Even your brake rotors barely get warm in -35C. If the motor was well insulated then you could get a bit of heat from it, and the controller heat would be easy to capture, but it still wouldn’t be enough for a person to notice.

Sorry but I’ve been unable to add Links all day. If you hear differently, please correct me.

BTW, I don’t think the Volt will be able to recharge its batteries from the engine; that will run a generator that directly feeds the electric motors. The batteries will only be recharged through an external plug.

Enjoy.

This is the way to do electric cars IMHO.

Enjoy.

Madame Robspierre and I own two Priuses, a 2002 (the first body style, now with 70+K miles) and a current model. I am astonished to hear people say that these cars are underpowered. People who drive them almost never feel that way. The idea that a Prius is is somehow inefficient compared to a small, internal combustion-only car is a new one to me as well.

First, we live in Colorado and drive on 75-mph Interstates, in stop-and-go traffic, and on steep mountain roads, in temperatures ranging from -20 to 105 Fahrenheit. So one notices power.

Most cars never make use of their maximum power except when accelerating. Cruising, even at top speed, takes relatively little by comparison. In practical terms, acceleration matters most when merging/passing on a freeway. But it is most noticeable when pulling away from stoplights.

Priuses have excellent acceleration in normal driving. They will not set any quarter-mile records at your local drag strip due to the weight of the electrics. However, nothing but motorcycles and the occasional Porsche with a skillful driver can beat a Prius from a stop light to about 50-100 yards.

Why? Electric motors have 100% of their power and torque available at 0 RPM. So, even though the Prius has only about 40-hp available from the electric motor, that is still a lot compared to the 0 hp available to anything else. This means that, when an obnoxious middle-age-crisis sufferer in a Corvette tailgated Madame long enough to tick her off (hard to do) and then, at a stoplight, pulled around in the turn lane intending to outdrag her, he was sorely disappointed, despite his engine-revving. Madame exited the intersection before his fat Goodyear Gatorback tires had even started to turn. He was so surprised that he stalled in the middle of the intersection.

Such childishness aside, the responsiveness of hybrids like the Prius and, I expect, of electric vehicles generally is such as to make them seem vastly more powerful than they are, at least in normal driving. Moreover, those of us that drive between high and really high altitudes (5000-10000 ft), the hybrid suffers little power loss–nothing is better for passing on a steep mountain grade.

The efficiency of a Prius is unparalleled–hence the 50+ mpg. You get power when you need it without any shifting. The transmission is infinitely variable, so it can match demand to output far more efficiently than 4-5 fixed gears can, and it is subtler and quicker to respond than a human driver could be. Moreover, it doesn’t waste fuel idling. At stop lights, the internal combustion engine shuts down. On the road, any power that is not actually needed to move the car is used to charge the battery. Coasting and braking also charge the battery, so much of the energy that a normal car wastes on climbing hills and slowing down is saved.

The Prius’ internal combustion engine is indeed lower powered than similarly-sized Toyota engines. But this is an apples-and-oranges comparison. The Prius engine uses the Atkinson cycle rather than the Otto cycle used by almost all other gasoline engines. The Atkinson cycle produces less power per volume of air ingested but extracts more useful work from the fuel burned (less energy goes out the exhaust as waste heat).

The only downside I have seen relative to an IC-only car is in deep snow: you can’t rock your way out because reverse is electric only and allows no wheelspin. Still, I’ve only been stuck once, and I had a shovel.

I bought our first Prius at Madame’s urging, as a modest stick in the eye for Saudi Arabia following the 9/11 attacks. But I have stuck sith them because, considered as cars, they are by far the nicest, most practical, most reliable, most comfortable, best-performing machines that I have ever owned.