Hey all - I'm confused about my PIP. Every night, I charge my battery fully and have 11-12 miles of charge to consume during the day. However, I've noticed that at least 10-25% of the time I'm driving in EV mode, the EV indicator goes off and my gas engine just runs. It's not because I'm driving the car hard - it even does it when stopped at a light. My only guess is that either Toyota wants the gas engine to run once in a while or else it's trying to charge the Hybrid battery (even though I'm not using it at that time). Anyone have any insights? It's a really bummer because even though I'm rarely out of EV mode, I'm burning what seems like a fair bit of gas - after 300 miles of mostly EV, I'm down to half a tank of gas?
Actually, any mode in which the fan is on can cause the ICE to run. I just mentioned A/C because the OP indicates he lives in the Los Angeles area, where we have been having fairly warm weather lately.
Still in EV mode (the green square above the speedometer), but without the EV indicator (the car symbol on the Eco-Meter) illuminated means the engine is running to warm the coolant. That triggers when you accelerate hard or when you exceed 62 mph. Outside vent (temp "LO" setting) will not.
Once it's started - which has been covered by a variety of posters - the ICE will run until water temp hits 130°F. At least that's been my observation so far. Once it hits 130° F, the ICE will drop out below 100kph (62MPH) if you let up on the pedal. You can put it into ICE mode in a variety of ways - heater, A/C, quick acceleration - doesn't have to be hard acceleration, a mild uphill can pop you into ICE mode - all of those as well as pushing the HV/EV button. One workaround is to power down (red lights in traffic are your friend here) and restart. Obviously, you can't do this on the roll, or while you're on the freeway, but at a traffic light, it's gold. It takes no more than 3-5 seconds to complete the workaround.
does the ev indicator light go out when the engine comes on because you turned the heat on? my engine has never come on in ev so i have no idea. and don't confuse ev mode (light on left side of display) with ev indicator on right of display that simply tells you when you're in ev while in hv mode.
Yes, anytime the engine is running while still in EV mode... which indicates it has switched to EV-boost. The car-shaped symbol on the screen will become a hollow frame. The square above the speedometer remains unchanged. Photos of each will be available in the upcoming User-Guide revision.
