29.5 Miles.  EV range is increasing in my Prime as the temperature rises.  I got 29.5 miles today from mixed highway/suburb driving, with it in the 50's.  I can't wait until no jacket weather finally arrives.  Warmer makes quite a difference.  Of course, I do look forward to the return of Winter here in Minnesota, but not for awhile.  The benefit of that vapor-injected heat-pump, battery warmer, seat warmer, and heated steering-wheel can wait.  The remote climate and charging-prep can be used in Summer too.  Both warming & cooling are full electric.  What will make more of a difference... Heater or A/C ?  Being able to run both from the charger prior to using the car will be interesting... and beneficial to EV range.  I do really like driving with the windows open though.  The next few months will be exciting.  I really enjoy the discoveries made by owners about Toyota's upgrades during the first rollout year.  This one, I managed to capture with my phone...  photo album 206

EVSE Shopping.  I have been doing some serious research lately.  The goal is to purchase two level-2 chargers for home in the not-too-distant future.  I held off even discussing the matter until getting my Prime.  Waiting meant getting the latest & greatest.  Not having Wi-Fi to monitor & collect information wasn't something I was willing to sacrifice.  It's quite common to find 240-volt chargers with plugs now, rather than having to hard-wire them.  Cords are much longer too.  I wanted something waterproof as well, not just water-resistant.  Waiting also means getting much higher capacity for the same price.  Of course, the system in Prime won't be able to take advantage of that.  But in years to come, you never know.  It's very likely I'll have friends with plug-in vehicles visit.  They'll be able to recharge while visiting.  My particular situation is very nice.  When hunting for a new house 2 years ago, I made sure adding lines would be easy.  In this case, it will be remarkably easy.  The 200-amp box is in the garage and the wall that would accommodate wires is completely open.  Both lines can be run across the tops of the garage door and an outlet installed each side.  We really got lucky with such a nice layout.  Turns out, our electricity supplier (the local co-op) offers $500 per line setup too.  So, that effort will likely be entirely without cost.  Sweet!  Purchase of the two chargers (EVSE, which stands for "Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment") will be covered entirely by the rebate coming from my credit-card.  I've been saving up that money for years to redeem toward the purchase of my next Prius.  Needless to say, I'm quite excited about the upgrade opportunity.  Though in no way necessary, the faster recharging could come in handy.  But more importantly, the new lines will be setup for discounted service.  They will be on a Time-Of-Use plan, which offers lower cost electricity when your use is during overnight hours and on weekends & holidays.

Hatchbacks & Minivans.  All those bold & meritless statements coming from GM on a regular basis is why that automaker gets blogged about so often.  Bolt sales not meet hype expectations has resulted in a shift of focus over to profitability.  GM wants to be the first to make a profit from selling EV.  We know that they are currently losing money on each and that the $7,500 tax-credit is absolutely essential for its rollout.  Looking beyond that is a becoming more and more of a problem.  Plugging in isn't discussed anymore on the big GM forum.  Members simply aren't interested in small cars.  A thread about Cruze hatchback barely stirring any customer interest highlighted concern.  GM customers want Trucks & SUVs.  That's why Volt never made any sense.  That's the same reason why Chrysler's new Pacifica hybrid is already becoming an issue raiser.  How many people are willing to pay that much for it?  Being a high-efficiency people & cargo mover is great, but there simply aren't that many who is could appeal to.  The importance of being affordable cannot be stressed enough.  We need real efforts, not token gestures.  Toyota has had a hybrid minivan for over a decade, but recognized the lack of potential here in this market.  So, they tried a wagon and a SUV hybrid for diversification.  When will GM finally try something else?  How long will it take Chrysler?  What about Ford?  What about the others?

Charge Now.  It's the little things that get overlooked.  I'm scrambling the best I can to find & document them.  Today, it was emphasis on the "Charge Now" option.  Toyota made the timer much easier to setup.  You can now schedule repeatable events.  The most obvious is morning departure.  A time can be set, complete with climate-prep (running the electric Heater or A/C) prior to leaving.  You don't need to do anything beyond just plug in when you get home.  The system will figure out the charging & preparation time needs for you, then execute automatically... regardless of how much charge (if any) you ended with.  It's quite handy.  Unfortunately, the first few times with that, you'll probably forget about immediate needs... like plugging in to recharge while stopped for groceries.  I did that today.  Annoyed about getting 0 kWh while inside, I looked for a convenience option.  Going through the menu is cumbersome, though sensible for scheduling.  Where was a quick option?  Yeah!  I finally noticed.  Rather than on the usual dashboard screen, there was a pop-up on the big touch screen.  There's a simple "Charge Now" button which automatically displays when you shut down.  I hadn't thought of looking there.  Duh!  I knew Toyota would have studied behavior and provided a convenience feature.  Sure enough.  There is was.

