Strategy of Driving the PiP Effectively

When I am going beyond my EV range, my technique is to use HV for acceleration EV to maintain inertia. On downhills, absolutely use EV.

 

But a lot of times you can accomplish this same thing simply being in HV. Especially the downhill part (below 46).

 

Drive in EV during the initial part of the trip where you have lots of stops and red lights. Switch to HV when you have a long enough upcoming period where you will drive at 30-40 mph or more without stopping. Stay in HV until your are at/near your destination minus the EV miles remaining (accounting for hills and high/low EV efficiency, etc.). Also, switch into EV if you are stuck in traffic or other condition where HV may be inefficient.

Mike

 

I still can't think of a scenario where warming up the catalytic converter would reduce the overall pollution from the PiP versus just running the motor when it needs it without a warm up cycle.

 

If you exceed the PHV battery power (51 hp), it'll trigger the engine/cat warm up, preparing/expecting for more burst of power. During the warm up, ICE operates at about 1,500 rpm and make about 10 lbs-ft of torque. That's 3 hp, that's it. Very little gas was used with special spark timing. It takes about 111 ml of gas to complete the process.

If you nearly floor it, PiP will cancel the warm up cycle and provide you with the power regardless of what goes out the exhaust. My guess is more than 111 ml of gas, meaning more pollution would pass through the exhaust.

 

That's something that never happens in my PiP. I guess for my driving style the warm up cycle is only a penalty. It may only use 111 mL of fuel, but that's 1/2 pound of CO2 emissions that didn't need to happen each time it runs. On my typical commute it will run twice, so about 200 lbs. of excess CO2 emissions every year.

 

The edit function is not working for me. What I mean is that flooring it never happens in EV mode. The warm up cycle comes into play when I use HV mode to climb a hill or accelerate. The engine stays on long after I need the HV boost. I can't think of a situation in HV mode where the warm up cycle isn't wasting gas.

 

There's nothing clean about our Natural Gas

 

To be fair, natural gas used to generate electricity generates half the carbon of coal, 130 times less sulfur, and 4 times less nitrogen. On the other hand, LADWP is hardly "green" in their choice of electrical power which was 41% coal at the last report in 2011.

 

Natural gas is at least cleaner, with respect to both carbon & smog.

For me, I get to recharge at work using electricity from solar. Gotta like that.

 

vq

 

why bother switching to HV then at all?

 

I sometimes switch to HV when climbing long hills to prevent from burning all the EV climbing it. Even climbing it with EV Boost, EV still ticks away fast. When climbing a hill in HV compared to EV-Boost, I've noticed that my instant MPG bar moves about one or two ticks when when I toggle between HV and EV-Boost. So that kinda tells me that I'm still burning a lot of EV with little gain in MPG.

 

If the ICE keeps running after your climb, those hills are clearly not long enough. Of course EV-BOOST won't do much if you're on a cold engine. Why not climb the hills just on EV? Have you actually compared the total mileage for these trips?

 

Unfortunately when I run out of EV I have to use HV. Even then the warm-up cycle continues to run the ICE when ICE power is not needed. What almost always happens in my case is that the ICE runs its course and then I don't use it for so long that the next time it runs it goes through the whole warm up all over again. My commute becomes a series of several stretches of EV-only followed by warm-up cycles. If I were able to manually control those warm-up cycles I could probably avoid 2 - 4 minutes of engine run-time at red lights and downhill stretches each day.

 

You probably have the worst case scenario for PiP. The only choice you have is to accelerate as fast as you can in EV mode. Or time the lights so you don't start from a complete stop.

I have a 6% hill here that I need to accelerate from a red light. I can keep up with traffic with about half to two-third EV power.

Starting the gas engine is a "necessary evil" to achieve the overall efficient and balanced package. You may not get gas free commute but 500 MPG is very good and you have the 50 MPG gas engine for those longer trips where a lot of gallons would be saved.

Have you thought about running in HV mode between the two ICE trigger points? This way, you'll only have one warm up penalty.

 

Unfortunately traffic signals in the Los Angeles area are not timed. Instead, they are triggered by ground loops and there is no set pattern or schedule to when they'll turn. It's just pure random chaos. I suspect it's a major reason for red light running.

The ICE trigger points are about 15 miles apart, unfortunately.

 

A few of the traffic lights in Long Beach are set to stay red if you are driving above the posted speed limit. Once you come to a complete stop, they turn green. Approved!

 

trust me they are timed

 

Whoa, this is crazy. Actually a brilliant way to enforce speed limits without resorting to cops hiding in the bushes. Genius.