My real-world experience with the PHV

That road will top off your battery within the first couple miles easy. lol I've driven down it 3 times in the Prius but never climbed it.

My daily commute is 13 miles (one way), of which, 11 are freeway miles. The elevation change is approx. 1,000 feet. On the downhill run I can completely recharge the battery and be at full green bars without heavy braking. This is very easy to do if I am trying to maintain the speed limit at 65mph (i.e. braking slightly). If I am going for MPG then I will coast and glide for as long as possible and regularly reach 75-79mph but this will reduce the regen.

 

OK, maybe I found a reason why Toyota won't let the driver choose when to use the batteries in the PHEV: CARB AT-PZEV.

Apparently the Prius gets the AT-PZEV rating because once the engine starts, the car will run it until the cat is at temp and restart as necessary to keep it hot. Thus, on any given trip the number of 'poor emissions' starts is one. If the average driver is able to go 'in and out' of PHEV pack EV at will, the number of 'cold starts' could be significant and thereby remove the AT-PZEV rating. The EV range on the existing Prii is low enough that the engine won't cool before the car will start the ICE based on SOC alone. Not necessarily true of the PHEV Prius.

Back to the glide thing. Tony said it is difficult to get a Gen III to glide. WHY does Toyota not make it EASIER to glide? It is a great (incidental??) feature of the Gen II, a great way to reduce fuel use. Glide to a red light so it can change before you have to stop or slow significantly below current speed. You can't regen enough slowing to a stop to make up the 'cost' of getting back up to speed. Glide down slopes where you can hold speed with no fuel use. Glide when you need to slow a LITTLE due to traffic flow. I do this all the time and I'm sure many other PriusChatters do as well.

Make it a DESIGN FEATURE and market as such. Deadband the 1/2" between 'full off' and 'go' on the accelerator pedal. Inherently safe as your foot MUST be on the pedal so there is no chance you might need power and not shift back to D in time. I'm not going to shift in and out of neutral in traffic, not safe. Besides, if I wanted to shift, I'd be driving a stick.

 

Good point...obvious really if you think about it

We just think about the things that are important to us as individuals (mpg, comfort etc etc) but Toyota has to think about everything including laws and standards from all over the world.

You could argue that at the start of a particular journey you know that PHEV will be most useful at the end of the journey so why can't I choose to go HV at the start...still only one warm up cycle, it's just at the start rather than after 13 miles.

I suppose you could also argue that (depending on the journey) having control of when to go into PHEV (when it is most efficient) and consequently having two ICE/cat warm ups may be more efficient than going PHEV right at the start and having no choice but to HV through the rest of the journey (parts of which would have been more efficient in PHEV)...but I can't comment on that - not enough knowledge

 

I don't see that behavior with my ZVW30, frequent 'cold starts' during normal operation. But what would really help would be recording the temperature profiles: engine coolant and exhaust. We need data to really understand if repeated 'cold starts' is a risk.

Thanks,
Bob Wilson

 

without a real spare tire, not much use to drive in the sticks. every tire I had go flat on the road at speed was destroyed. tire repair kit would be useless

 

I that case, get a horse or a comfy "Glider", these are ecologically correct.

 

One could buy a full size or temporary wheel & tire and put it in the car on only those trips.

 

Why do I think my Gen3 glides whenever I want? I thought if I hid the HSI power bar between chg and eco I was pretty much gliding. In ECO mode that seems quite easy.

 

same here ksstathead. I guess if you look at actual amperage into/out of the battery there may still be stuff going on, be interesting to know how much.

 

I was thinking the same thing...I'm seeing conflicting posts...some people say that the Gen3 is really hard to glide and others say it is easy with the HSI...like Flaninacupboard says - maybe "real" gliding is harder in the Gen3...anyone who has a Gen3 and a ScanGauge like to back it up with some data or real life experience?

