ice motor starts every time

Generally yes, my ICE starts every time I turn on my car. A lot of it depends on your engine coolant temp as a Prius with a warm engine is a happy Prius. If you get in your car a few minutes after driving it (provided it has already warmed up) then the ICE will not come on as the coolant would not have had enough time to cool down substantially, and so the ICE doesn't need to warm it back up.

I've noticed on really hot days the ICE doesn't need to come on at all during start up and on moderately warm days I've noticed the ICE will need a much shorter warm up time (less than a minute) to get up to temp.

Long story short, from the way you've described it, your car is working perfectly fine.

 

What he said.

The other odd thing I have discovered is that the EV button is just a joke.

Many times when I've tried to use it, the system says "Nope. Not going to do that (for whatever reason)" only to have the system AUTOMATICALLY switch into EV mode by itself a few seconds later.

The ONLY was I've been able to force EV is when the engine is already hot, the battery is mostly full and you don't go over 25 MPH or so.
IOW, useful for exiting the WalMart parking lot and that's about all.

Others have found it useful when stuck in a bad traffic jam but I haven't had the pleasure of trying that yet.

 

If the engine coolant is above 68F, then you can do that if you hit the EV button (on a Liftback at least, there may be some differences on the 'c') and all other EV conditions are met.

Below that temperature, the engine is going to fire up shortly after going 'Ready'.

 

it shouldn't change. try to think of what else might be different before taking it to the dealer.

 

It has to warm up the engine. Imagine if your ICE suddenly woke up with the car moving at 25mph. I know you're confused because it's hot out now, but think about engine temperatures.

 

Why are you concerned? If it ran all the time without shutting down, then you have a issue. I much prefer the engine to warm up at start, then run a cold engine hard.