What is with the EV button? Its useless!

I use the EV button when I'm simply switching stalls in my garage. I've used it in national parks/forests when I'm going slow and don't want the ICE to kick in to charge the battery while I'm taking wildlife photos.

 

My EV mode only works in parking lots, under 9 mph.

 

Haha, I was wondering the same thing about that EV button. I have, however, reached higher speeds in EV mode but I believe you have to be on the lower half of the throttle display, if that makes sense.

 

And there is still another tier, at least in the U.S. When the engine coolant temperature is below 68F (20C), EV is not available at all.

 

Hmm, I'm pretty sure the Canadian cars are not much different than the US ones, and Pearl S will go into EV mode when cold as long as the battery is less than two (I think) pips down from full. I've used it to move the car out of the garage and onto the back lawn for washing. Coolant temp was well below 20C (around 10 to 14C as I recall).

 

Why? to burn more gas or wear battery more?

 

Standard Prius are hybrids.

Many threads on how Gen 3 "EV Mode" actually works. But if you were expecting The Prius suddenly becoming an E.lectric V.ehicle, you're going to be disappointed.

There are times I use it. I like it.

But even with the EV button, parameters of operation have to be met. So the engine has to be warmed up, enough charge in the battery, and there are limits to torque and acceleration.

I find after experience driving the vehicle, often I can now coax EV operation out of the vehicle by making acceleration and throttle choices and letting the vehicle decide it wants to be in EV on it's own, which makes pressing the EV button redundant or unneeded.

There are a few low speed scenarios where EV becomes valid.

#1 being, when someone new to Prius is sitting next to you and asking you what it is like when it is running on battery.
StSt

 

The second gen EV button he's got was self-installed, aftermarket, I'm inferring, reading between the lines. Maybe it was using EV much more aggressively than something Toyota would design? So he has misconceptions from his last experience, wants to carry on the same with his third gen?

 

Sounds like you want the PIP version.

 

From past discussions, we know that the US threshold of 20 C is different than the rest-of-world threshold (outside North America), which seems to be at or near 0 C. I was just never clear, or the aging brain refused to remember, which threshold was used in Canada.

In a long ago thread, I sampled my 2010 over a hundred times trying to refine and verify this threshold. In that sample set, a 20C (68F) rule was never violated. EV worked at 69F or higher, but was always rejected at 67F or lower. The ScanGauge never ever displayed 68 F. Once, I even managed to sit and watch as the coolant cooled from 69 directly to 67, skipping 68. Coincident with this cooling transition, the EV cancelled and ICE fired up.

I have continued to check occasionally in the years since, including on the 2012. Still no violations observed. Being able to move the car in and out of the garage in EV mode still has value to me, but overnight temperatures typically allow this only a week or so per year. Getting EV is far more common if the car has been driven earlier the same day.

Maybe you could run a similar sampling on your Canadian model and report what threshold you find. And maybe my old brain will remember the Canadian result this time.

 

Yes, but there is a reason why it's so restrictive, isn't it? Toyota didn't program it this way just to annoy the owners, right?

It's not EV after all.

 

it would be nice if you could back your car out of the garage to wash it, without the ice firing. that's the cause of so many intake manifold problems.