Step on it! Have some fun.

I don't have a problem keeping up with traffic when I am on 25-55 mph roads. in town driving, but I'am in small town in Wisconsin. YMMV. So check one out and drive one and see what you think. Your driving habits may be different than mine.

 

+1

 

The PIP is not in Utah yet but should be here soon for a test drive. So, it sounds like the acceleration is nothing like the standard Prius in EV mode.

 

Maybe this will help:

About 19-20 seconds to get to 50.. although there was a short time in the 45-46 MPH range where I backed off a bit because it was getting a little too close to the PWR range

 

Nice Job, shows it well. Fast enough for me. Most of the time someone else is going slower than me.

 

even 18 seconds to get to 50 is pretty damn slow. consider that flooring the PHV will get you to 60 in half the time.

 

however, in my limited driving experience with the PiP, you can definitely push it much harder than the PHV and still stay in EV mode. in my experience, though, it still requires active foot-eye coordination to make sure that the ICE doesn't kick in.

 

I see what you are saying. You are comparing 70% EV to 80% in the ECO range. This would be a pretty good (yet slow) drag race. Do we have video (or times) of accelerating with out hitting Power zone?

If you watch the first attempt when the ICE kicks on it doesn't seem to slow down. If ECO range was slower it would have to jump right to power mode.

 

when i jump onto the highway on the way home on my commute, i have a downhill ramp that i get to about 45 and uphill when i hit the highway. in ev, getting to 55 feels pretty easy compared to hv. but i don't floor it in either so maybe hv just requires more pedal for some reason. but i think ev has more torque. it does eat up some serious battery tho.

 

It is almost impossible to avoid the ICE kicking in during my morning commute to merge into the carpool lane. It maybe a crawl to get over from the on-lamp to the next-to-left lane, but I usually need to step on the pedal all the way to merge into the carpool lane since it is moving much faster than the rest.

I usually save about 1.5 miles of EV before I get off the freeway on my way to work, but on Fri morning the traffic was so light that my average speed was almost 60mph, therefore, I did not have to switch off EV all the way.

 

i wish there was a switch that let you floor it in ev and ice won't come on until you hit 62.

 

They do it is called the Volt. EV to 100mph.

Kidding aside, that is what I like about the volt. You can really floor it for 30 miles and have fun and drive highway. My commute is 29 miles round trip with about 20 miles on highways. So, I think I am leaning at getting a regular Prius or a Volt. There are some great deals out there on the volt and with the 7500 (+ 600 state) back it is less than a PIP. But the economics point to just getting the regular Prius and hypermiling. (with the volt I wouldn't have to hypermile, except some in the winter)

 

don't forget cmax.

 

Yep, I am going to check it out as soon as it is local. Then if I like it will wait for the Energi reviews and test drive.

 

The non-PIP can accelerate decently in EV Mode (button pushed). You can go into the power section if you are careful. I'd like to try it in the PIP to see if it is different.

 

thanks ultra-turtle and trackyside for real data. yes for that type of acceleration there is little efficency loss.
In the 0-60% throttle region, the EV will show very little efficiency difference because the primary losses in an electric motor are the "copper loss" which is resistance time the square of current and at those levels there is not that much current. (Note the linear plot of torque vs current does not address electric system loss, just mechanical system losses and maybe what is called iron-loss as the magnets produce drag. That the current is linear means the losses from resistance are increasing quadratically with torque, e.g. see Electrical Motor Efficiency ).

Your data also also help explains why I was confused and suggesting there is an effect. In my testing i considered 20 seconds for 0-60 to be my "slow" acceleration, and stepping on it meant double that or better with 0- 60 in 9 seconds. I guess with the controller in the PHV, it limits you to the EV accelerations that are still efficient and if you are more agressive you get the ICE.

One of the "fun" things in the Volt is that I can do 0-60 in <10 seconds, and blow off the line when I want to, and know its only taking .2 to .3 miles of EV range each time I do it. So on days were I have lots of margin in range I can have fun and/or take people for test drives and let them have fun with it.

With a 30mile commute you would not have to hypermile even in the winter with the heater blasting. Might have to keep the speed < 80mph, but that's not really hypermilling. My CO commute is 36, and I never needed to hypermile in Jan/Feb (though I only used seat heaters). You might get a few engine-running-due-to-low-temp, but the 2013's do allow that to be set to a lower temp (like 14F) so in SLC that would not happen too often.