Hi all,

I've just joined the forum. I've been gradually disappearing down an Alphard rabbit-hole for my next car, having started at Estimas and then fallen down the slippery slope. I'm particularly interested in the hybrids - I'm an electrical engineer, already have a Prius and a Yaris Hybrid and have spent too long on PriusChat, so I'm fairly familiar with how the systems work and am interested in how it's been applied to the larger vehicles.

Don't have a specific vehicle in mind yet, but leaning towards a 20-series Alphard/Vellfire hybrid, either importing from Japan or looking for a UK one with a poorly hybrid system that I might be able to work on. Open to suggestions, leads, etc in that direction but also other technical chat.

Welcome to the club

I reckon there are quite a few Alphards out there with hybrid issues and I guess they would go for a song considering the cost for replacement parts if you couldn't sort it yourself - definitely worth looking around for one

Thanks. I have indeed bought one, a 2012 with a sad hybrid battery among other faults. I'm planning to rebuild the battery when I've got hold of another one to rob for cells. I'll post a thread about that when I've started making some progress...

Edited June 22Jun 22 by Ptarmigan

Hi,

I had an estima before my alpy and love the Alphard but it's a 3l V6. More umph. 😁

I believe the alphard hybrid cells are 18650 batteries or I might be wrong.

I think the car is down on hybrid power until I can do a battery rebuild, so I wouldn't like to comment on the umph until that's sorted The Gen2 Alphard has 110kW of electric power while the Gen1 has only 13kW.

I believe the Gen2 Alphard's hybrid system is basically the same as the 2006-19 Estima, as that has the same battery configuration (double decker battery between the front seats). They aren't 18650 cells, they're NiMH blades in both 8 and 12 cell versions (9.6V and 14.4V nominal), totalling 244.8V. There are 15 voltage taps readable from Techstream; the 8 cell batteries are doubled up so the voltage is of a 16S configuration (19.2V nominal). The Gen1 Alphard Hybrid shares the same battery configuration as the Prius - 6 cell blades making 201.6V - under the front seats (indeed a popular swap is with a modern Gen3 or Gen4 Prius battery).

Aside from the battery, from what I've seen so far the way the hybrid system is organised looks similar to the Gen3 Prius (and relatives, eg 2013-20 Yaris Hybrid which has the same 3rd gen hybrid system as the Prius C), however the ABS looks more similar to the Gen2 Prius setup.