Ah ok.

That Toyota salesman was totally misleading me, or I misunderstood him.

He pointed to a battery at the PS rear as the traction battery. It
must have been for the accessories. This was on an 06 or 07 model
Prius. I really had a hard time believing it was for the electric
motors.

For my needs, a totally electric car would be great. I've looked into
Metro/Rabbit electric conversion kits. Interesting stuff.

Neil.

On 6/25/07, Matt Roberds <mattroberds@cox.net> wrote:
> > From:    neil <musomuso@GMAIL.COM>
> > Date:    Sat, 23 Jun 2007 09:38:10 -0700
> >
> > Could you imagine a Smart Car size w/the current small diesel +
> > electric motor? Could it be done?
>
> You can hybridize anything.  :)  The Smart is probably a little tight on
> space, but you could do it.  IMHO it's not a big concern, because the
> Smart isn't a "real car" by American standards anyway, so I'm not sure
> that they will sell very well here, higher fuel costs notwithstanding.
> The Insight wasn't a "real car" either (two-seater, funny styling) and
> it's gone.  The Prius, Camry, Accord are "real cars" and they are
> selling.
>
> Also, a modern diesel might be good enough by itself to meet the current
> needs of the market.  Jim Akiba may be able to comment more
> intelligently on this, but it seems like for better mileage and lower
> emissions, the Japanese companies are doing hybrids, while the European
> ones are doing modern common-rail diesels.  I think this makes sense in
> light of their major markets.  Japan sells a lot of cars in North
> America, where you pretty much have to sell gasoline-engined cars, so
> they've gotten pretty good at gasoline engines.  To crank up the mileage
> on those, it's easier to hybridize with an electric motor.  The European
> makers sell lots of cars in Europe, where you pretty much have to sell
> diesel-engined cars, so they've gotten pretty good at diesel engines.
> To crank up the mileage on those, it's easier to put a modern fuel
> injection system on them.  I can almost guarantee you that there are
> experimental diesel hybrids running around Tokyo and Wolfsburg - I wonder
> if maybe the Europeans plan to sell modern diesels for a while and keep
> the hybrid diesel in their back pocket until it's time to kick it up a
> notch.
>
> > I believe the actual size of battery for the electric motor in the
> > Prius is not that large.
>
> The traction battery isn't very large, physically.  It sits right over
> the rear axle, between the rear wheel wells - if you're sitting in the
> back seat, it's right behind your butt.  In my '01, it manifests itself
> as a bump in the floor of the trunk at the front that is maybe 6" high
> and 8" deep.  Imagine a box that would hold a stack of about 40 VHS
> tapes and you'll be close.
>
> The electric motors are inside the transaxle.  If you saw a Prius engine
> and transaxle assembly out of the car, it would pretty much look like
> any modern FWD car's powertrain, except for the power cables sticking
> out of the transmission.
>
> The other major box of goodies is the inverter.  On the Prius this sits
> on top of the transaxle and is a box maybe 10-12" square and 4" thick.
> It is liquid-cooled.
>
> > And there's only one.
>
> There is only one traction battery.  On the '01-'03 (and I think on the
> '04 and up as well), it is made of 38 modules, each module having six
> 1.2 V cells.  So, 7.2 V per module or 273.6 V for the whole battery.  I
> don't remember the Ah number offhand but it's not very large.  The plug-
> in hybrid people install much larger (Ah and physically) batteries.
>
> There is also a small 12 V battery to run the lights, engine controls,
> radio, etc.  The engine is cranked over by one of the big motors on the
> 273.6 V battery, so the 12 V battery doesn't have to be very big - it's
> about the size of your average garden tractor battery.  It is recharged
> by a DC-DC converter from the high-voltage system - there is not a
> belt-driven alternator.  In my '01, the 12 V battery lives at the left
> side of the trunk, behind the left rear wheel well and in front of the
> bumper.
>
> Matt Roberds
>
>

--
Neil Nicholson. 1981 Air Cooled Westfalia.

http://web.mac.com/tubaneil