Best Techniques to Drive the Prime

PT Guy - Where did you get your Prime? My Toyota dealer in Burlington, WA tells me the car is not available in our state? Are you close to Oregon and if so, how much trouble was it to register & license it in Washington?

 

Thought I chime in - I bought my Prime in California end of November and drove it up here to Seattle. When you buy out of state you have to pay the sales tax of the state you are buying the car in (unless you have it delivered to your state border). The dealership in Sunnyvale issued a One-way permit. After 2 months I received the California Title for the car. With the title and the invoice you go to the WA State licensing department - they'll issue the registration and the WA Title. You will have to pay the difference in Sales tax which was negligible for CA and WA. All super easy and no problems.

Also - the Dealership in Sunnyvale was awesome to deal with.

Good luck!

 

Hi All,

Here are some of my results so far. I drive 100+ miles a day on 3-4 different routs. I drive on "EV Auto" until I run out of battery power. I then switch to "Charge" mode and run in charge mode until I am at 10 mile of "EV" charge showing. I run in "Charge" mode no matter if I am going up hill or down hill, just till 10 mile of EV power. Once at 10, I switch back to "EV Auto". Typically this will get me to my 1st location 50 +/- miles from home and usually at 8 or 9 of "EV" left. I do the same process getting back home. Doing this method, I am getting 65 mpg from a 100 +/- mile trip. The feedback the system tells me after the trip is I am getting 45 MPG on just gas and 70-80 on electric.

Over the last few weeks, the readings have been consistent at 65 MPG.
Conditions are 60-75 deg outside. Some heater in the morning and some AC on the way back.
Speed is generally 75+/- mph - 80% freeway.

 

thanks! why do you use charge mode, just for fun?

 

Just some testing. I am seeing what gets me the best mileage, and so far this is. "EV Mode" goes too fast. "HV Mode" nets me 55 +/- MPG

 

10 miles of ev from charge mode is giving you a higher mpg number? might be worth doing 20 miles.

 

You pay a big penalty in "Charge" mode. Getting to 20 may not have enough payback. I am pretty sure, and I have not done the math, but "Charge" mode cost you more gas MPG than the gain in "EV" power. IE, your spending 20 miles of gas to get 10 mile of EV, and spending 40 miles of gas may only net you 20 miles of EV. Diminishing returns.

PS - Does anyone know why my Fuelly banner is not updating ?

 

It doesn't work that way. His 10 miles of "EV reserve" is certainly a fair safety margin. I might go a little lower but we are probably different style drivers. But it looks like we both have motorcycle experience and know about the gas tank reserve.

Bob Wilson

 

Why not?

 

who are you asking?

 

@bwilson4web

 

A little experimentation goes a long way:

• Prius Prime Plus in my hands | Page 20 | PriusChat
• Prius Prime Plus in my hands | Page 20 | PriusChat

So I'm working on a Prime driving profile to optimize cost per mile. It is not a trivial model because electricity and gas rates vary. In some cases, it is cheaper to drive on gas than electricity. Then there is a warm-up penalty that pretty well requires a minimum gas distance, ~10 miles.

Bob Wilson

 

Sorry, but this is irrelevant to what @vern748 was reporting of using charge mode at 75 mph to collect 10 EV miles and then using those miles at same speed and as a result achieving better efficiency than driving the same road in HV mode at same speed. I doubt this report is valid but this is a separate issue, but if this was true then @bisco comment is valid.

 

Ok,

I'll go back to my cave.

Bob Wilson

 

I have only had my Prime for a few weeks but being the Inquiring mind I am, I have used all the modes and it has been my experience that letting the car make the decision as to what mode I am in at any given time has netted me the best results.

 

It does have excellent defaults!

Bob Wilson

 

The thing that works the best for my 72 mi. round trip commute is: use EV up then HV. After ICE warm up, even at hwy. speeds, you still use battery on slight declines. Sometimes I can go .5-1 miles on HV battery at 60-65. Regenerative recharge is fairly quick.

 

I'm not convinced the Prime efficiency can be gamed much, but I do try to avoid a situation where the ICE warms up and then cools off prematurely during a drive. My commute to work of ~ 45 miles each way is handled by using ~ one half of my battery at the start of each leg. I chose this approach to also be sure to use all the available battery range, and I thought the ICE might warm up a little from the EV driving before it turns on. I try to choose an extended gentle decline for the switch to HV so that the ICE can go through a gentle warm-up.

Since I am driving 80% highway miles, the overwhelming factor that affects fuel consumption is vehicle speed. At speeds of 60-65 mph, my two work commutes thus far have yielded 85 and 89 mpg + one full battery charge for the 90 mile route. It has been windy this week though, and I hope to settle in to 90 mpg + one charge when the wind dies down.

 

Yes, cold,wind and rain are mileage killers. Great numbers @EV-ish. Better than Toyota is quoting. Dealing with all three and the HV battery use at speed are yielding 102.59 mpg (avg) for 35 commute trips (35.9 mi. AM, 34.8 mi. PM). Other trips I'm not recording, they will show in my fuelly sig. With avg temp of 39° in AM for EV and 47° for HV trip home. HV leg is averaging 61.53 mpg, EV leg is averaging 198.70 mpg.

 

Sorry for a simple question but I am new owner and I am trying to relate to what you are saying.
I am used to just starting my subaru for 5min to warm up before I leave for my commute. Do I do something different for the prime? Talking about winter temperatures.