The Garage just got Crowded

I have seen here some reported >40 miles on GOM, but my best has been ~35 miles only during very brief summer months. I am still waiting for a warmer temp. This morning low was 25F.

 

So I've been reading that the ICE in the Prime will NOT initially start for a short period to 'warm up the catalytic converter' like it does in the Gen3's and presumably non-Prime Gen4's. It seems to me that it would need to to the same 'catalytic converter warming' in anticipation of the ICE starting at some point. What magic does the Prime do to avoid this?

 

I know that the P.Prime does run the cooling water past “the cat” (at least on the 2017 model). Of course the reason for this is not to cool the catalytic converter, but to warm up the engine quickly — to shorten that ever-annoying warm-up cycle.

Of course the other thing that shortens the warm-up cycle is turning down the cabin-temperature setting. If the cabin temperature is set high, it will warm up the engine, not just to a bare minimum, but to where it can warm the cabin to that temperature.

Annoyingly, it will do that even if you’ve since told it to switch back to EV mode! It will continue burning gas to go well above the minimum temperature needed, and only then shut it off and go to EV operation!

 

Ok so there is a cat warmup phase. I was hoping the Prime warmed the car electrically or something...

 

So, when you’re in EV mode, it will use its heat pump to warm the cabin, which is indeed strictly electrically-powered. However, if anything switches it over to HV operation, it will promptly turn off the heat pump and switch over to engine warming.

The point of course is that “the cat” warms up really quickly, and to a quite-high temperatures, due to the chemical reactions going on in it.

 

When the Prime's battery is down to where it's out of EV range if I remember right, it still has more energy stored than the regular hatchback when it's at 80%.

 

I suspect that’s why it gets slightly higher MPG in HV mode: It can postpone firing up the engine longer, until it’s confident that it can drive a higher efficiency. That, plus, with its sprague clutch, it can electrically dive higher torques without having to fire up the ICE.

 

Also the power split device has 3 planet gears instead of 4, and the body has less drag

 

Whoever gets your 2010 will get the best maintained gen 3 on the planet. Anything special that you will do to maintain the Prime?

We were lucky to get the first 2019 Rav4 hybrid in southern Colorado two weeks ago, happened to come in equipped exactly as we wanted and they gave us a fair deal despite the scarcity, a Limited trim with weather and tech packages. We are indeed getting over 40 mpg (displayed) despite challenging conditions (lots of altitude changes, some short trips, etc.). 500 miles on the first tank. I'm keeping my Prius, so we are a two hybrid family. I'll post a review in the "other cars" section soon.

 

Toyota leads, others follow.

 

Sitting in the dealership right now thanks to Costco auto referral! Thought I’d check out the deal but the “2020 tidbits” thread is giving me pause.

 

They let me take a look when I got my tires yesterday. Really not much to see. Almost all the hardware is behind the Tupperware.

 

I was mainly interested in looking at the condition of the covers and getting my eyes on that front floor jack point.