Great video....I have a 2007 Prius and have always wanted to do the conversion to plug in. I've looked in to Plug In Supply. How much did this whole conversion cost? Do you feel more power with the extra batteries? Does the addded weight of the batteries make the car ride smoother? does the car look weighed down?
Total conversion cost was around $13,000 Australian. The car doesn't have more power, it's just cheaper to run. In ev mode it's actually slower to accelerate. Can't say that I actually notice the added weight, it's only around 110kg total added to the car, so it's no different to having a heavy passenger in the car. I added a pair of heavy duty 25mm raised rear springs to the car, so from the outside it looks no different to stock in terms of ride height.
Great video and great work...but it looks like a massive pain in the arse for all but the most technically competent and suitably inclined. I wonder if it is just easier to buy an older PHEV model. What are your thoughts?
great video! standard battery extensions of a series 2 Prius support the limited max speed of the standard Prius in ev-mode, about 48kmh. Which part of your modification allowed to reach speeds up to 80kmh? were both integrated motor/generators used for traction? (though one would be turning at very high speed...). tnx!
j k thanks. The standard Prius will actually do up to about 85kmh on electric only. It’s called out of gas mode. You basically trigger a fault code in the ecu that makes the car think it’s out of gas / Petrol. It will then not attempt to start the ice. The fault code is removed the next time the ignition is cycled.
@@exaturbo thanks for the quick reaction! ICE kill switch is then probably the "EV mode" switch we know here in Europe , combined with a CAN-bus message-modifier. great to know that the electrical speed under those conditions is well over 48km/h! since these sets are not available anymore (BMS+ or BMS2) I need to find other (affordable) sources to modify a Prius over here. 18650 batteries are already a commodity over here, to make de battery/powerwall. rgds!
@@exaturbo Hi Jason, I would like to ask you, would you able to describe ICE kill switch better. Do you have some wiring plan or setting of Can modifier? Will be possible to buy it anywhere? Thanks
The car can do that during normal hybrid mode, but for short periods of time. There’s a maximum RPM speed of the electric motors. That’s the reason for the limit on full electric mode. (The engine spins but is not consuming petrol) Remember that’s without this conversion.
These prius's are the best. So many after market parts, access to new/rebuilt modules..TechStream dealer access software.. very well built car.. makes these Tesla's look like JOKE IMHO
Sadly the only 2 places that were really doing this type of development have now ceased to exist. So only place you are likely to find parts now is decommissioned cars.
@@exaturbo thanks for the reply! I'll build my own, then. Much simpler, off the shelf components. If it results in increased mpg, I'll make a video. Videos like yours are amazing inspiration. This kind of thing was popular right as UA-cam became a thing. Back when so few people posted videos. I appreciate your content.
Could you please tell me where to get the Ice Kill button box? I converted my Prius into a plug-in hybrid with a Nissan Leaf battery, but it's limited to 50 km speed (31 miles) in EV mode !
The button came with the kit. Which is long since unavailable. There will be fairly clear instructions on how to make your own on the internet. From memory it’s not a difficult thing to make. Just a momentary switch that breaks a fused link.
@@exaturboThanks for your reply, I really appreciate it! I’m planning to make a video to show just how amazing solar panels are for recharging the car... I never expected it to work so well!
G'day mate. I've got a prius I was thinking of doing a range extender kit on just wondering... Does your kit just keep the main prius pack charged? Regards Blair Fraser Kyneton Victoria
This particular variation of the conversation kit would actually directly provide power for the inverter in the engine bay. The last one I had just kept the stock HV battery charged. These days I don’t think it’s economically viable to add extra batteries and controllers to the Prius. When you consider how cheap a used leaf is.
@@exaturbo they aren't that cheap, still around the $20k mark, which is fine if you are loaded or don't care about paying interest, but most people don't have that much burning a hole in their pockets
hi jason i am finally go to do convestion similar to yours could i asked a couple of questions i am based in uk i have a bit of experiance of building electric bikes im in my 60s this is next step i have a limited budjet which is why not buying completed vehicle 1 is your pack charged by the prius car when being used i see couple people using diode to prevent this 2 as no kit available can i create my own ice kill switch do you know what connections need to switch to enable this function do you have a circuit diagram of the add on wiring you could post 3 why did you choose such a high voltage pack when compared to the origonal hybrid battery pack i relise you get lots of questions which much difficult to answer it would be appreciated if you could answer mine thanks john
Hi mate. I don’t have the car anymore, so can’t help with too much of this info, but on the Prius chat forum there is a bunch of helpful people and useful info. I’m sure someone there will be able to answer a bunch of your questions. I don’t have any of the wiring diagrams anymore, as I gave them to the buyer when I sold it. As for lack voltage, 240VDC is actually pretty close to the original hybrid pack. It actually has to be slightly higher in practice for it to charge and run the system. The stock Toyota pack is similar voltage. And is actually boosted to around 500V at the inverter before being fed to the MG that drives the car. It didn’t charge from the car. That was one major downside. Not being able to recover any regen apart from what was going into an ageing Toyota pack. The way it worked was it disconnected one of the contractors when you were off throttle. This prevented the car doing regen into the add on pack.
