# prius battery pack



## superboy80 (May 11, 2008)

I have been trying to research using multiple prius battery packs to power an ev.. I have found the packs online for around 600.00$ (used). Has anyone done this or know anything about this? this website is great but for hybrids http://hybridinterfaces.ca/assemblies.html. I just want to know if it is possible and what kind of range I could expect? thanks in advance.


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## mattW (Sep 14, 2007)

These packs are absolutely tiny, I think the current prius is capable of 7 miles of low speed driving on the battery pack, The pack is somewhere in the vicinity of 200V 7Ah, A typical EV pack is 144V 100Ah...


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

I believe this car uses prius batteries and quite a few of them. http://www.electric7.com/construction.html


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## talonts (Apr 11, 2008)

mattW said:


> These packs are absolutely tiny, I think the current prius is capable of 7 miles of low speed driving on the battery pack, The pack is somewhere in the vicinity of 200V 7Ah, A typical EV pack is 144V 100Ah...


2G Prius are 201.6V at 6.5Ah, using 28 7.2V NimH prismatic cells.
1G Prius are 273.6V at 6.5Ah, using 38 7.2V NimH prismatic cells.

The cells can be useful, but need to be bolted together tightly, just as they are in the OEM pack, to avoid charge/discharge damage from expansion. Just bolt together how ever many you need to get the voltage you want, then create as many of those packs as you need to get the Ah you want.

But realize it probably will be VERY expensive, possibly more than just buying new cells elsewhere, unless you own a boneyard.

-- 
Tom Stangl
* http://www.vfaq.net/
* Prius Visual FAQ Home
* 04 Prius AM #7
* 06 Prius NL #7
* http://www.vfaq.com/
* DSM Visual FAQ home
* 90 Talon AWD Turbo


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

It looks like in the electric7 he paralleled up 4 packs of 38 cells to give him 26Ah at 273V or about 7.1 kWh. This is quite a small pack. I would say the life of his batteries would be some what less than in a Prius because he wouldn't stick within the 20 to 80% DOD regimented charge range of the Prius. If he did only 60% of the 7.1 kWh (4.3 kWh) would be available to him. The large series parallel pack would surely need some kind of BMS to keep it all in balance.


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## MitchJi (Dec 14, 2007)

talonts said:


> 2G Prius are 201.6V at 6.5Ah, using 28 7.2V NimH prismatic cells.
> 1G Prius are 273.6V at 6.5Ah, using 38 7.2V NimH prismatic cells.
> 
> --
> Tom Stangl


Hi,

At $600 per pack the 1G work out to about $338 per kWH.
At $600 per pack the 2G work out to about $460 per kWH.

Assuming they are in good condition (a big assumption for used batteries), and assuming you can set them up to get the Voltage you need that is not a bad price for batteries that are probably about 1/2 the weight of lead acid (five or six might be perfect for Matt's electric bike). Might make more sense than spending 4700 or $800 on lithium of unknown quality.

Best Wishes,

Mitch


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## John (Sep 11, 2007)

They are not actually that light at 52 odd kg for a 1G pack and about 45 kg for a 2G pack. A guy I know has a 1st gen Prius had a cell go bad in his pack (very rare). The pack had a lot of armour and robust mounts around it. He seemed to think it was over engineered maybe to protect it in the event of a crash. The case contains an air cooling system for the cells. Air passes down between the modules to cool them. The top and bottom of the case forms ducting for that cooling system. As Talonts pointed out the modules must be clamped together between end plates when charging or discharging. One of the modules from the bad pack was charged out of the pack and it swelled up and was ruined.


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## the slashmaster (Feb 24, 2008)

superboy80 said:


> I have been trying to research using multiple prius battery packs to power an ev.. I have found the packs online for around 600.00$ (used). Has anyone done this or know anything about this? this website is great but for hybrids http://hybridinterfaces.ca/assemblies.html. I just want to know if it is possible and what kind of range I could expect? thanks in advance.


If your going to use those packs without taking cells out for less voltage I'm just curious about what motor your going to use?


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