My New Plug In 6 Week Data Update

Discussion in 'Gen 1 Prius Plug-in 2012-2015' started by Rich'splugin, Jun 13, 2012.

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  1. Rich'splugin

    Rich'splugin New Member

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    Hi all,

    I purchased a dark grey PIP April 28th had after market leather seats installed at the dealer. Thought I would give a quick update of my experience so far and what I have learned from driving it. As background I am in Rochester NY work about 6 miles from home. My previous car was a 2008 Prius which was a great car but nothing compared to my new PIP. The new PIP drives beautifully, is very comfortable, handles well and is, in my humble opinion, an incredible piece of technology.

    I have had the car for 6 weeks now and still have a half tank of gas left from the original fill up at the dealer when I purchased the car. I have driven 750 miles so far and am averaging about 150 miles per gallon keeping in mind that most of my driving has been within a 15 mile radius from home except for the occasional longer trip. My electric miles represents about 67% of all miles driven so far on the gauge.

    My tires are inflated to about 39 psi. I have been averaging about 12 to 13 miles in all electric mode depending upon how I drive and the hills en route. My worst so far was 10 my best was close to 15 miles but with a lot of gentle downward sloping road. I find that the pump and glide method of driving in all electric mode works well, I try to coast as much as possible keeping the energy use meter at zero, (neither charging or using electric). When breaking its best to start breaking early and gently to maximize the regenerative breaking capability, the gauge will show you how much you are generating break just hard enough to get the gauge almost to maximum regeneration that way you don't waste momentum as you break. All my driving is done in ECO mode as much as possible as this gives me a gentle acceleration and allows me better control of the energy usage. I have also found that if I am going to go up a longer steeper hill its best to put the car in Hybrid Mode before I get their so that the ICE can warm up a little as I am coasting toward the hill. I drive up the hill in Hybrid mode using mostly gas then once I am near the top of the hill I put it back in all EV mode again.

    I use the internal timer in the car to charge the car at night, setting it to go on at 3:00 am and off at 6:00 am. On occasion during the weekend I will charge it multiple times if I am using the car and running the battery down. I try to let it go all the way to zero before recharging but not always so far no problems.

    The miles to drive showing in the EV mode indicator fluctuates between 12 and 12.6 depending upon how many miles I got on my last few all electric runs. I have found that this indicator is just a rough calculated guide based on your last few drives and not necessarily indicative of the all electric miles you will get on any particular drive in the future. You can verify this using the odometer to measure actual miles.

    Overall, this is a fantastic car I love everything about it and would highly recommend it. I think to get the most out of it you have to be willing to experiment a little with the different modes and driving styles as well as have realistic expectations. Thank you to all who have posted helpful hints on this forum its been an tremendous help to me so far, I hope this information is of help to others. Best of luck with your PIPs
     
    #1 Rich'splugin, Jun 13, 2012
    snead_c, F8L, ukr2 and 6 others like this.
  2. bielinsk

    bielinsk Gremlin

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    Nice read, hard to read as it is formatted like a wall of text. May want to try some paragraphs to make it easier on the eyes.
     
    #2 bielinsk, Jun 13, 2012
  3. radiocycle

    radiocycle Active Member

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    ...and welcome to Prius Chat !:)​
     
    #3 radiocycle, Jun 13, 2012
  4. Rich'splugin

    Rich'splugin New Member

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    Thanks for suggestion will do that next time.
     
    #4 Rich'splugin, Jun 13, 2012
  5. jsfabb

    jsfabb Active Member

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    Step back five feet and see which one is easier to read. I'm sure you were so excited to post your experiences that you forgot to hit the Enter key a few times! :)

    GOOD LUCK with your car!!!
     