 

So, if I did the math correctly, you used a little more than 1/2 cup of gas to cover those 17 miles. (More correctly, to cover the 1.2 miles of Hybrid plus any ICE starts in transit). Nice

 

So about $1.10 or so a gallon--or same distance a normal gallon gets. Not bad.

The cost on this thing is a problem, and let's be honest 15 miles range is meaningless, barely worth plugging it in. I am disappointed in this vehicle. I feel that if they could have bumped the range up to 30 miles or so--within spitting distance of the volt--the Prius would have bludgeoned any comparison with the Volt (as it is, it's a better vehicle for cost we know, but 40 miles on E is nice).

From your blog:

Virtually everyone. Who can plug in a car at work? I don't know anybody who could. Honestly, not a single soul. So practically speaking if you drive from your house more than 7 miles away you'll hit the ICE on the way home.

I do like my 2010 Prius a lot but I think the plug in version is going to be very underwhelming and I have read awful, nasty things about how much cost it will add. I think the Leaf is an interesting car and not very expensive. And 100 miles that is real distance, now that is something I could live with.

Sorry if I missed this. I live in a wintery climate: What happens if I get in a cold Plug in prius. Do I have to suffer without heat all the way to work?

 

I never glide in my car. I think I will start. However, it can definitely be done--I've done it enough just for "fun" to know it's not super hard, although it would be nice if it was possible to tell the computer to not auto-brake as it does, but a light touch on the pedal absolutely can let you glide; the charge gauge will be dead center and you can directly tell the car is coasting or pretty darn close to it.

 

Honestly, how many people do you know with plug in vehicles now? Why would an employer put in the plugs prior to employees having the ability to buy the cars?

US Government LEED requirements are going to encourage charging infrastructure in the future.
LEED® Credit SS-4.3: Alternative Transportation ­ Alternative Fuel Vehicles

(Your location is listed as Western New York, I would have thought Engine Block Heaters would be common near Buffalo, in which case the plugs may well be there)

 

They may be in Buffalo but not in Rochester I hope I never have again to live somewhere where they are needed!

 

Huh?
So, I have a 13 mile commute. 6760 miles a year. 104(imperial) gallons a year, £560 a year.

With the plugin that becomes 2600 miles on petrol, 40 gallons, £215.

The volt would be better, but the plugin would be pretty damn good.

 

Skoorbmax, let me frame the 13 mile EV a little different for you: Let us say you drive 26 miles a day -- not a small amount, and within the 25-75th percentiles of US drivers going to work. You can buy a current generation Prius that gets 50 mpg, or a next generation Prius that gets 100 mpg for your daily grind to work. Interested ?

How about getting for free the possibility for infinite mpg when your workplace puts out a plug for your use.

 

26 miles/day in my prius the way my wife drives we're getting 45 mpg, thats $1.80 at $2.80 gallon gas. Now let's say the last half of it is gas, so $.90 and I'm paying approx 1/3rd for the first running on electricity, that's only $.60/day or $20/month saved. I have not perused this thread in great detail but I had the impression that the PHV option was going to add some incredible amount of money to the cost so you'd never recoup.

The Volt makes no sense economically but many will buy it for more than that, for the tech or whatever else and this will influence sales of the Prius, too, but it does seem more a proof of concept than anything else unless the plug in option is no more than a couple thousand bucks. The beauty about the Leaf is Nissan said this battery pack is going to break the bank but we'll save a huge amount of money by removing the entire ICE, not worrying about the gas tank, etc.

If we are economically comparing a Gen 3 Prius to a Leaf to a Volt the Prius smokes them in virtually every reasonable scenario, but if we're comparing a Gen 3 Prius plug in to the other two the Leaf is probably the one I'd want unless I knew that 100 mile range was going to be a real problem.

 

However, the world is not the USA, the prius is a world car. "Gas" costs me $7 a gallon, has done for a long time, and will cost even more in the future. Plus, even if a PHV ended up cost neutral (it wouldn't, i will be quids in), every gallon of petrol I DON'T use cheers me up a little.

 

You would of thought that a block heater would standard equipment in Canada, along with heated seats