I love that you have done this. Used EVs are likely a better option at this time. Have you looked into buying a used Leaf or Spark EV or anything? They are super cool! just like your kit :)
I did consider a second hand leaf, but too costly here. The leaf was a $60,000 car when new. And we only ever got the 2012 version. None newer. The spark is not available here. Neither is the bolt. The volt was here 1st gen only. Again at 60k new, too costly. Even second hand (assuming that you can find one for sale) only something like 300 were sold here in the first place. Another consideration for me is that my parents live more than 180km away and I need to be able to go there often. Any ev in Australia that can do that range is beyond my financial means. Can’t afford even the cheapest tesla either. That would be well over 165k new.
Hi, I want to do this with a Hybrid Yaris 2018.. tell me one thing, do you connect the extra battery in parallel, how do you avoid the battery charging the original one? I was thinking about using diodes for that but I think it is not the optimal wya that I can do that.
It’s not as simple as connecting a larger battery in parallel with the factory battery. You need some way of faking or spoofing the SOC of the Toyota hybrid battery. Or the car will not know the extra capacity is there and won’t use it. The system that I had had two electronic boxes that handled the spoofing of SOC messages. The kit that I had is no longer available, but there are likely others out there. Good luck.
I’m not as my life circumstances changed. But the person that bought the car from me is still using it. Depending upon where in the world you are, it might now be more practical to purchase a second hand phev or ev due to their pricing. Here in Australia that’s still not an option. (Not a financially viable one anyway)
Erik Balm mine came with the plug in kit from plugin supply. Unfortunately they no longer exist. Also unless you have a really strong oem hv battery or a add on battery, I wouldn’t recommend the ice kill button. The ev mode button is a different option. Australian cars come with it as standard. US cars didn’t. But it can be added.
Erik Balm with the ice kill button you have to pull over and turn the car off and back on in order to re start the motor. With the ev button it can be switched whenever you want.
The business that was selling the conversion kits is no longer going. So it would be almost impossible to do this these days. And as for cost, it was over 10,000 for the conversion. Not economically viable these days either. Plenty of good second hand evs on the market now.
@@exaturbo Thanks. 10k is still a lot cheaper than the cheapest EV though, and being able to get 100km on EV mode would do me for my daily commute. Does anyone do this in Sydney? Cheapest second hand 2012 Leaf on carsales is still 20k.
@@exaturbo I just had a look at the EV Plus website. Looks good but I'm just wondering how long this takes. You'd need a fair bit of spare time by the looks of things.
ygg drasil why don’t we find all the people who want to do this, find out a way to buy the components, then every drives their prius to Kansas and we install like ten of them in a single day
@@isaaclatterell1364 I like your thinking. I would just need to construct a bridge from Sydney to Kansas via the Pacific Ocean so I can drive my Prius there and this plan should drop perfectly.
I actually sold the car around 2 years ago. It was still going well at the time, but the Toyota HV pack was very weak and needed replacing. Didn’t want to spend the extra $3500 on it. So cut my losses.
Where do you get the kit?
Home Solar Research the kit was mostly from pluginsupply.com. The batteries charger and bms were from a West Australian vendor.
Plug-In-Supply are no longer supplying the kits. I have this info from Robb himself. The website has changed and no longer shows the kits.
evric2008 I must have gotten one of the last ones.
@@exaturbo I want the controllers so I can put in a battery pack but I cannot find them...
Can you make a detailed how to video? Or just point me in the right direction?
Great video....I have a 2007 Prius and have always wanted to do the conversion to plug in. I've looked in to Plug In Supply. How much did this whole conversion cost? Do you feel more power with the extra batteries? Does the addded weight of the batteries make the car ride smoother? does the car look weighed down?
Total conversion cost was around $13,000 Australian.
The car doesn't have more power, it's just cheaper to run. In ev mode it's actually slower to accelerate.
