I've been trying the Pulse and Glide driving for a few days but I notice that even though the car is running on the traction battery the fuel consumption display goes down by one mile while I'm driving.This does not happen right after the traction battery takes over the gas engine but after a few minutes of driving on battery.Shouldn't the gas gauge move down at all while driving on the traction battery.
By "fuel consumption display", I assume you mean the estimated range? If yes, then estimated range is just that - an estimate - based on your historical driving pattern and doesn't account for the intermittent use of battery vs. gasoline.
Well, the manual says "trip information display,displays fuel consumption..." so I would say that the manual is misleading.
If that is what he means, then he just ran into a detail I discovered in the range algorithm of my Liftback several years ago. The range estimate must decrease by at least 1 mile for every 2 miles driven, even when no fuel is consumed, e.g. when coasting down a very long mountain descent. It is not misleading. It is a forecast based upon no knowledge of upcoming driving conditions. Its 'accuracy' is inherently poor, especially for those of us driving up and down mountain ranges in foul weather. Anyone disturbed by it is overthinking its value, and trying to read far more accuracy into it than it can possibly provide. My newer Subaru tempers driver expectations by always rounding this display to 10 mile increments, not the 1 mile increments of the Prius, and completely blanks out this display when it falls to 30 miles. If this is not what he means, then he should be a bit more specific about which specific display is at issue.
The only thing I'd suggest you watch is the average MPG on your trip meter. All the rest is useless information. Reset one meter each time you fill up.
I like to reset the other trip meter every day, to get finer resolution about how conditions relate to MPG.
You should look into a ScanGauge. It will give you a better instantaneous mpg readout and a segment mpg that resets each time you turn the car off. That will leave the A and B trip meters to use as you see fit.
Yea.. the estimated range is a calculation based on how much fuel was in the tank when the meter reset on the last fill(up), minus the amount of fuel burned off that tank, divided into miles driven. So, even though you may have driven in EV mode, it will drop because you added mileage to the equation. To see this effect, fill-up the tank and immediately drive a mile or so in EV mode without the ICE ever coming on. The estimate range should not change, and conversely, your MPG will be infinite! Now, given a reading, it will change ever so slower the more you drive in EV mode. That is, as soon as you begin EV mode, it will drop one mile for every mile driven. Then during the second mile driven it will drop a tiny bit less. If you could drive about 10 miles in EV mode, you should see it drop about 9 miles or so. (Too lazy to do the actual math here but you should understand what I'm saying)
I simply use the tank mpg and the cruising range left. I know where the range started, and adding current tank mileage lets me know if I've gained total tank miles, or not. After awhile, I simply use the tank average and not be bothered by any of it.