    #5 jsfabb, Jun 13, 2012
  6. Rich'splugin

    Rich'splugin New Member

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    I agree thanks for the suggestions, I made some changes. :)
     
    #6 Rich'splugin, Jun 13, 2012
  7. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    great write up rick!:cool:
     
    #7 bisco, Jun 13, 2012
  8. CharlesH

    CharlesH CA HOV Decal #5 on former PiP

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    I see the comment "setting it to go on at 3:00 am and off at 6:00 am." I think you are laboring under the false impression that the "start" and "end" time form an interval. :unsure: Contrary to what I consider the common sense interpretation, this is not how it works. There are two totally unrelated timers: one specifies a start time, one specifies an end time. When you activate the timer, you pick ONE of them to be active. If you pick the "start" timer, that it the time charging will start, and it will run until charging is complete. If you pick the "end" timer, the system will compute its best guess as to when to start charging so that it will be complete close to the "end" time. Charging will always run to completion unless manually interrupted by, for example, removing the plug.
     
    #8 CharlesH, Jun 13, 2012
  9. bfd

    bfd Plug-In Perpetuator

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    This makes sense based on my limited sample. For example, if I set start time at 2:00am, that's when I get the starting e-mail. It never takes 3 hours to charge, and surprisingly the median amount of time is just over 2 hours.

    I'll have to try choosing the end time and see how the system reacts.
     
    #9 bfd, Jun 13, 2012
  10. stacey

    stacey ☆☆☆☆☆

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    I use the end timer set at 0700 and according to the emails, last night's charge (from .1 miles remaining) started at 0411 and ended at 0625. It seems pretty consistent starting around 0400, even if I'm only doing a partial charge.
     
    #10 stacey, Jun 14, 2012
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  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    same here. i have not used the timer, but it's alway 2 1/2 - 2 3/4 hours to recharge from empty.
     
    #11 bisco, Jun 14, 2012
  12. ukr2

    ukr2 Senior Member

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    Rich,

    Glad to see another Rochester NY PIP owner on PriusChat?
    Where do you live and work?
    Which Dealer did you use?

    I live in Victor, retired, and work at a Travel office in Henrietta.
    I got my PIP March 14 from Dorschel, preorder #110, 1st in Rochester and love it.

    jjbradley is the only other PIP owner that I've chatted with from Spencerport. He got his at Vanderstyne.


    Enjoy,
     
    #12 ukr2, Jun 14, 2012
  13. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    My day ended with 6 miles of EV remaining. Choosing the END time made more sense than using START and having it finish an hour before I needed it.
     
    #13 john1701a, Jun 14, 2012
  14. drinnovation

    drinnovation EREV for EVER!

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    Not so much of an issue now, but in the winter will definitely be better to finish just before you need it so its warmer and more efficient.

    Summer time in the south, maybe better to charge when its cooler -- also more efficient and better for the battery.
     
    #14 drinnovation, Jun 14, 2012
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  15. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    Thanks for the post, Rick. :)
     
    #15 F8L, Jun 15, 2012
  16. CraigCSJ

    CraigCSJ Active Member

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    I have the Basic model, and think that if I use END it ALWAYS starts charging three hours earlier than the set end time. So in your example, I would think START would be better, with the start time about 1 1/2 hours before you planned to use the car, giving it enough time to charge from 6 miles to full. Perhaps you can check my assumption about the END time always starting 3 hours earlier using your Advanced features.
     
    #16 CraigCSJ, Jun 15, 2012
  17. bielinsk

    bielinsk Gremlin

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    I am not so sure about this end time. Last night I got home and plugged in at 9:30, EV was depleted. I set the END TIME to end at 7am. I verified on my phone that the timer was set to end at 7am.

    I received an email that the car finished charging at 5:33. That doesn't make sense. At the earliest, it should have estimated 3 hours to charge and started charging at 4am.

    I don't think the end time works as we expect.
     
    #17 bielinsk, Jun 15, 2012
  18. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    That matches my observation from this morning. I set it to END at 7:50 AM. Charging started 3 hours prior to that, ending at 6:16 AM... which was definitely not what I had in mind.
     
    #18 john1701a, Jun 15, 2012
  19. CharlesH

    CharlesH CA HOV Decal #5 on former PiP

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    Is the clock on the dash set correctly? It is separate from the one in the display unit, which sets itself from GPS.
     
    #19 CharlesH, Jun 15, 2012
  20. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    I tried again. Same results. It's starting 3 hours prior.
     
    #20 john1701a, Jun 16, 2012
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