CAR GAZING
Plug-in Toyota can drive without gas
Prius PHV, not yet on sale, can go 13 miles before gasoline is used
By Derek Price
Toyota has spent a decade telling us how we don't have to plug in the Prius. It's a gas-electric hybrid car that charges its batteries when you put on the brakes, not when you plug it into the wall.
Well, forget about all that, because I just drove a Prius that comes with an electric cord.
It's called the Prius PHV, or Plug-in Hybrid Vehicle, and it can drive up to 13 miles purely on electric power before the gasoline engine comes on.
That means when you're only making short trips around town, you'll never use a drop of gasoline. And when you need to take a longer trip, you've also got a little gas engine that will take you as far as you need to go, just like an ordinary Prius.
The Prius PHV isn't expected to reach the market until 2012, but Toyota built a fleet of preproduction cars to test the technology behind it. I drove one of them for a week, and it provides some insight into the kinds of cars we all might be driving in the future – and how Toyota is stacking up against its electric-car competition.
HOW IT WORKS
The Prius PHV is basically a Prius with extra battery capacity. Unlike the ordinary Prius, which can travel a few feet on electric power in parking lots, the Prius PHV has enough battery power to go up to 13 miles before the gas engine kicks in.
To charge the battery, you simply plug the car into an ordinary household electrical outlet in your garage. No special wiring or extra equipment is required, and the car is fully charged after about three hours.
Driving the car is just as simple.
When you first take off, the feeling can be unsettling because there is no engine sensation like you get in an ordinary car — no vibration, no noise — just totally silent acceleration. There is wind and road noise when you get it up to speed, but nothing from under the hood.
Once the battery power has been exhausted, the PHV simply becomes an ordinary Prius, with a gasoline engine that gets a little help from electric motors so that it gets great gas mileage.
The regular ol' 2011 Prius is rated for 51 miles per gallon in town and 48 on the highway, making it the most efficient hybrid on the market today. When the electric version hits the market next year, it is likely to be the most efficient hybrid car ever built.
Your real-world gas mileage is going to vary dramatically, though, depending on how you drive it. For people who only take short trips, it's possible to keep the PHV in electric mode where the gas mileage is infinite. You would never use gasoline at all as long as you keep your trips under 13 miles.
The more long trips you take, though, the lower your mileage will get because the PHV has such a short battery range.
IN COMPARISON
The Prius PHV is different from the other electric cars you've probably heard about — the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf — because it's designed from the outset as a hybrid vehicle, not an electric car.
In fact, all three of these "electric" vehicles have completely different philosophies.
The Nissan Leaf is the purest of the three because it doesn't have a gasoline engine. When the battery runs out, you're stuck. But it also has the longest range of the three electric cars, letting you go 73 miles before charging according to the EPA.
The Volt takes a different path. It has a gasoline engine, but the engine's job is merely to charge the batteries like a generator. The Volt is always powered by electricity, like the Leaf, but it has the gas generator to keep it driving indefinitely, just like a gas powered car. It can drive up to 50 miles before the gas generator kicks in.
The Prius PHV is a gas-electric hybrid, though, so the gasoline engine drives the front wheels like a regular gas-powered car. It's the least "electric" of them all and has the shortest range in electric mode.
DRIVING EXPERIENCE
Unlike the Volt, which is a real driver's car, the Prius PHV doesn't inspire any excitement. Whereas the ordinary Prius is slow, the Prius PHV is epically slow. Grandma slow. Continental drift slow.
Perhaps that's not entirely fair because the PHV I drove is a preproduction model, so the final version might be different. And when you really stomp down hard on the gas pedal, the gasoline engine automatically starts up – even in battery-powered mode – so you've got about the same acceleration as a normal Prius.
But, make no mistake, it's drastically slower than the Volt I drove last month.
If you can get past that complaint, the Prius PHV has a fairly comfortable, compliant ride and surprisingly spacious cabin. The eco-geek styling makes it look like an itty-bitty car in pictures, but the passenger space is almost on par with what you would expect in a true mid-size car like the Toyota Camry. It's not cramped.
It also has a spacey, high-tech, sci-fi feel from the driver's seat. There are lots of interesting controls, like an electric gear selector that feels like it belongs on a Nintendo controller, and a digital display that gives you a readout of all kinds of interesting information on the propulsion system.
WHAT IT MEANS
The market for electric cars is getting interesting. While it may not mean much in the short term – the total sales for the Volt, Leaf and Prius PHV will be slow in the first few years – it does provide a good alternative if another gas crisis were to hit America.
It's also fascinating to watch these huge global companies take completely different directions with their electric cars. Nissan's all-electric Leaf, GM's electric Volt with a generator, and Toyota's plug-in hybrid car show how all these manufacturers are betting on electricity being some part of the world's future automotive landscape.
And with cars like this, that future is looking shockingly close at hand.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.)
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