Good Day everyone, Hope everything is great with ALL of you. Just purchased my 04 Prius and very happy. I would love to know your opinion about EV mode. I do some deliveries in the neighbourhood for around 20 miles at slow speed. It is stop and go. And I am trying to find the way to use less gas. So, after doing some research here I found EV mode solution. Thinking of installing. 1. What brand of EV modes would you recommend 2. How many miles EV mode lasts? 3. Will a battery be damaged if depleted every day. 4. Will radio, heater, screen or any other onboard devise affect how many miles I can go in EV mode. Thank you very much
In all honesty you can get better MPG by learning to hypermile than you are going to get with an EV mode button. The useful EV mode operation can only get you slightly less than a mile down the road and in most cases it is not the efficient way to do so even when you can get it to engage. The HV battery is recharged via the engine or by regenerative braking. Recharging it via the engine is less efficient than just using the engine to travel the same distance. You suffer energy loss when changing gasoline energy into electric energy so you never want the engine to have to generate energy you lost by using electricity only. I'm mainly speaking of the EV button at this point. Some people know excatly when and where to use the EV mode but you will need to regenerate that power somehow and those people usually have large hills or a special commute that allows for regeneration efficiently. If you do more research on how to use it efficiency I would say go for it and install the button. Just don't assume like I erroneously did that you will save fuel by installing it and just pushing the button when traveling slow.
to the OP: you already bought the most fuel efficient car you can buy today....If I was you, I would learn better driving techniques and be happy with the 40mpg+ that you are getting....
I don't think the EV button is as good as we think it is, otherwise everyone will have installed one by now. Plus it voids your warranty.
Can't ask me to cite that. But you can call Toyota for yourself and see what they say. Of course if you uninstall the EV button before you bring it in they'll never know. Want me to cite that too?
I have a similar job to the OP. I have the EV button as well. Though its nice to use every now and then, if you are stop and go alot in one neighborhood and you are driving to get the best MPG you can, the ICE is going to be off alot anyway. If you must do an EV button, then do a search and make your own. I did mine for about $8, and it works well. Your AC, stereo, etc will all still work when your in EV mode...
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...-warranty-due-electric-vehicle-button-16.html Also, if you look at the toyota Prius FAQs on the Toyota site they strongly imply that your warranty "could" be voided. That said, the OP probably has little or no warranty coverage left anyway and it's highly unlikely they would notice some of the more subtle EV button installs like the Coastal version. That said, for what the OP is suggesting an EV button alone would be useless, and what he needs is some additional battery capacity if he truely wants to drive on battery alone.
Correction, you have already purchased the SECOND most efficient car you can buy. The 2000-06 Honda Insight MT gets better mpg.
Since he bought an '04 i'll let that slide but if was newer i'd call you on it since the Insight1 is not in production. : p
to the OP, i say engineer 4 or 8 KWH pack if mechanically inclined and willing to do maintenance and monitoring. its cheaper and a few have had great results. you will lose a little storage space but not much. you dont say what your 20 mile stop and go does so i will assume delivering something. if you can spare a losing a little storage, this will allow all EV driving for your excursions. depending on electrical rates in your area, you could save a ton
