New PiP Owners...More data please!!!

I think there could be more to this question, take a look at John's post: here

 

There's a whole new excitement to the commute now. I feel like a newbie again!
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Congratulations John, it is a New Super Prius...Enjoy

 

Here's my blog entry for Wednesday:

Having to run an errand before or after work is quite normal. Today, it was before. So, when I drove up the highway entrance ramp, I switched to HV mode. That immediately stopped the battery depletion, saving EV capacity for me to use later. To my delight, the PHV was still remarkably efficient. So when the the 70 mph segment ended 9 miles later, I was ready to switch back, but didn't. What the heck, I kept in HV on that last of 55 mph stretch before getting off. It was mostly EV then. The engine fired up twice for a hard acceleration. That resulted an EV capacity bump... something those arguing against PHV never considered. It's not the penalty they always made it out to be. The engine shuts back off remarkably fast afterward too. The result was arriving at work with 2.7 miles still available. The 22.4 miles of travel averaged 86 MPG. I took the extreme scenic route on the way home, driving through the park along the river rather than using the frontage road on the other side. That may the final EV especially enjoyable. When I got home, the total distance came to 41.3 miles with an overall efficiency of 75 MPG.


And here's the one for Thursday:

Like the day before, I switched over to HV for the highway portion... but only half of it this time. I had no idea just how efficient the system really was. The result of the 16.7 miles of morning commute was 111 MPG with 3.3 miles of EV still remaining. Darn! It could have been even more efficient had I switched back sooner. Oh well, so I did not plug in at work. The commute home was the long way, to the lake to walk the dog with Mom first. This was the day the water was revealed. Only a small bit of ice remaining... the perfect time to begin ownership of a new PHV. Anywho, When I finally did get back, the total miles driven was 58.0 miles. The overall MPG for the day was 71.

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Yea, once you get a hang of it, it'll use all the EV miles up and the overall MPG should be higher.

 

Great info John...thanks -

 

This morning's commute was especially exciting...

I connected my ScanGauge for the very first time, placed a video camera in front of it, then covered both with a box. That way, my driving wouldn't be influenced by what the gauge was actually telling me. Then I placed another video camera in the window, without any of my usual lighting extras or even cleaning the windowshield.

This was my "Just Drive It" footage. No mode changes. Nothing. I just jumped in the car pressed the power button and drove... while capturing it all on camera.

The engine fired up around 50 mph, while acceleration up the ramp to merge onto the 70 mph highway. It stayed on until slowing down to 62 mph, when entering the 55 mph segment 9 miles later. The engine didn't start up again until I got stuck as the lone vehicle at a light with a large bunch of vehicles that caught up with me the moment it turned green. That was the perfect opportunity to show the rapid on & off of the system.

To my surprise when I finally got to my parking spot, after driving a total of 16.7 miles, there was still 0.8 miles of EV remaining. That was quite impressive considering the speed of travel and the resulting average of 156 MPG.

Needless to say, I'm excited about sharing video of this particular drive.
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Nice.

what mpg would have you gotten without plugging in, in those conditions.

If computer is right you used 1/4 gallon of gas. At 50mpg that would be 12.8 miles (to 3 sig fig) on gas and 24 electric (12 miles per charge).

 

I tried an experiment today in hill climbing after a trip down to the post office and back. I'd done this same route last weekend and noticed the numbers, but didn't write them down.

I left my house this morning with 12.2 miles EV showing and drove about 1/2 mile to the turn downhill. At the top of the hill, I was showing 11.5 miles EV. Going down the hill, the engine came on to burn off the excess charge and I finished at the bottom of the hill with 12.2 miles EV.

On the way back up I went a different street (stopping at Starbucks ). The distance after I stopped was 1.6 miles and Google Earth says it has 580 feet of elevation gain. The route has 6 stop signs, three of which are on the hill slope. By the time I stopped at Starbucks, the miles of EV had gone from 12.2 down to 7.1.

If I had taken this same hill in my GenII, I'd have gotten about 20 mpg for the distance. As it was, I got 999 mpg. I love this car.

 

Took delivery yesterday and played around with the modes on my way home from work (25 miles) and ended up with 77 mpg total and 3.5 left on the battery.

