EV Button

Has anyone installed the Costal Tech buttonless EV switch? Was it hard to install? Problems? Comments?

 

Okay, here are the situations for which I'd like an EV switch:

1. Winter. My short commute hardly gives the car time to warm up. It does not reach Phase III until I am more than halfway to work. The battery SOC is always nearly full. I would like to engage EV at the point of my return trip that experience will tell me will leave the battery at 4 or 5 bars (rather than full) over night. I will be burning no gas during half my return trip, and the time when the engine is forced to run in the morning will be spent charging the battery. If it's gotta run anyway it might as well do some useful work.

2. I do not know if this is temperature-related because we've had a very late spring and hardly any warm weather yet. But I've noticed that if the weather is cool, the engine is hot, and the SOC is high (6 or 7 bars) the car will usually go rather easily (or all by itself) into electric mode if it's travelling around 35 mph. But at slower speeds, say, around 20 or 25 mph, it is very reluctant to do so. The flow will show that the battery is charging (though it is nearly full) and the mileage will be very low 20 or 30 mpg.

Clearly, this is an inefficient speed for the car. So when I know I'm going to be in this speed range, and the SOC is high, I'd like to force it into EV mode. Then when the SOC is low, there'll be somewhere for that extra power to go.

I will note that in moderately warm weather, on slightly-longer drives, when the car is in phase III and the SOC is moving up and down between around 4 bars to around 7 (rather than staying at 6 or 7 as it does in colder weather) I see MPG numbers at or above EPA estimates after the first 5 minutes. Clearly this car is capable of those EPA numbers. The first 5 minutes drags the average down. That's unavoidable. But I am convinced that, at least in cold weather, I could do better than I'm getting now if I could use more of the battery's range by selecting EV mode when I know the situation is appropriate.

 

I just installed my oem button yesterday. It took me an 1.5 hrs thanks to the instructions by Efusco and Htmlspinner. my biggest problem was the pin for the ecu. i had bought the original pins from toyota( 2@$13 each). I had a difficult time getting them in and ended up breaking both.The last one was sticking up 1/8" when i decided to plug it in and see if it was good enough. it was not. so i grabbed two from flasher assembly. These pins seem a little bit longer and slightly thinner, they do not look the same. I ended up pushing the flasher pin all the way flush the first time. Plugged it in and it worked.

 

Does anyone know whether the ECU captures and retains usage of the EV function? That is, will Toyota's evaluation of a problem months downstream identify use of the EV function today?

 

Also, I did Wayne's EV mod the day he posted it, using a plastic toothpick to jam the wire in place in pin 27 of the ECU connector block, and a Radio Shack pushbutton mounted in a hold drilled in the blank where the EV button's supposed to go. Worked fine, but...

I want to use the RS switch for something else, so will convert the EV function to the headlight switch (purple wire mod). Can anyone recall the details, and/or where they're posted?

Thanks!

 

Thanks, Evan.

Has anyone determined whether the ECU retains data regarding usage of the EV button?

 

EV Button - thanks!

I want to thank Evan and Rick for pioneering the EV Button install. We did ours last weekend, and have been learning the ins and outs for the past week.

I can't imagine being the first to figure it out.

Jan
Seaside Pearl BC
Fountain Hills, AZ

 

EV mode logging

I'm interested to know if logging of the EV mode button is something people expect to be done in a persistent memory (like flash), or if it can be reset simply by disconnecting the 12V accessory battery.