New Addition!

[Rachel]

Congratulations. I'm curious on the *electric* part. Do you recharge a battery by plugging it in at your house. If so how much will that run up your electric bill?

[Freedom]

Congratulations. I'm curious on the *electric* part. Do you recharge a battery by plugging it in at your house. If so how much will that run up your electric bill?

No, this is not a plug in. The battery is recharged from friction from the front tires, and from regenerative braking; power which is normally "lost" in an internal combustion engine set up.

The ENGINE provides electricity by igniting gasoline to rotate the generator-motor. You can observe process this on the Multi-Display. As you drive along, electricity is created whenever the engine is providing thrust to the wheels. It's how the power-split device (Planetary-CVT) was designed to work. The engine runs at an optimum RPM, to save gas. Typically, that RPM is more than what is needed to propel the vehicle. So any extra electricity that results is routed to the battery-pack for recharging. This means the charge-level will usually remain high, even when climbing a hill.

The BRAKES also provide electricity. This is done by using excess kinetic energy to rotate the generator-motor. You can observe process this on the Multi-Display too.

You can see the displays on this comical interactive site:
http://priusfuture.toyotahighway.com/

Once you "enter" the Prius, click on anything which is highlighted for fun. Click on the LCD monitor to see how that actually works; they didn't do anything funny with this part!

[K9karen]

Miles of smiles!

[krazyaboutkatz]

Congrats!!! Toyota's are great cars. I'd love to have a Prius though. I'm jealous.