Rather than experiment, what the the best mpg strategy? My commute of 25 miles is roughly 1/4 city streets, 1/2 freeway that ranges from stop and go to 70+mph. then 1/4 streets.

Any comments will be appreciated.

Gary Einstein

PS Thanks again Dianne

 

My strategy would be to run in EV Mode at the slower speeds. Once on the freeway, I would switch to HV Mode when I know the speeds are going to be above 50 MPH. If you hit stop-and-go or get off the freeway, switch back to EV Mode. Acceleration kills EV Range, so when you get on the on-ramp and it looks like you can travel at freeway speeds, go to HV Mode before you accelerate.

 

The first question is if you can charge at work. If you can, I would suggest keeping the car in EV for the first section, switch to HV for the freeway (to save EV miles), then switch to EV for the last bit. If you find you have EV miles left at the end of the trip, try switching to EV earlier on the freeway and the system will use them to supplement the ICE.

I can't charge at work so I try to save as many miles as I can for the commute home where there is more stop and go traffic. My commute to work is all HV leaving me about 8.8 miles of EV. Heading home, I start in HV for the initial fast section. When I hit the stop and go, I switch to EV and stay there until the EV miles run out.

 

Did someone ask for more data?

Tracksyde logged this data using the Torque app with custom PIDs. He mentioned he made it to work in full EV mode. I made this graph out of it.

I am not sure how much he pushed the EV power bar but the traction motor (MG2) was logged as high as 44 hp. Regen peaked at 46 hp. Those are well above the regular no-plug Prius.

 

Because I was logging today and I was watching the screen, I was trying to get "high score" on the MG2 Torque display . I only tried maybe twice? The rest would be pretty regular for my morning commute.

After a couple weeks with the car now, I find that keeping the HSI bar about halfway is decent acceleration. If I push it towards the right, closer to PWR, you can feel it is a bit stronger, but it just doesnt seem like its worth the drop in EV range to accelerate just a tiny bit faster. At least thats my feeling anyway.

USB, thanks for putting the data on a pretty graph for everyone, me included. If I put the data on one of my graphs, it would likely look pretty but be meaningless data. That happens to me a lot at work

 

I've found out pretty much same thing, pushing the accelerator harder doesn't get you there much faster, but it can cause the ICE to come and then it needs to preheat wasting gas. It also makes the traction battery drop a lot faster. I find that when I'm driving EV 100% of the time I keep getting 999mpg, later it will reset but its still well over 260 mpg.

 

The drive home was really fun. I made no effort to keep the engine from starting. Heck, I was just as curious as others about what would happen. So, when I got out onto the thruway, I accelerated hard. It started and ran for a bit. No big deal. Efficiency was still outstanding.

Then when I got to the highway, in EV, the engine only fired up briefly. The climb up out of the river valley was at just a little over 55 mph... all in EV. The cruise to the 70 mph section was too.

Then when the speed limit changed, I punched it... just as I was passing a 2012 Prius just merging on. At that same moment, I got a bluetooth call for the very first time in the PHV. That new interface & ringer sure got my attention, especially now zipping along the highway. So, I told my friend he the conversation was being picked up by the video recording and told him about other Prius. The driver was now racing to catch up to me, well aware of what I was driving. He pulled up along side, giving me a big thumbs up. That was all quite amusing.

The drive itself began with Entune sending me an email informing me the recharge was complete. Shortly after that, there was a text from ChargePoint telling me the charge had stopped. They were playing my song. Time to head out.

103 MPG was the efficiency for the commute home.

121 MPG was the overall efficiency for the entire trip, which was 34.0 miles total with 2 full charges.
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From drivers of other kinds of cars, the gesture usually involves another finger.

 

I just reviewed the video.

The drive home gauge video is nothing but a menu screen. Oops! With so much to setup and so much excitement, I was bound to miss something. So, that footage isn't any good.

The drive to work is great... and quite revealing about how well thought out the system is. See sustained high MPG and low RPM at high speed says a lot. And of course, all that driving at 9999 MPG with 0 RPM does too. The flexibility of the system to deal with so much real-world variety give a lot of hope for significantly reducing emissions & consumption.

Stay tuned.
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Terrific! Looking forward to watching it! Will it be on your YouTube channel or on your website? Maybe in a couple days?

Thanks -