Hello all, new to the Prius world but catching on quick. Say your driving along at around 30-40 mph. I let off then feather to glide, after a bit of gliding and slow down a hair I feather a little further to engage electric, but it never seems to be able to maintain speed over distance? I live in FL so roads are generally flat. It will sustain for a bit, but always seems to keep dropping slowly. Any ideas, or is that just the way it is and a pump glide rotation needed? Thanks
As contrary as it sounds, you will get better economy by trying to minimise using electric. When pulse & gliding (P&G), use just enough pedal to get the ICE to speed up to your upper speed, then release to glide down to your lower speed. Rinse and repeat. The overlying goal is to minimise converting energy from one form to another as much as possible. 42 mph is the cut over speed where the ICE is always on, so it gets pretty hard, if not impossible to P&G above this speed. In terms of running on electric, let the car do what it wants, if it has surplus electric storage (i.e. you have green bars on the battery graphic) then it will use electric mode more often. Just don't get OCD about trying to make the car run on electric if it doesn't want to, you generally won't improve the fuel economy by trying to out think the car.
This is a great way to wear out a battery. In order to wrap your head around it, consider that your massive HV battery has about the same total usable capacity as a medium size 12V auto battery. Would you routinely try to run your car exclusively on a medium size 12V?
pump and glide needed. the car was not designed to run much in ev. it's trying to minimize emissions, while maintaining long term battery health.
