how fast to accelerate to speed?

if you don't want to irritate them, you don't have much choice. if you don't care, briskly is slower than the general population. you want to get into the eco area of the hsi where the engine fires up.

 

Kind of interesting as the past few weeks this topic has come up more than once.

My opinion, is that you should accelerate at a speed that is safe and harmonious to the environment around you.
I don't know if I even like the idea of offering advice on "how" to accelerate.

And I guess I also feel that for MOST people, it isn't going to make that big a difference. "Regular" environment dictated acceleration is going to produce MPG's pretty close to any complicated protocol.

I just don't want to offer advice that might have somebody paying too much attention to graphs and gauge feedback instead of simply driving safely.

 

If I have to give it the gas, I do so, but usually I will look to see what's coming up when I merge on a freeway....if I have a big gap I gain speed more slowly but if a big semi is barreling down on me I click on regular mode and put my pedal to the metal...

 

Car reviewers and vloggers have documented Prius C reaching from 0 to 60 in about 11 seconds. This is not to get the best mileage. In general, slow and steady increase of speed rate helps fuel efficiency. On the other hand, given obviously safe clearance to do so, accelerating sharply and then coasting could balance out. If you have to floor it, it will move just like a Corolla, approximately. Watch for the chances to "upshift".

It is a hybrid, but a four cylinder car first.

 

I'd skip the underlined bit, just floor it. Floored, you get the same reaction, regardless of mode. Just one less thing to do.

Or leave it in "regular mode" all the time. Try the latter for a while, you might be pleasantly surprised.

 

Just drive in a similar manner to the other drivers on the road. If the speed limit is 55mph, but everyone is driving 70mph, then drive 70 mph. It's what is safest. Driving 55 mph instead of 70 mph will get you better mileage. But it is much less safe. It will cause people to change lanes to get around you, and if you're travelling significantly slower than most drivers, that will increase the risk of an accident occurring.

We need to care about safety more than we care about miles per gallon. The difference in MPG really isn't that big. It's not worth it to drive dangerously just because we want to save 10 cents on gasoline. You can drive and accelerate a little bit slower than the average driver. Just don't be multiple standard deviations away from the average (assuming that there's a gaussian distribution for people's driving habits).

 

I accelerate just enough to fill out the "Power" bar, which is fast enough to keep up with other cars from the stop light, and from reading the MPG gauge, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference in gas consumption between filling out the Eco bar vs the Power bar on acceleration, so I'd rather get up to speed for gliding earlier.

 

I drive at 55 or 60 in 70mph zones all the time, but I also avoid rush hour. Driving slower than the traffic isn't particularly dangerous IMHO unless you're causing congestion and making people impatient to get around you. If driving slower than traffic was all that dangerous then they wouldn't have a different speed limit for trucks than for everyone else.

BUT - when traffic does get heavy I do speed up to match the traffic flow. The last thing you want is to provoke a road rage incident, which I suspect is a more common outcome than an actual accident.

 

Pretty sure if the speed limit is 55mph, all the people doing 70mph just made the road more dangerous for everyone including the 55mph guy/gal. Other than that if the speed limit is 70mph and there's a guy/gal going 55mph on the fast lane...then yeah the guy/gal should probably get off the road

 

this.
if the road is empty i accelerate at the line separating eco from power. lower than that decreases MPG (delays gliding).
note: never ever "accelerate" in EV, that is also known as creeping.

 

I often do this if I'm starting on a downhill slope where the rather paltry acceleration available within the EV-only band is supplemented by gravity to give you reasonable acceleration.

 

reasonable for whom? people behind you?

 

I hope so...

I live in an area where there are some fairly steep hills, so it's nice to be able to take advantage of them in that way. Unfortunately, it almost seems like half the time I'm going up the hill instead of down...

 

Case in point is westbound along Hastings anywhere between Burnaby heights and the PNE: a nice downhill situation. If you're stopped at a red, when the light goes green, it's very easy to lift off the brake, give the gas a nudge, and roll up to speed without ever waking the engine. Especially if traffic's backed up a bit, no one's any the wiser.

 

In the DC area, traffic is pretty heavy on the highways most of the time. It sounds like your driving style isn't dangerous. In light traffic, changing lanes isn't too dangerous. But in heavy traffic having to change lanes can be much more dangerous. It's not so much about provoking road rage as it's forcing a large number of drivers to change lanes in heavy traffic, especially if they slowed down to match your speed (because they had no opening to change lanes without slowing down), and then are trying to change lanes into a lane where the other drivers are going significantly faster then they are now going.

The speed isn't what makes things dangerous. It's the following distances between cars and the differences in speed between cars that make it dangerous. The people going 70mph aren't making the road more dangerous (unless they're tailgating, or are not going with the flow of traffic). It's the person not going with the flow of traffic that makes the road more dangerous, especially if this person isn't in the far right lane. And of course the tailgaters are the biggest problem of all.

 

The EV mode shuts off automatically at around 18mph. It just goes away and gives a message that EV mode is not available. Otherwise, in regular mode you can find EV running without it being a mode, up to something like 40-45mph. I only ever use EV mode when the battery can support it and I am looking for parking. When someone is driving downhill, you should be on regular driving mode and on shift B. You can handle the car best that way. If you stay in D, you don't downshift but can coast for fuel efficiency in any driving mode.

There is not enough discussion about the B shift. BMW uses this kind of gear for standard low speed driving in their i3.

 

Sure, more B mode discussion:

Ignore it, stay in D. Need to slow? Use the brake. Coming down Mt Kilimanjaro? Ok, now you might need B.

 

When I'm talking about accelerating downhill in the EV-only band I mean that the car is in normal "drive" mode but I keep the throttle application below the point at which the engine will come on. You can tell where this is by switching the information display to the throttle graphic and keeping the green part of the throttle band below the small break midway through the "eco" range.

I sometimes use EV mode when I'm first starting the car and am backing out of my garage because it prevents the engine from coming on in "warm-up" mode until I'm actually getting underway. Other than that it seem superfluous to me because you can usually keep the engine off under a wider range of speeds and battery charge conditions than the actual "EV Mode" button beside the parking brake just by being careful with the throttle.

 

Sometimes merely pressing the power button is all it takes to start the ICE.