New 2012 Prius four - engine shut off twice on road

What "yellow engine light" are you referring to?

Why are you pressing the "start button"?

Yes, ICE will turn on when HV battery runs low. It doesn't matter if you're trying to accelerate w/a low HV battery. Acceleration will be sluggish and engine may rev higher/sound louder but there should be no delay.

What are "all these issues with the Prius back in 2009-10 with the acceleration"?

 

Was it wet or icy when this happened?

 

Hmm, there are possibly a couple (your Gen 3's lights are a little different than mine). Can you identify which one(s) it was from the URLs below?
http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM47704U/pdf/sec_02-02.pdf - start on page 219
http://www.toyota.com/t3Portal/document/om/OM47704U/pdf/sec_05-02.pdf

Consumeraffairs is not a very reputable site to go for any car information, BTW.

F8L's question is to see if somehow the traction control kicked in and cut power... You'd see the skid light ("slip indicator light") when traction control kicks in or you've activated hill start assist (which I don't have since it's new to Gen 3). Stomping on the accelerator pedal when it's slick out would likely cause traction control to activate...

 

The car should switch between battery and Ice without hesitation.

 

If this wasn't a traction control issue I wonder if the "gear" selector is having an issue. For the first time in my GenIII I selected Neutral and tried to floor the gas pedal. A yellow exclamation point appeared on the left side of the dash and the MFD displayed "car is in neutral" or something to that effect. When I released pressure on the gas pedal the symbol and message went away.

My GenII never gave me any such warnings. The car would simply act like the engine was off.

Could you be seeing the neutral warning symbols? Maybe the car is slipping into neutral for a moment because of a malfunctioning sensor?

 

The OP mentioned being in the EV mode. I wonder if that is part of his issue.

 

don't drive in ev mode. then your battery won't run down and you will have power while the ice is firing up.

 

Are you trying to use EV as a regular driving mode? If so, stop, as this isn't a real EV car. Until you have a good baseline of experience, don't try to outsmart the hybrid system, but let it decide for itself when to use its electric modes. It is very easy to get it wrong and do worse than the car will do by itself.

The particular problems you mention are not familiar to me. But I've never been in the situation of being in EV mode with a depleted traction battery and asking it for a surge of power for a takeoff from a stoplight or a highway merge.

EV is best reserved for brief parking lot maneuvers, and some special low power circumstances that newbies shouldn't be concerned about just yet. For regular driving, leave it off.

Your description does not come anywhere close the 'sudden unintended acceleration' or 'runaway car' syndrome that hit many Toyotas (all models with automatic transmissions, but more Camrys than anything else) in 2009-10, and certain Audis a quarter century earlier.

 

I bet it's the traction thing. That happened to me in the second time I drove my Prius (2012) and went over some street car rails unevenly. The car felt like it had no power, though I didn't think it had shut down. The yellow light flashed on so quickly, I had no idea what had happened!

 

When you are depressing the brake pedal at a stoplight, are you pushing it all the way to the ground? If so, then this would activate hill-assist and the yellow light will illuminate. However, once you depress the accelerator, the light should go off right away and there should not be seconds of delay in acceleration.

 

Where did biba go??? 2 posts then poof disappeared?

Mike