Problematic Prius (Prii?)

What's the plural of Prius?   If it's like cactus, it should be Prii.  Regardless, they're included in Toyota's string of issues and problems.  This seems like a good time to discuss the technology and it's limitations.

I purchased a Prius last March when my Echo started to eat it's transmission.  It had had a hard life.  I looked around and realized that the Prius was practically the only vehicle that got better gas mileage than the Echo.  Thanks to the recession, they were easy to purchase.  I've really enjoyed mine, although the lack of gears to shift was an adjustment.  I routinely get over 50 mpg.


Owning a Prius started me investigating how a Prius works.  Here's the best visualization I've come across.  Look at the link, but in words the center of the Prius design is a planetary gear system, the Power Split Device.   For the wheels to move, the outer ring of the gears must turn, and that only happens if "Motor Generator 2" is spinning.   Another motor generator and an internal combustion engine are mated to the inner gears of the PSD.  Everything in the Prius drivetrain is managed by its computer.  A Prius can move forward today entirely under battery power, but the nickel metal hydride battery only has enough charge for perhaps 2 miles.  Lots of people, including a friend of mine who designs electrical and mechanical devices, have figured out how to add batteries, typically lithium-based, to a Prius.  Then they tweak or fool the control system to convince the Prius to run entirely off its batteries.  Believe it or not, mechanically a Prius may be a simpler design with fewer parts to wear and break than a conventional drivetrain.

So why don't we all quickly shift to a Prius or the equivalent hybrid from another car company and cut fuel consumption dramatically, saving oil resources?  I'm sure when oil gets expensive again, interest in hybrids will soar.  However, from news reports it's becoming clear that the mechanical simplicity of a Prius is balanced against complex control logic that has the potential to misbehave if the phantom braking and acceleration reports are correct.  I've been practicing how to shift to neutral if my Prius goes rogue.  Lately I've been noticing more jerkiness when it goes on or off the gasoline engine, which makes me wonder if it's getting ready for a psychotic episode.  Such is life with a drive-by-wire car with a mind of it's own.

But the bigger problem for hybrid/electric vehicles as green saviors is expense.  A 2010 Prius costs well over $20,000, but Toyota makes only a small profit, perhaps $2100, on each Prius.  A plug-in electric version of the Prius with a range of 11 miles on battery, or the Chevrolet Volt with a 40 mile range will sell for over $30,000.  It's suspected that at those prices profit will be little or none for the manufacturers.  A Tesla sedan with reasonable range of over 200 miles per electric charge will sell for $50,000, presumably with somewhat better profit.  Nissan's Leaf is claimed to get about half the range of a Tesla, at about half the price, but Wired claims Nissan has taken some shortcuts.  It would be interesting to know Nissan's profit margin on the Leaf.  None of these vehicles sound like economy cars for buyers of limited means.  If sales of gas-hungry high-profit SUVs and trucks plummet with raising oil prices and economic contraction, it's not clear the large manufacturers can sustain the lose-leader approach to hybrid and electric vehicle sales.