Going up a hill on a dual carriageway with DRCC set to 55 mph, the vehicle in front suddenly slowed to about 40 mph prior to taking an exit, so I indicated and pulled out to overtake. The DRCC was so aggressive ll in its acceleration the the ICE kicked in! Not ideal that the engine came in so aggressively during the running on period. The Ice kicking in during EV driving has never happened to me before, although I know it does happen. I also know that the drive mode setting affects DRCC behaviour. But I prefer normal mode for driving, which is what I was using and my preference would definitely be for gentler acceleration from DRCC in normal mode. But even so I think DRCC is excellent and I wouldn't want to be without it! Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
I've done 0-60 and 30-60 acceleration test by instantly slamming the throttle pedal to the floor. I've never once had the ICE kick on.
I've had the ICE kick on when in EV and ECO mode, going up hill with a car full of people. Don't recall if it was on cruise or not, I don't think so though. It seems that if it's bogging down it just kicks it on to maintain the speed you are requesting.
The European version is probably different. They don't have an EV Auto button so their "EV" mode might actually be EV Auto. And the full EV experience might just be for Japan and North America.
As I mentioned, the ICE has never kicked in before when in EV mode so until now after nearly 2 months I am entirely happy that I have has a fullbEV experience from my car. We have EV City mode that may be even less likely to start the ICE, but I don't think it's the EV modes that were the problem. If I had been driving with DRCC off I would have accelerated a lot more gently and i am fairly certain that the ICE would not have kicked in. It wasn't an especially steep hill, the cause was just that DRCC asked for much too quick a return to the set speed. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
Just Wednesday I climbed a 7% grade with three people in the car and with only 2 miles of Ev range left and the car stayed in Ev mode. When I got the top I manually put it into Hv mode.
Was the distance set for 1? I've noticed that 1 gets more aggressive acceleration than 2 or 3 when the car you were following moves away from your lane. For this reason, I change the following distance often while driving with DRCC. Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
In my experience, cruise controls are dumb when it comes to hills or regaining a significant portion of the set speed; they just 'floor' the accelerator while the driver would be fine with something gentler. Is the Prime's DRCC adjustable in terms of acceleration, or is it just in following distance? Ford has an Eco Cruise mode on the Fusion and likely C-max, but maybe just on hybrids, that uses less aggressive acceleration. Europe EV mode is different from North America; it will fire up the ICE when fully depressing the accelerator. So a dumb cruise control, and I suspect the DRCC uses the same programing across all models, can do that and start the ICE in a European Prime.
