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[IamIan]

I am no expert on the Prius... and other people know allot more than I do about it ...

But from how I understand it...

It does have a 12V battery for the 12V system... but no 12V starter motor, so if the HV is down the car will not run at all.

As I understand the power split Synergy drive... if the HV electrical system is down the Gas engine will not deliver any torque to the wheels even if it is running as it needs the smaller electrical motor which is still HV to operate in order to produce drive torque.

In short if the HV Electrical side of the Prius goes down... the car can use the 12V system for head lights and such but can not drive any distance... not even 1 mile without HV power.

The synergy drive power split system offers several nice features... including the EV mode... and also it allows the Prius to keep the gasoline engine operating closer to it happy place for efficiency ...

Due to greater numbers of Prius on the road... you can just buy a predesigned, pretested, prebuilt and pay for it to be professionally installed for you to make your Prius a PHEV...

The HV side of the prius can get depleated... just like any battery... the most likely thing I can think of ... is parking the car when the HV battery is low... it sits for a few weeks and the batteries get cold... this causes their capacity to go down and the BCM in the Prius to treat them carefully... if the HV battery is too low... I would imagine you would just get an error code and the car won't even try to start.... but this would have to be pretty cold.... I would think bellow / colder and the point where the Insight is so cold it switches back to the 12V starter.... If this happens... you can't get a jump start as you can in the Insight as the Prius depends on the HV side to function.

Also the Prius Synergy Drive system depends on the HV motor for reverse gear and if you do not have HV electrical you can't go in reverse either.

Thankfully the Prius dose not drain the HV battery bellow 40% SoC so even at the bottom of 40% and then left in the cold... it would take a while and have to be very cold to have any issues....

The Prius is an excellent car... I still prefer my Insight... but I would gladly put the Prius #2 ...