Higher Emissions.  Reports from first-drives of the new Hyundai Ioniq hybrid are revealing interesting results.  MPG is indeed competitive with Prius; however, emissions are not.  Measurements taken by an independent party confirmed the usual concern, that particulate & CO emissions are higher.  Toyota's priority of keeping emissions as low as possible, even if it means sacrificing a little efficiency, are appearing to be something not shared with Hyundai.  That's the very same problem we had with VW.  Questions of how the MPG was achieved were drowned out by efforts to undermine Prius.  I sure hope that nonsense doesn't happen again.  You can easily see most people simply not caring, saying emissions are clean enough.  That does echo similar concerns of the "clean diesel" campaign.  It will be interesting to see how the MPG situation plays out.  It may be a non-issue, if Hyundai didn't take into account the brutal impact Winter can have.  Toyota has 20 years of experience with that.  Will we see that level of sophistication from Ioniq owner reports?  Reviewers rarely ever provide detail to properly portray what ordinary people see firsthand when leaving work after the car having been parked in temperatures well below freezing for over 8 hours.  We'll find out in 9 months.

It's really sad that the message of balance was dismissed with claims sabotage, rather than the reasons for concern they actually were.

Hooray!  A friend of mine picked up her Prime this morning.  A few hours later, we got together for a brain-dump.  I shared as much as I could based upon the type of queries she had.  Not knowing what a new owner doesn't know is a challenge.  Her willingness to let me bounce stuff off of her for User-Guide material was great.  The experience ended up being quite a treat for the both of us.  Parking in the 2 charging spots at the nearby grocery-store, we explored the screens in my Prime.  All the while, we watched people walk by and check out her Prime.  The charging-cord was quite visible the way she parked, so it was obvious that shiny new vehicle was something special.  I'd pause my comments to point out yet another passerby stopping to admire.  2 people ended up taking photos.  I was fun to witness.  I got a lot of great feedback from that opportunity.  I provided a bit of uncomfortable how-to information as well.  To get that spot for her, I had to loudly say: "She would like to plug in."  A woman in a minivan parked in that spot, hoping no one would need the charger.  The moment she realized her actions had been called out, she very politely vacated... and even said "Thank you."  That kind of polite response isn't what you'd expect.  But then again, why did she attempt to park there in the first place?  Needless to say, there is much about the ownership experience to share.  Later when more charging spots are added to parking lots, they will be further back.  Up in front for the first few is to promote their existance.  You have to start somewhere... much like the one-on-one effort to share information today.  Having great technology is a large step in the right direction, but far from the end goal of replacing traditional vehicles.  Today's events contributed to that better future.

Know your audience.

Beyond Desperate.  I stumbled across an article today comparing Prime to Jetta.  Why such a bizarre pairing?  tI didn't take much reading to encounter the first outright lie, a dead giveaway this was a bias article written intentionally to undermine Toyota's effort: "The high-tech Prius Prime Premium has an manufacturer's suggested retail price of $30,060."  Where the heck did that come from?  Premium's MSRP is $28,800.  Advance's MSRP is $33,100.  Neither made any sense to compare to the Jetta anyway... since the writer put it up against a 5-speed manual.  How is that even the slightest bit comparable?  Plus's MSRP is $27,100 and it is much nicer equipped than the $21,715 Jetta in the comparison... which you are required to shift gears yourself.  Ugh.  Coming from a Tennessee publication and reviewed by someone with them for over 20 years, I just don't understand how such blatant greenwashing continues.  That is a sign of being beyond desperate to impede change.  On the opposite extreme, there was the less obvious, quite subtle "no-nonsense body lines" description of Jetta's look.  That's the spin version of making "plain" sound appealing, very much an effort to retain the status quo.  The really standout part of the article though was the fact that nothing was said about a test drive or any data presented related to results.  Not a peep about actually driving the vehicle is good reason to be suspicious of intent.

Charge-Mode.  I took advantage of charge-mode on my 1,700-mile road trip last weekend.  To my delight, the impact to MPG from charging while going 80 mph was barely noticeable.  There wasn't even a performance hit.  The system is clearly configured seek out optimum operating efficiency to extract electricity.  Those resulting EV miles came in handy later, when running around for dinner later in the evening after arriving at our destination and settling in at the hotel.  It was also nice when droving to a coffeeshop in town for beverages before heading back out on the highway.

Another motto often quoted was this is not a One-Size-Fits-All situation.  Notice the 11 reasons listed to buy an EV also apply to plug-in hybrids replacing traditional vehicles?