Trouble getting a good braking ECO score

In the spirit of entertainment I played with that in our car for a week or so. About the only thing that consistently improved that brake score was taking longer to stop.

If you can stop the car in four seconds, try stopping in 6 or 7 instead. Get on the brake earlier and use it more gently over a longer period of time.

Best done away from following traffic.

 

Try playing with PDA on/off (braking deceleration). I just posted about this yesterday...
Sorry to double-post, I'll copy/paste that here for you:
6/27/24
I've had the '23 Prius XLE less than a year, love the additional power and MPG both improved from the 2019.
Now that I've had some time with the many driving features and assist modes, I recently enabled PDA Proactive Driving Assist. While it's meant as a safety feature, I immediately noticed an increase in regenerative braking, which I believe is based on the sensitivity and car distance settings. I found it comfortable and noticeable in city traffic.
This totally reminded me of what a Tesla feels like, as anyone will tell you, the regenerative braking is heavy on EVs, so much that you barely use the actual brake pedal (good for your brakes' lifespan).
It got me thinking, hmm this whole time I've had PDA disabled (several months)... I wonder if I'll get more MPG now? More use of the electric motor... more "braking" regen?

While using the actual brakes also performs regenerative braking, I did notice something on the instrument panel while using PDA. If you have the EcoZone view on, with the green & white bars, the white EcoZone stays lit while the PDA "deceleration" is active. But if you brake instead of using PDA, the white EcoZone disappears immediately.
It makes me wonder if there's a difference in energy regenerated from deceleration (which I believe is like engine braking) and actual braking. If anything, it might create a smoother transition from stopping to starting, like it keeps the electric motor ready instead of turning it off (?).

I'll see over time if my current hot summer 50MPG average increases.
Either way, I prefer the feel of the PDA deceleration and less lifting of the foot to the brake pedal. Theoretically, it should at least be less wear and tear on my brakes, while also a safety feature.
If you haven't enabled PDA, try it and post your thoughts for in-city stopping and starting. It's similar to adaptive cruise for lower speeds. Not the same thing, but I believe it also works in conjunction with adaptive cruise on the highway as well. It slows your car down for you before using any brakes. I wonder if the brake lights come on when this happens.

2023 Toyota Prius XLE, Guardian Gray
2019 Toyota Prius Limited, Premium JBL Package, Electric Storm Blue (traded)
2014 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, Smoked Quartz Metallic (traded)
2010 Toyota Prius IV, Solar Roof Package, Blue Ribbon Metallic (traded)
2006 Toyota Prius, Package #8, Classic Silver Metallic (sold)
2000 Toyota Celica GT-S, Liquid Silver Metallic (traded)
1996 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24, Black (traded)

 

Practice
Practice at low speeds 35 and below with ( no traffic ) !
Paying attention to the other scores at the same time.
Accel and steady scores in the Gen 4 Prime don't show up until I reach 20 or 22 mph.

Try to think like you believe the car is thinking, if that is even possible.
I hope low to mid 90s are OK with you cause getting 100s are not easy.

 

Use a lighter touch on the brakes, for longer. That means to look out further for red lights and traffic situations where you'll need to brake.

The first part of the brake pedal goes to the regenerative braking - try to keep it in the middle of the CHG range. You'll get all of that energy back.

After that, you're into the friction brakes - All that energy goes to heating up the pads and rotors and you get nothing.

Of course, it seems to piss off all the other motorists as they seem to be racing to the red lights so they can stop at them in time and you're going to be in their way.

 

Don't worry about eco scores. On my 2017, I could get 80 mpgs on a drive and an eco score of 70 only.

 

Make sense to me. I've also gotten low braking score stopping on the uphill. Makes me wonder how they programmed the scoring. There was another Gen 4 owner that posted a few years ago about the scoring and the scoring competition using the enture app. And he was one of the top scorers in the group. But he didn't get much feedback on here. Whether the scores were to high for all the rest of us or something else, but he was getting above 97s across the board. I've gotten a couple 99s on the flat going real slow, but never a 100.
I've noticed that the scoring usually doesn't show up on my 2017 Prime Plus until I get up to 22 or 23 mph and than only the top two of the three scores show up, until the brakes get tapped at least once. (and I've never tapped the brake just to make the brake score show up, but that might be a thing some might try).

A lot of times when the top two scores for acceleration and steady speed show up initially, they can change in either direction higher or lower within seconds.
So if thinking to oneself WoW I nailed that one, it can surprise you real fast. hehe
I guess once the programming is leaned and applied those surprises happen less often, if ever.

 

Yep - im using the hybrid trainer app which shows the details of the trip inclduing the different scores. Recently I decided I wanted to "speed" a little bit home and went up to vmax as much as possible very often including strong accelerations and braking.

Mpeg was around 27 but eco score still higher 80s for everything

 

Increase your following distance.

 

The way it works in my Gen 4 Prime Plus is I have 3 rows / bars with 5 pips per row and a percentage above the rows shown on the 4" MID screen. The rows are from top to bottom - acceleration, steady speed and braking - scores. At 80% score usually there are either one row of 3 pips lit up - or two rows of 4 out of the 5 pips lit up.
It's usually easy to adjust driving to change one or two of the pips on a row or two, after a full stop and the scores reset.
Not so easy to manually make adjustments to change a line of pips after they've set into a steady pattern. It can be done like you mention by drastically changing your driving behavior.
In t hat case though, unless paying really close attention to details it easy to miss.
Most of those times I think average drivers don't even pay any attention to the ECO scores.
The calculation the car makes might be more dynamic than we realize too. Much like the way the car calculates the Estimated EV Miles, using some amount of driving history data.
I'm really glad the Plus didn't have the sheep game Eco scoring that came with the Advanced and the top model Gen 4 Primes with the 11" MFD screens.