Consistently getting 35/36 charged miles

What you have been doing for the last 8-9 months is all contributing to the higher overall EV efficiency. The number you are indicating is 35-36 miles shown on the GOM (Guess-O-Meter) isn't it? If so, it is not the real EV range, but it is the estimate the car makes from your recent EV mode drives. It is not an accurate EV range, especially if your EV Auto is constantly switching EV and HV all the time.

For a reference point, GOM on my then 2.5 years old 2017PP was constantly showing above 45miles EV range even in the middle of winter. At one time, it reached 48.7miles. This is the middle of winter at 16F temperature with over 38Kmiles on the odometer. But I was not getting that EV miles on a consecutive EV mode drive. There was a lot of switching EV/HV to achieve that high EV range on the GOM. In essence, I was using a gasoline engine to generate electricity during HV mode without using CHG mode. That being said, in my climate, if I drove the car all EV mode from a full charge in 16F temperature with heat on, the actual EV range was something like 18 miles.



Toyota's EPA rating is done under some constant testing conditions. In that conditions, the car was able to run an average of 25 miles or ~4.1miles/kWh EV efficiency. Your driving condition allows your PP to get better EV efficiency than that, but I am sure there are many in this forum whose EV efficiency does not get as high as the EPA rating. Just like your mileage may vary, for all PP (or any EV drivers) your EV range may vary.

One question I have is that you say you keep the car in B gear all that time, is that mean you don't have time when you have to go faster than say 40mph on a long stretch? It would be very difficult to drive in B gear if the traffic is not slow and congested. That brings the next question, if you are always in B gear, does EV Auto starts the engine under high demands, like uphill or quick acceleration?

The reason I ask is that under my usual driving condition, I can not keep the car in B gear all the time. Our road is almost always light traffic and very little stop and go. And for my driving condition in D gear, the EV Auto almost never fires the engine, thus it behaves exactly the same as EV mode. I am wondering by having the car in B gear, maybe the EV Auto mode starts the engine more frequently at a lower load. If so, that may contribute very frequent HV/EV switches which benefit EV range, by sacrificing overall gas mileage.

 

Yes, it is the Guess-O-Meter EV range. It is the same number you will see in the Trip meter toggle (see the photo below) or Drive Monitor 2 (photo on my previous comment #2). They are all the same, and all estimate, not an accurate EV range you actually will be able to drive. I happen to use SoC % display in HSI, so I don't see the EV range at that location.

DM2 EV efficiency number on the top is useful to know your lifetime efficiency if you have not reset the EV efficiency record in the setting in the MID. If you did not reset, it represents the entire ODO corresponding miles/kWh, but if you did reset, then it is the record since the last reset. The two numbers below are just the current GOM reading with the current traction battery charge level. The upper number is without the use of HVAC, and the lower number is with use of HVAC.



If you keep your car in B gear and EV-Auto, try to check if the engine is coming on frequently as I suggested. Maybe with that combination, the car is switching often between HV/EV. If the car switch to HV when it hit an uphill, then switch back to EV when it reaches the top and starts a descent, then, in essence, you are using HV mode to charge the traction battery which will inflate the EV efficiency and thus result in GOM displaying the higher EV range. As I said, with my road condition and keeping the car in D gear, EV-Auto does nothing. It will act simply as being in EV mode. It almost never starts the engine and goes into HV mode automatically.

 

Instead, you should try D mode with EV-Auto. As I said, under my driving conditions, EV-Auto never turns the engine on. If on the same steep uphill which you usually see the engine comes on with B mode and EV-Auto, if you don't see the engine coming on with D mode and EV-Auto, then as I suggested, the combination of B gear and EV-Auto is acting as HV-charge by letting EV mode gain regen energy during the downhill and conserving the battery during uphill by switching to HV. This usually results in higher EV efficiency thus a longer EV range in the GOM, but also results in an overall lower mpg.

 

BTW, resetting the trip meter is different from resetting the EV efficiency record. The resetting the EV efficiency can be accomplished in the two places, one is in the history screen in the information of the 7" Headunit screen.


Another way is to reset the "Electricity Consumption Reset" in the MID display under the Setting page. Unlike resetting the trip meter, it is much harder to accidentally "reset" this data. However, you can rest the ODO corresponding MPG (fuel consumption data) by long-pressing the trip meter. So be careful if you want to preserve the lifetime average MPG under ODO meter.

 

i like to drive back roads and see how many miles i actually get

 

I guess if you want to pump the GOM, your way is as good as any other I seen posted. not that I've seen to many wanting to do that. Although, it is one way to start learning about how the car works and that is always a good thing.
If you can manage to keep the GOM showing above 30 through the winter, you should be in really good shape for beating the GOM's estimate by 5 - 10 miles next summer, in plane EV mode.

 

I'm confused...what is B gear and D gear?

 

This.

 

When words just don't seem to fit
youtu.be/3EH7QMVnSRI
have my doubts this will help either.

Instead, you should try D mode with EV-Auto.
pictures instead of ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
would have removed my confusing too.

 

Oracal 975 vinyl. A few of the photos shown on the site below were mine. I submitted photos to them, and they used three photos of the finished application on my 2020 PP LE. But I no longer own the car.

ORACAL® 975 - Honeycomb Black 070 Premium Structure Cast Film | Opaque Craft Film

more photos here: delete piano-black...