EV Mode

You don't need to be at a complete stop, but if you're going too fast for it, it will tell you, and it won't work.

If you exceed the speed while in EV, it will simply disengage EV mode, beep, tell you it's been disengaged on the screen, and you will continue to drive using the ICE (or combination of ICE and electric).

However, you often don't need to actually press the EV button to drive in EV mode. In fact, I'm not really sure the point of it, perhaps someone else can fill me in? But basically, the car will drive in EV mode when it can. If you're on the Eco Score display, a little green car that says EV will pop up to let you know you're driving in all electric.

Often, once you've accelerated to speed, you can release and depress the pedal again and, if it has enough juice and is adequately warmed up, the car will go into EV mode to maintain the speed. Just be careful not to drain the battery too much, as the ICE will then run to re-charge it, reducing your mileage.

 

As far as I can tell the only *real* point to it is if you want to slowly creep by somebody's house or something without the fear of the ICE deciding to come on and giving you away with the noise. It should just be called stalker mode.

 

in normal conditions.. you shouldn't ever need to use the EV mode.. it forces the car to use EV only and discharge the traction battery without the ICE coming on.

you should read up on the owner's manual when you receive it... but here's a few interesting snippets..

 

I believe I was able to use more gas pedal without engaging the ice, along with more accelleration without the ice engaging.

 

^^ This. I like to run down the traction battery a little before I park it for the night (or all day) to give the ICE something to be charging during stage 1 of the warmup. I can accelerate more briskly without kicking the ICE in, if I'm in EV mode (in my case, it's not a c though).

 

Yes! I do the same thing...I have found it does not make sense to leave immediately in the morning since the car will only use battery at high amounts vs waiting until the engine transitions into charging mode...which is seen by monitoring the "AMP" xguage on my scangauge II..once that happens, I get moving.

-M