EVO Mode works up to 9 mph

What is the evo mode really useful for? Say if your Prius ran out of gas, would you be able to use evo mode to get to a station ? Can someone please give me some real world uses for EVO mode.

 

I use EV to quietly move out of my garage onto the road at 6AM. My garage is about 3 metres from my neighbours bedroom.
I use EV to drive from my parking space to the gate at work when I have to lock the gate.
I use EV in slow moving traffic, although the car will most likely do this anyway.
I use EV to impress my friends or spook them out.
I use EV when I leave a petrol station after I fill up, not often.
I use EV in multi story carparks to prevent the engine starting when gravity is doing all the work.
I use EV sometimes to get home from the main road (about half a kilometre) without the ICE running. Sometimes I don't use EV and still get home without the ICE coming on, even though it is up hill.

 

I was dissapointed too with the EV Mode. In the morning I pressed the EV button pulled out of the garage and the ICE comes on to warm up. Oh well. ICE warms up and I press EV again go 10mph and get the warning and EV turns off but I noticed the ICE is still off.

I did a test yesterday around the neighborhood and drove 2.2 miles in pure electric. The CONS. displayed 99.9 MPG. Oh what fun!!!

Here's what I do: Keep the car in ECO Mode. Then put the display on the HYBRID SYSTEM INDICATOR screen where it has the ECO Meter. Now the engine will only come on after the meter goes past the halfway mark or if the battery is low. So if you keep that meter below there you will be in all electric. Sure you might need to start off slow but you can build your speed to about 30mph.

In fact you can maximize the electric time on the freeway even. Say you're moving along at 55mph just take your foot off the gas and the engine will cut off. I can't really hear any difference but you can look at the MPG indicator on that same screen and see you're at 100. Now just press the gas down and just be sure the meter doesn't go past half and you're in electric still with the MPG indicator still at 100. This method really works the best on 25mph-40mph roads though. It's great getting 74MPG making my way to downtown.

I've put on about 260 miles so far and the gas meter just went down a notch. It still says I have 420 miles on the tank. My last car was a Nissan versa with got about 28MPG and I would just about be filling it up.

 

ok, i actually got it into EV mode and up to as much as 22 mph, but this was at the end of a drive. went to store, pull around to garage in back to unload since most of it (we went to Costco) gets stored on shelves in garage and broken down later to bring into house. well after unloading, i pull around to front to park and hit EV mode just to see what i could do with it and worked ok.

so, maybe the car cannot be started cold and pushed very much in EV mode.

 

What does "ICE" stand for?

 

Internal combustion engine.

 

I remember reading in a German Prius forum of a guy who actually made it (under a kilometer, though) in EV mode (with a European-spec 2nd Gen, which has always had an EV button) after deliberately running the tank dry - to see what the REAL fuel capacity is.

IIRC nothing special happened, except that he was able to put far more than the "official" 45 litres in :cheer2:. I guess that if you drive mainly in "known territory" and wish to know what the actual maximum range between fillups can be stretched to, it could be interesting to try out.

 

other monitoring systems will show higher mileages. i see 10 to 180 mpg frequently on the freeway while going down a slight hill.

either way, even with limited experience on the 2010, the mileage claims are definitely valid. looks like i will be averaging pretty close to 60 mpg simply be driving conservatively. took a trip today, averaged 59 mpg and doubt i would have done much over 54 on the SPM

 

this is off topic, and I don't want to create a thread for it. But has anyone taken the new prius up to top speed? Im curious if they increased the top end speed, not that speeding or driving fast is a wise thing to do. The NHW20 can hit 108mph, stock tires rated up to 112.

 

I do think in my case its the battery that need full charging to work-only negative so far

 

I've been able to put the car into EV about three times so far. Each time I did it while already in motion, and already in what I am assuming is Stage 4 (and with the ICE off). I didn't take the car above 23mph, but everything worked just fine. I've used it only in my neighborhood, travelling the final three or four blocks home.

I have had it reject the EV attempt three other times, each time there was a message advising me the battery was too low.

 

Two questions for a very lucky '10 owner:

1. The transition between ICE off & on (and On & Off...) From a NVH standpoint - is it better or same as G2? ie shudder. Especially when taking off normally from a stop and the ICE kicks in. Quite noticeable in the Insight during my test drive.

2. When I would drive around the neighborhood or parking lots in EV mode, my thumbs would not be far from the horn. Is the '10 a dual horn setup or a Roadrunner beep beep?