Can't say that I actually notice the added weight, it's only around 110kg total added to the car, so it's no different to having a heavy passenger in the car.
I added a pair of heavy duty 25mm raised rear springs to the car, so from the outside it looks no different to stock in terms of ride height.
So I came across the Enginer Company.Would you still say to stay away from? Is there another option available?
I would love to see a reasonably priced conversion kit for old Priuses (Prii?). Too much of a hobbyist thing now. Needs to be mainstream.
Great video and great work...but it looks like a massive pain in the arse for all but the most technically competent and suitably inclined.
I wonder if it is just easier to buy an older PHEV model. What are your thoughts?
Mark Harris I agree. I certainly wouldn’t do it again.
It has been a fun project. And the results have been really good also.
great video! standard battery extensions of a series 2 Prius support the limited max speed of the standard Prius in ev-mode, about 48kmh. Which part of your modification allowed to reach speeds up to 80kmh? were both integrated motor/generators used for traction? (though one would be turning at very high speed...). tnx!
j k thanks.
The standard Prius will actually do up to about 85kmh on electric only. It’s called out of gas mode. You basically trigger a fault code in the ecu that makes the car think it’s out of gas / Petrol. It will then not attempt to start the ice. The fault code is removed the next time the ignition is cycled.
@@exaturbo thanks for the quick reaction! ICE kill switch is then probably the "EV mode" switch we know here in Europe , combined with a CAN-bus message-modifier. great to know that the electrical speed under those conditions is well over 48km/h! since these sets are not available anymore (BMS+ or BMS2) I need to find other (affordable) sources to modify a Prius over here. 18650 batteries are already a commodity over here, to make de battery/powerwall. rgds!
@@exaturbo Hi Jason, I would like to ask you, would you able to describe ICE kill switch better. Do you have some wiring plan or setting of Can modifier? Will be possible to buy it anywhere? Thanks
The car can do that during normal hybrid mode, but for short periods of time.
There’s a maximum RPM speed of the electric motors. That’s the reason for the limit on full electric mode. (The engine spins but is not consuming petrol)
Remember that’s without this conversion.
These prius's are the best. So many after market parts, access to new/rebuilt modules..TechStream dealer access software.. very well built car.. makes these Tesla's look like JOKE IMHO
Thanks a lot for the cool information. Thinking to convert my Prius as well since the warranty is already over.
Englebert Lai did you do it?
@@RareMade Planning to build one
I'm having such a hard time sourcing the components required to do this upgrade to a gen 2 Prius. Any thoughts?
Excellent videos btw
Sadly the only 2 places that were really doing this type of development have now ceased to exist. So only place you are likely to find parts now is decommissioned cars.
@@exaturbo thanks for the reply! I'll build my own, then. Much simpler, off the shelf components. If it results in increased mpg, I'll make a video. Videos like yours are amazing inspiration. This kind of thing was popular right as UA-cam became a thing. Back when so few people posted videos. I appreciate your content.
Could you please tell me where to get the Ice Kill button box? I converted my Prius into a plug-in hybrid with a Nissan Leaf battery, but it's limited to 50 km speed (31 miles) in EV mode !
The button came with the kit. Which is long since unavailable. There will be fairly clear instructions on how to make your own on the internet. From memory it’s not a difficult thing to make. Just a momentary switch that breaks a fused link.
@@exaturboThanks for your reply, I really appreciate it! I’m planning to make a video to show just how amazing solar panels are for recharging the car... I never expected it to work so well!
G'day mate. I've got a prius I was thinking of doing a range extender kit on just wondering... Does your kit just keep the main prius pack charged?
Regards Blair Fraser Kyneton Victoria
This particular variation of the conversation kit would actually directly provide power for the inverter in the engine bay. The last one I had just kept the stock HV battery charged.
These days I don’t think it’s economically viable to add extra batteries and controllers to the Prius. When you consider how cheap a used leaf is.
@@exaturbo yeah well played!
@@exaturbo they aren't that cheap, still around the $20k mark, which is fine if you are loaded or don't care about paying interest, but most people don't have that much burning a hole in their pockets
Much needed now
hi jason i am finally go to do convestion similar to yours could i asked a couple of questions i am based in uk i have a bit of experiance of building electric bikes im in my 60s this is next step i have a limited budjet which is why not buying completed vehicle
1 is your pack charged by the prius car when being used i see couple people using diode to prevent this
2 as no kit available can i create my own ice kill switch do you know what connections need to switch to enable this function do you have a circuit diagram of the add on wiring you could post
3 why did you choose such a high voltage pack when compared to the origonal hybrid battery pack i relise you get lots of questions which much difficult to answer it would be appreciated if you could answer mine thanks john
Hi mate. I don’t have the car anymore, so can’t help with too much of this info, but on the Prius chat forum there is a bunch of helpful people and useful info. I’m sure someone there will be able to answer a bunch of your questions. I don’t have any of the wiring diagrams anymore, as I gave them to the buyer when I sold it.
