My EV Driving ratio

and climbing!

 

The cold season is quickly becoming a fascinating topic for me.

Today started with the Prius sitting outside all night, in temperatures below freezing and no plug. It warmed up a little, so the precipitation was rain rather than snow. Good thing too; otherwise, it would have been several inches. As the temperature dropped, it did indeed change to the white fluffy stuff. Fortunately, that was short lived. My morning drive was just ordinary HV mode. After lunch, I got a chance to recharge.

With the temperature at 27°F, running around town was a mix of EV and HV. Being able to choose when, is nice. You have to remember to shut off the heater when you park though. Otherwise, you only have 7 seconds after starting to. If you don't, the engine fires up. But then again, it's cold enough to need the heater anyway.

The total distance today was 45 miles. The resulting average was 59 MPG. To my delight, the EV distance was 12 miles. When the engine runs, excess power is directed to the generator. The result is more electricity available when driving. So, it looks like the loss of capacity due to the cold is made up for by the need to run the engine.

I'm quite pleased with the results. Now I'm especially curious to find out what my commute brings in the winter. Being able to recharge at work will deliver remarkable efficiency, despite the cold.

 

something to keep in mind when pursuing higher EV ratios with daily drive cycles greater than 10 miles.

Results in Figure 8 consider just a
single recharge of the battery per day. Charge/dischargethroughput
of the small PHEV10 battery, which will be
shown in future work, can increase significantly when
multiple recharges/day are considered. This would shift much
of the histogram in Figure 8a to the right, representing a more
severe cycle-life requirement.

http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/energystorage/pdfs/53817.pdf

 

Interesting data.. though not really anything about EV ratio. 12/45 is 26% EV..
12 EV miles at that temp sounds pretty good, but maybe it was just the easy miles as the ICE MPG was bad.
45 miles at 59MPG is .763 gallons, or with 12miles EV, 43MPG on ICE -- so you paid for the EV miles elsewhere. 59MPG sounds like regular hypermiler results, not Plugin. Do you really think 59MPG over 45 miles good?

 

Update:
Est. miles 502
EV:HV 65:35
EV 328 miles 86 Kwh
HV 174 miles 4 gallons

Not bad considering the cool temps. My goals is 75% EV!

 

Where?

 

Here's my ratio so far
275 EV, 983 HV
75 kWh, 20 gal
Fuel saved 6.4 gal
Note that this includes a 652-mile drive from Oregon at 75-80 mph speeds with an empty charge at the beginning. If we take that out, it's 275 EV/331 HV, or 45%.

 

btw, i recently discovered a really easy way to do this while waiting at a light. put the car in D. one foot on the brake, floor the accelerator with the other. engine will kick on even when you have plenty of charge left. was actually surprised this worked given the acceleration debacle toyota had.

 

Upstate NY, we had a 10 days with highs in the 35 to 45 range.

 

Very impressive indeed. My EV to HV ratio is 6% to 94% after six weeks. My charger timer is set to charge from 1am to 4am. Will it charge in the afternoon without me having to manually reset the timer?

 

The timer is activated only if you press the corresponding button on the dash. If you don't press the button, the car will start charging immediately upon being plugged in.

 

Thank you. I assume that after three hours of PiP charging, my home's electric meter slows down.

 

i'm closing in on 50/50 after 6,000 miles. the only strategy is to charge whenever possible. i do less long distance driving in winter so ev is catching up from 44/56.

 

i'll be getting gas on friday and posting my spectacular results!