Eco vs not.

Not a dumb question at all. There are two basic differences when running in Eco:

1) You have to press harder on the gas pedal to make the car go fast.

2) The Prius control system tries to use less air conditioning, and turns the engine off as often as possible.

The main difference is #1. You still have full power available for passing, merging, hill climbing, and such, but you have to press the pedal down farther before you get the power.

Tom

 

Tom summed it up nicely.

I personally run in ECO almost all of the time because I like the fact that it tries to optimize the air conditioning [something about varying the compressor speed...I'd like to know more about it actually LOL] and seems to cut the engine off as much as possible. Even when I've had cruise control on, ECO seems to still up my fuel economy, so it's a pretty sick feature.

The altered pedal mapping can be a bit odd at first, and I admittedly still switch to PWR mode on occasion temporarily when merging onto a freeway with fast-moving traffic, but recently I've gotten better about learning to simply press the pedal down further than I would on a normal car to accelerate on an on-ramp, thus being able to run in ECO all the time. It took me a couple of 'test runs' accelerating onto a freeway in the middle of the night in ECO mode to prove to myself that it could be done if I pressed the pedal down most of the way -_^

 

frazz,

There are two ECO indicators: a green one that is always on if you've pressed the ECO mode button, and the one in the display that affirms you're doing OK at driving economically. As you note, the latter goes away if you push the pedal hard and get into the Power end of the bar indicator. It is never there if you've pushed the PWR button--PWR mode also shows up as a green indicator like ECO mode, but is not sticky between restarts like ECO mode is. I hope this answers your question.

The A/C in ECO mode is too wimpy here in the summer, especially going any distance. So for now I use no mode (normal) and will go back to ECO when it cools down in September. I also use PWR mode for merging onto busy freeways, and for climbing the half-mile hill on the way home if there is traffic behind me--ECO mode would work, as espressoTrae noted, but it's just too clumsy for me. And occasionally I like to be reminded that the car will go sportingly.

I bought the car for a lot of reasons, superior gas mileage was about 4th on the list. I always get much better mileage than in the car the Prius replaced, and I sometimes get superior mileage--but I do not obsess about it.

 

I was confused with some of the nomenclature when I first got mine also. I kept reading about the "normal" mode. Finally figured out if you push the <eco> button once you are in eco mode as indicated on the display. Push the <eco> button again you are in normal mode and the eco indication is no longer displayed.

 

The ECO indicator for driving performance is how I gauge my acceleration. If I have many people following closely accelerating from a red light, I'll accelerate as much as I can without having the indicator go out. If people need to accelerate any more, they can go around ! ^_^

 

Can someone explain how ECO mode affects the AC? I run ECO mode all the time, and the AC seems wimpy. Would the AC be stronger in PWR mode, NORMAL mode?

 

From how I understand it Prius has a variable-speed air-con compressor, and when in ECO mode the car will stage down the compressor at lower speeds or when stopped to improve fuel economy [drain on the traction battery, I'd presume]. My explanation could be way, off, though, as I'm not 100 percent sure how the variable-speed compressor system works, but that's my understanding of it.

To answer your second question, the air conditioning should be more powerful in normal and in PWR modes. When I've switched to PWR to jump onto a short freeway on-ramp, I've noticed the air from the vents seems to become cooler immediately.

 

Yes it is more powerful normal. All the eco mode does is dumb down your AC and throttle control. If you drive it like a normal person, you will end up losing fuel mileage when you hit your pedal extra hard to compensate for the lack of acceleration.