As for lack voltage, 240VDC is actually pretty close to the original hybrid pack. It actually has to be slightly higher in practice for it to charge and run the system.
The stock Toyota pack is similar voltage. And is actually boosted to around 500V at the inverter before being fed to the MG that drives the car.
It didn’t charge from the car. That was one major downside. Not being able to recover any regen apart from what was going into an ageing Toyota pack. The way it worked was it disconnected one of the contractors when you were off throttle. This prevented the car doing regen into the add on pack.
I love that you have done this. Used EVs are likely a better option at this time. Have you looked into buying a used Leaf or Spark EV or anything? They are super cool! just like your kit :)
I did consider a second hand leaf, but too costly here. The leaf was a $60,000 car when new. And we only ever got the 2012 version. None newer. The spark is not available here. Neither is the bolt. The volt was here 1st gen only. Again at 60k new, too costly. Even second hand (assuming that you can find one for sale) only something like 300 were sold here in the first place.
Another consideration for me is that my parents live more than 180km away and I need to be able to go there often.
Any ev in Australia that can do that range is beyond my financial means. Can’t afford even the cheapest tesla either. That would be well over 165k new.
Hi, I want to do this with a Hybrid Yaris 2018.. tell me one thing, do you connect the extra battery in parallel, how do you avoid the battery charging the original one? I was thinking about using diodes for that but I think it is not the optimal wya that I can do that.
It’s not as simple as connecting a larger battery in parallel with the factory battery. You need some way of faking or spoofing the SOC of the Toyota hybrid battery. Or the car will not know the extra capacity is there and won’t use it.
The system that I had had two electronic boxes that handled the spoofing of SOC messages. The kit that I had is no longer available, but there are likely others out there. Good luck.
I was hopeing the clock turned 420 when the video is at 420
What kit did you use???
Initially this was an enginer kit, but later changed to the plug-in kit from a USA vendor that I now can’t remember and is now long gone.
hi are you still running this upgrade and are you still happy with it lot of crucial technical info i am considering doing a similar project
I’m not as my life circumstances changed. But the person that bought the car from me is still using it.
Depending upon where in the world you are, it might now be more practical to purchase a second hand phev or ev due to their pricing. Here in Australia that’s still not an option. (Not a financially viable one anyway)
Where can I get a kill ice button? I would love to be able to force the ice off from time to time
Erik Balm mine came with the plug in kit from plugin supply. Unfortunately they no longer exist.
Also unless you have a really strong oem hv battery or a add on battery, I wouldn’t recommend the ice kill button. The ev mode button is a different option. Australian cars come with it as standard. US cars didn’t. But it can be added.
When you kill the ice can it be reactivated while driving?
Erik Balm with the ice kill button you have to pull over and turn the car off and back on in order to re start the motor. With the ev button it can be switched whenever you want.
How do you do this and how much does it cost?
The business that was selling the conversion kits is no longer going. So it would be almost impossible to do this these days. And as for cost, it was over 10,000 for the conversion. Not economically viable these days either. Plenty of good second hand evs on the market now.
@@exaturbo Thanks. 10k is still a lot cheaper than the cheapest EV though, and being able to get 100km on EV mode would do me for my daily commute. Does anyone do this in Sydney? Cheapest second hand 2012 Leaf on carsales is still 20k.
@@exaturbo I just had a look at the EV Plus website. Looks good but I'm just wondering how long this takes. You'd need a fair bit of spare time by the looks of things.
ygg drasil why don’t we find all the people who want to do this, find out a way to buy the components, then every drives their prius to Kansas and we install like ten of them in a single day
@@isaaclatterell1364 I like your thinking. I would just need to construct a bridge from Sydney to Kansas via the Pacific Ocean so I can drive my Prius there and this plan should drop perfectly.
Still using this? Want to sell the kit or car?
I actually sold the car around 2 years ago. It was still going well at the time, but the Toyota HV pack was very weak and needed replacing. Didn’t want to spend the extra $3500 on it. So cut my losses.
Jason Munro if only you realized you could refurbish it yourself for $50+4 hours!