I few months ago my wife bought a used prius plug in so she can go to work, she has to drive about 3 miles on street speed and about 3 miles on highway speed (70mph) one way, my question is how safe is to drive the car right away in ev mode until you reach the freeway speed, the engine will turn on about 65 mph and my question is if the engine is cold and is cold outside is this a safe thing to do for the car? would it be better to warm up the car before heading to the free way? if some expert out there knows?
Welcome! And congrats on the cool car you found. Its perfectly safe. Watch the instantaneous mileage indicator when the car transitions from EV to HV on the highway. You'll notice that when it first goes to HV mode, you'll be getting amazing gas mileage. That's because the battery is giving the ICE (internal combustion engine) a ton of help until the ICE warms up a little. You'll also see that your EV range continues to drop as the computer feeds battery energy into the drive train to help out the engine. Pretty soon the mpg indicator will go quite low, as the ICE takes on more of the load and eventually starts replenishing the energy it borrowed from the battery. Once it's fully warmed up and the powwowed electrons are securely tucked away in the big battery, you'll be back to getting about 50 mpg at 70 mph. It's an incredible machine!! However, if you're only going 3 miles on the highway, it won't get very warmed up which means you might not be very happy with your hybrid fuel economy. Maybe there's an alternate route that she could drive in EV all the way?
To the greatest extent possible, Toyota designs the car not to hurt itself. (If you run out of gas, it may hurt itself as it has reduced choices about how to make power) If no warning lights occur, it is fine. If i was worrying, I would worry if the oil gets up to temperature, and if the exhaust ever gets hot enough to evaporate the water in the exhaust. But they won't hurt it soon, and Pasco is fairly dry anyway. I do hope she takes some longer trips.
welcome! is that pasco, fl? anyways, i would hit the hv button a mile before the highway. it's too bad, because, if she could go 60, you could do the whole round trip in ev. any possibility of back roads all the way?
Thanks for the replies, that's good news as I thought it may hurt the engine but is good to know it won't, there is actually another way she can go (40-50 mpg back roads) that adds about half a mile but she just won't go that way, she will rather go thru the freeway at 70-75 no matter what I say, but is good to know, this car is very cool by the way!!!!!
I'm guessing she would have a hard time making the 12 mile round trip in EV if half of that is highway at 60 mph. I did 12.5 miles with .5 miles left today and that took some effort— no highway, no traffic behind me, but some hills.
If she would go that back way, she'd never have to buy gas!! That would be quite a motivator for me, especially if gas prices continue upward as predicted. Otherwise, she'll only be getting about 20-30 mpg in hybrid mode for such short drives. BTW, does "Pasco" mean we're neighbors? I live in Pasco county.
We've got two routes into town: the freeway, or a secondary, coastal highway. The highway's actually more direct too. Haven't used that freeway in nearly a decade I think.
I was thinking Pasco WA, but there is a Pasco, OH and Pasco county FL. Australia has the Pasco islands and Argentina and Peru have there own Pasco. (the Pasco in WA is named for the one in Peru) Pasco - Wikipedia
LOL! I googled "pasco" and only got the pasco where I live. I guess their tracking can really mess up a search.
Im actually in pasco wa, the most I ever got on ev mode was about 10 miles, but that was on winter, one thing is that the dealer installed normal all season tires on the car just before we bought it so I wanna think those tires reduce range a little bit, plus winter temperatures, so i will wait till summer to test it again and see, by the way I wish there was an electric heater in the car
Lots of answers, but perhaps missing the simplest possibility. If it is cold enough to be concerned about getting the engine up to operating temperature, you probably will want to turn on the heat. The engine will start to run early to provide heat, so it will be up to operating temperature before you get to the highway.
Some people never plug in, just drive it. But many are concerned with maxing out EV use. But the beauty is the car accommodates to whatever strategy the driver wants. Except the PiP does not offer enough EV miles and speed for some due to smaller battery. Good news is you got best cargo space in Plug-ins.
+1 It will be fine, and just drive the car like...well, a car. It will figure it out for you. But with that commute, don't let your wife come back on this forum to post "why isn't my MPG better?"
