A Walkthrough Of The Group Training Academy’s Hybrid Prius Training Tool

We’re excited to tell you all about our drag racing, award winning (PTEN) cut away Prius hybrid/electric training vehicle. Here are just some of the unique features that make this an award winning training prop that you could have for your own training programs.

Having so much of the exterior body removed makes viewing and accessing the high voltage components, connections, the cabling, the cooling … etc. really easy. Starting at the back of the car, you see there are two high voltage battery packs. The live battery is down, inside it’s bright orange sheet metal cover, and up above it, mounted on a swing-up armature for easy display and access, is the fully discharged, dead battery pack, with all 28 individual cells, the shorting bars, the coolant lines, right out in the open for trainees to see.

Having duplicate sets of high voltage components, one live, the other dead, gives us the opportunity to train on components that are completely safe. Only after convincing the trainer that the trainee is totally competent, will the trainee then be allowed to safely work on “live” components (cables, connections…etc.). All high voltage components, live or dead, are clearly labeled. Stands for the demo stator windings, the demo rotor assembly, separate demo battery cells, as well as a TV stand for showing scan data or even pre-recorded materials, are located in the open side of the car. Having the rotor assembly and the stator windings here is great for the students since we couldn’t cut away the transaxle to show these components.

Up front in the engine compartment we find the inverter/converter assemblies, live and dead, as well as the internal combustion engine. Also exposed for all to see is the high voltage inverter radiator, as well as the high voltage A/C compressor. It is interesting to note that the dead components are from a generation 2 Prius, which are coming into shops regularly now, while the live, in-car components are generation 3. This gives you the opportunity to train for the next generation which will be coming into our shops in the near future, as well as the hybrids we’re seeing now.

Besides the training vehicle, The Group Training Academy has start to finish, hybrid training packages available with Power Point presentations, activity sheets, student worksheets, tests and answer keys. These can be customized to fit your individual needs or you can simply “plug and play”. Contact TGTA to find out how to get your own award winning cut away Prius training vehicle.