Estimated EV range degradation

I have replaced my OEM tires with Pirelli "4P Four Seasons Plus" and the mileage on my commute has tanked from around 100mpg to 85mpg (27 miles each way with full battery charge each way). Consumer Reports gives them an outstanding LRR rating, but I wonder. Pressure is 39/37.

 

Newbie to this forum here...
I never knew a Prius forum existed!
Glad I stumbled upon this site while surfing the net, there seems to be a lot of PiP knowledge here that I can tap into.

I have the same problem. I purchased the car in Hawaii and was told I would get 11 miles on a charge. The highest miles I ever got was 12.3, and that was only once. When I moved to Texas last year I was getting 10.4, and of course as soon as I turn on my A/C it drops about 10 pts. to 9.4.
Now I'm getting anywhere from 8.6 - 7.4 miles on every charge, and the car only has 36k miles...I commute about 24 miles a day and the charge will last me 12 miles IF I don't push it.
I charge the battery once a day when I get home from work...I don't wait, as soon as I park I plug in. It takes about 3hrs as mentioned, and I just leave it plugged in until I leave for work the next morning.
I did have the battery checked while in Hawaii and was told nothing is wrong.
Now I'm thinking maybe a cell or two is starting to go bad, or maybe it's the weather?

Any suggestions/advice is appreciated.

 

welcome! tell us about the weather, and details of your 8 miles of ev driving before the engine fires up.

 

Allowing time for a "cold soak" is better for the battery. Longevity comes from allowing that time for it to cool and rest before recharging. Use the timer for that delay.

 

Well it's 12 miles each way to work...the weather in the morning is usually around mid to high 60s...sometimes it may be in the 70s especially during the Summer.
I don't press the pedal to the metal and sort of cruise to work however, there are times when I hear an engine running, but the meter says I'm on ev only...no red dashes/arrows going to the pic of the engine...sorry I don't know the proper names.
Then I'll hear everything shut off especially while at a stop, which tells me I'm on electro...as I press the pedal no engine sounds.

Of course when I do get on the freeway and step on it I start to us gas and not electric, which I understand why.

What I don't understand is when I first start the car the charge indicator is around 9.4 and sometimes in the 8s and that's with the a/c off.

merged

How long should I wait?
Sometimes I'll hear a fan on...I suppose it would be when the fan shuts off?
How do I use the timer and where do I find it?

 

the timer is to the left of the radio, with the clock adj buttons. do you have an owners manual?

whenever you turn the fan on, the estimated range will drop. it's letting you know that you might reduce range when you use heat or a/c. if you turn the fan off, the number goes back up, minus whatever battery you have used from driving.

if you can get 12 miles without the engine firing, your probably fine. i can get 16-18 in good weather, driving flat streets at 20-30 mph and slow acceleration. the faster i accelerate or drive, the less ev miles i get.

 

Thank you!
Yes I have a manual, but I did a search on charge timer and got my answer, so now I'll see tomorrow morning if I did the end time correctly or not...seems like I did it correctly, but there is always room for human error!

 

Also reset/use trip B to track actual EV miles. You may be getting closer to 12 miles of EV than you think.

Realize that after the big traction battery has depleted to HV (and battery icon has changed from solid rectangle to 8 segments) that trip A/B stats will not count EV miles until you get the traction battery charged up to EV threshold and the battery icon turns back into a solid rectangle.

The real magic of the PiP is the synergy between the Internal combustion engine (ICE) and the traction battery driven electric motors, and not the fact that it can drive on electric energy only. My wife drives her PiP like any normal car 15.4 miles round trip every workday, and we still made it onto the top 20 MPGe (combination of EV and HV MPG) list Top 20 MPGe | PriusChat. We started with 13+ EV miles estimate like everybody but saw it fluctuate between 8+ in the Syracuse NY winter and 11+ in the summer. The EV miles estimate has consistently done that for the 3 years we've had it.

Enjoy.

 

I purchased a used 2012 PiP with 42k miles and saw the EV charge read 9.8. After a couple of charge cycles it went to 10. Then cold weather of December kicked in for a couple of weeks before jumping back to 70+ around Christmas. Here we are early April and actually seeing snow flurries (odd for Maryland!). My EV range dropped to 8.8 a few weeks ago and won't show any different regardless of warmer weather. I use a ScanGauge II device but unfortunately even after a firmware upgrade it won't pull some of the SOC values that a Gen2 Prius will send to the device.

My driving is mixed where I don't use EV when cruising on the highway (and HV mode gives 60+mpg), but do for driving 60mph and under or especially on hills through back roads to/from work.

Has anyone had a dealer check out their PiP for a drop in range? What is a reasonable charge for this check?

 

You can't use that 9.8 mile number to mean anything because it was based on the previous owner's driving style and driving routes.
It probably takes 20 or 30 full charge cycles to fully establish the effects of your driving on the displayed estimate...and of course during this time the effects of temperature can still alter it.

Mike

 

Use the following to get SOC values for the PiP on a ScanGauge II:
Name: SOC TXD: 07E2015B RXF: 0441855B0000 RXD: 2808 MTH: 03E800FF0000As to battery degradation, every winter it goes down for me, and every summer it goes back up To where it was the last summer. I stopped stressing about what number I was seeing a long time ago once I realized I had a less than optimal commute (lots of fairly steep hills). I have 100K miles on the car, of which approximately 11K is EV only. I have a 92 mile round trip commute, so most of my time is spent in HV mode.

 

if you're driving 60 mph in ev, 9 miles would be quite good. try a trip on flat back roads at 30 mph, with a full charge, and let us know how many miles you travel before running out of wall charge.

 

Right. At 60mph, wind resistance is beginning to be a significant drag (!) on EV range. And it goes up fast with increased speed.