2017 Prius prime EV miles lowering per charge

The impact colder weather has is normal.

You'll really look forward to the arrival of spring. It's an annual event I've experienced since getting my plug-in Prius in 2012.

Interestingly, the regular Prius is seasonally affected too.

 

^ What he said...

Things will get better for you soon with the upcoming warmer weather.


Rob43

 

Some long range EV trips and warmer weather should gradually increase the expected mileage on the display. Remember, the range estimate is experiential and based on the previous trend from the last 5 or so actual EV driving mileage and temperatures and other conditions (headwind, driving style, hills, etc.).

 

I was stunned at the impact cold temps had on my EV miles. Once you start driving again in warmer temps your actual EV miles and guess-o-meter miles will go back up. Mine now estimates 29 - I haven’t seen those numbers since October.

 

i suspect you're not recording data appropriately.

there should be little to no difference between L1 nd L2 charging. there could be something wrong with your EVSE, but it is unlikely.

judging ev distance from the dash instead of on the road is a difficult task

 

could reset all the EV counters and it will re-learn and re-estimate mpkwh etc with fresh data.
its just the computer estimating your total distance on recent kw usage.
if you only got 3 miles per kwh over the last few trips it will reduce the total mileage estimate.
once the computer sees your miles per kwh are back up to 5 it will give you longer range estimates.
dont use heat/ fan/ ac /seat heater and drive in eco mode for two weeks, and use HV mode for any high speed or long uphills.
if you can get your m/kwh reading way up (over 6) the distance will go well above 30 miles...
reality is just drive it, i get tired of the hyper mile game after 3 days and just drive normally.
i could get the Guess o Meter down to probably 15 or as high as 35. i have seen neither, because its easier to forget about it and just enjoy the ride.

 

My EV estimate is already back up to beyond 32 miles, even in Chicago, and even if most of my driving is just a few miles at a time.

What kills it in the winter is using the heater, seat and steering wheel heating and the heat pump defrosting. That'll bring the averages way down, and will take a while to average back up into the 30's.

 

So I’ve been dealing with it charging less for the past year. In particular, I found that it dropped in two distinct steps about a year ago. However, it’s recently been trending back upward considerably, back up to over 31 miles on the guesstimatron yesterday, after puttering around 25ish for nearly a year.

See if I can quote this link successfully... No, It’s Real: EV Range Down
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?share_fid=1171&share_tid=197545&url=https://priuschat.com/index.php?threads/No%2C-It%E2%80%99s-Real%3A--EV-Range-Down.197545/&share_type=t

Best I can tell, this being Austin TX (where the weather is more spastic than seasonal!), it seems to be more likely related to charging habits than to temperature (inside or out).

In particular, at the time it started dropping, my wife was off in China helping out her family, so I got into a habit of charging to full while I took a walk at the local mall on the way home from work each day. The result was that I was keeping the battery almost fully charged (minus “top margin” of course) throughout the night rather than charging not quite to full right before leaving for work each morning.

I strongly suspect that it saw the battery being charged up overnight for long spans of time, and its charging algorithm feared for battery-longevity, and stopped me from fully charging the battery.

 

It can only charge for the time it needs to get to max, and it shuts off. No different than going out and manually unplugging when it is done.

 

Well, no, the charging computer can stop charging *before* it’s “full” if it perceives that (reasonably or not) to be necessary for battery conditioning.

Yesterday at work, it charged to ~5.5KWh. At its peak, it was charging about 5.8KWh per charge. This past year it’s been charging to more like 4.8-5.0KWh.

 

Every vehicle I have owned is less efficient in the winter. My VW TDI got about 20% less mpg in winter, my Prime gets about 20 miles on electric in winter. In summer, it's closer to 30, depending on the drive.