I wonder what's the difference between Stealth (no arrow on display at all) and Neutral Gear? The reason I ask is, Neutral Gear is much easier to maintain than Stealth. Also, when I break moderately hard, it seems like the CVT gear is put to low, so for every yard I travel, more rotation on charging motor. Since Toyota did a great job on transition between regeneration and brake pads, I can't tell when brake pads start to work. Any indications? Thanks!
When in neutral there is no regenerative braking, 100% friction braking. This is actually a method of cleaning the brakes if needed since they rarely get used for the majority of owners. Also driving in neutral is illegal in most states, provinces, and countries.
"No arrow glide" actually still uses some HV battery power to propel the car forward, I suspect "neutral glide" is, well, "pure" neutral glide. Hope this helps.
If I'm not mistaken (I'm a n00b, so I very well could be mistaken), there is no charging of the batteries in neutral, as I observed the other day on a long downhill run.
That's correct. As for the hill in neutral, it is because there is no regenerative braking in neutral.
FYI, there's a very good discusssion of the differences between "no-arrows" glide and shifting into Neutral in the thread: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-...parison-methods-pedal-control-vs-neutral.html
I have driven quite a bit on long downhill rolls in neutral, there seems to be no savings in fuel consumption. The best consumption is cruise control, excluding hypermilers. The charged green battery comes in handy on the next uphill portion.
Shifting into neutral lets one of the motor-generators spin uncontrolled. If you do this at a high road speed there is some danger of damaging it with too many RPMs.
