voltage level , what charge level to show and it doesn't tell the truth.
If you were going to reprogram TCH computer to allow the battery full charge/discharge cycle, you would loose Toyota warranty and the batteries would never last 10 years, they would last maybe 2 years but they would give you around 3 times the range you have now, therefore you would have to replace them much more often. Now, if your commute was less than 6 miles and you could get a charger to top off the battery at home and work, then in theory at least, you would not need ICE to run at all (you would need to also reprogram computer to not start the ICE unless battery is low, even if the engine was cold). In other words, just reprogramming the computer and adding simple charger, you could make you Camry Hybrid plug-in hybrid with 5 mile electric range. Of course in your 50 mile commute case and my 30 mile, we wouldn't have many benefits. On the other hand many people on this board have a lot of very short trips and that kills their MPG right now, making above mentioned changes to the car they could stop using gas altogether. From technical point of view, changing current Camry into plug-in Camry would be trivial, I could probably do it with off the shelf parts, it's the computer reprogramming required to extend the range and keeping the ICE shutdown, would be very difficult for somebody outside of Toyota. I hope this is more clear.