Play It Safe, Upgrade Your Toyota Prius Hybrid Battery With Proven Technology
I cannot tell you how many YouTube videos I have seen where people DIY or hack together lithium packs for their Toyota hybrids.
I came across something recently that just nearly caused me to have a heart attack. The picture below shows what an untrained but curious Prius owner is trying to accomplish with installing lithium into their car. I want to cover why most people should not attempt this kind of an install and what you can rely on.
Why You Should Not Put Just Any Lithium Battery In Your Prius
Installing any lithium without researching what type it is can be deadly. Lithium-ion, if short, will get thermal runaway and cause massive fires. It will destroy just about everything in its path until all the energy has escaped.
Lithium has many forms, and not all of them are the same. Lithium-ion and Lithium Polymer are two of the worst culprits for thermal management. They are most likely to catch fire unless there are sufficient safety measures in place.
Putting together a lithium-Ion or Polymer pack in that manner is a deadly combination, and I highly recommend not doing that.
What Can Be Done To Upgrade Your Prius With Lithium
Currently, there is only one solution to upgrading your Prius battery safely from NiMH to lithium. NexPower Energy has put together a 7-year battle-tested kit that offers Toyota hybrid owners an opportunity to fall in love with their hybrid all over again.
Project Lithium has injection-molded direct replacement modules that take the place of 2 regular NiMH modules. They are lighter, more energy-dense, and directly fit with no worries about crazy wiring or potential fire issues.
They use a safe and well-tested LiFePo4 (lithium iron phosphate) that is safe and affordable for consumers. It does not "off-gas" like NiMH does and runs cooler. It is 97% efficient compared to NiMH, so all that heat is used for the car instead of going to waste.
Conclusion
The hard work of "doing it yourself" is completed. The packs are available for Camry and Prius, with more packs coming on the horizon. If you think this is some sort of "fairy dust" or that the packages do not provide more bang for your buck, think again.
In 7 years, with over 500,000 miles of testing, the pack has given beta testers an eye-opening experience of how good they are. I have personally installed several of these packs, and each owner has happily reported back the same results.
Better acceleration, better fuel economy, and a price that did not break the bank. If you are curious about these batteries, you can read more on them here.
Thank you all for reading, and if you want to save your hybrid, there are better roads. Time is money, and trying and reinvent the wheel may not be your best option.
Remember, Today's Adventure is Tomorrow's Story.
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Peter Neilson is an automotive consultant specializing in electric cars and hybrid battery technologies. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Automotive Service Technology from Weber State University. Peter can be reached on Linkedin and you can tweet him at The_hybrid_guy on Twitter. Find his page on Facebook at Certified Auto Consulting. Read more of Peter's stories at Toyota news coverage on Torque News. Search Toyota Prius Torque News for more in depth Prius coverage from our reporter.