Change over Chevy Volt, there’s one different, now! Think about bettering the gasoline mileage of the already most attention-grabbing at school Toyota Prius an extra 25% on in-town journeys. I found that is doable with the organize of the 4KW Enginer plug in improve. This boosts the battery performance 4 fold from the underside 1.3 KWH system inside the bottom Prius. For the final word 18,000 miles now we’ve now averaged 43 mpg with our 2005 Prius in exact world driving contained in the hills of NE Tennessee. With the Enginer gear, now we’ve now seen our mileage leap to 55 mpg over the earlier 2100 miles. A pal contained in the Knoxville EV membership claims 120 MPG nonetheless admits he drives VERY slowly. The system, put in on Feb fifth, has given us our 5 most attention-grabbing tanks so far. Our outcomes are confirmed beneath.
Having transformed my truck to a plug-in hybrid and establishing an all-electric Jeep with Leslie Grossman of the Knoxville Electrical Automotive affiliation, I anticipated to look out challenges all by the organize. To my shock, the gear purchased proper right here with all obligatory devices and parts and after about 12 hours of labor the system was up and dealing. If I understood how the intense voltage relay labored on the Prius, I might have saved about 5 hours as I panicked when the auto wouldn’t begin. A revised organize info contains these extra particulars.
The picture beneath shows the gear with the charger, DC to DC converter, BMS, and batteries collectively in a neat topic that matches underneath the present trunk ground of the Prius.
The gear retains the inner battery of the Prius (and completely completely different hybrids) fully charged for about 20-50 miles, relying upon driving circumstances. On account of the inner battery maintains a higher state of worth, the auto slips into EV mode additional typically permitting the engine to remain off a great deal of the time. Since we hardly run in pure EV mode with all the hills, we drive about 50 miles before the Enginer gear is out of vitality. After plugging in for a just a few hours the system is as rapidly as as quickly as additional able to go.
The gear will not be for the faint of coronary coronary coronary heart, on account of the sprint needs to be pulled aside to position in a swap on one facet and to make 3 connections on the opposite facet. Then, the precise facet channels and rear facet panels are eradicated to run the wires to the sprint swap, tie into automotive vitality and feed the BMS. Lastly one must drill six holes by means of the trunk ground and physique to protected the sector.
The downsides to the gear are that the spare tire is buried underneath the system, so for most individuals it is not accessible. We solved this instance by sticking a can of Restore-a-Flat® contained in the automotive, much like what Tesla does. One completely different draw once more is that you just simply lose the useful hidden storage underneath the underside. Nonetheless the Prius nonetheless has about 20 cubic ft of storage: nearly double what’s within the market contained in the Volt. When fully put inside the system is invisible. Our “trunk” appears to be like like that of every completely different Prius. The one apparent variations are the plug mounted on the rear bumper for charging and the swap on the sprint to point the system off with the standing LEDs
After wrestling months getting onerous to look out parts and ready for various parts on my completely completely different conversions, it was pleasing to have the facility to complete a endeavor in a weekend and expertise the outcomes. Whereas one wouldn’t buy a full EV “grin” from such a conversion it does take us but yet another step within the course of decreasing our want for imported oil. At a price of $2995, the Enginer system is additional low-cost than completely completely different conversion alternatives s and a great way for folks on the fence to grasp expertise and a greater notion of what’s concerned in a full conversion. For additional particulars and completely completely different sustainability duties please see Hrivnak Household Web Pages or Engineer for additional gear particulars.