Could some combine the Hybrid and EV battery

Untrue. The full pack is always available. I often regenerate from hybrid mode up to a couple EV miles on a long downhill with my 2012.

 

That is true, but I think it's not exactly what @drsacha is asking. If I understand correctly, it's a way to make the computer treat the whole battery as a hybrid battery and seek to keep it hovering around the same percentage of charge as the regular hatchback battery. That would be a whole lot more available kWh.

My thought is that, first, there would be little improvement in gas mileage, just as there is not a lot of difference between a new battery and one that is rather badly out of balance.

Second, if that could be done, you would lose most of your capacity to store energy on long hills when on trips beyond your battery range. Which ties in with the full pack always being available. You just need a lot more regeneration (bigger hills or more stop signs) to see it happen.

 

You'd get poor fuel economy if it was using the ICE to charge the battery up to "full". That's why it will only charge to 30-32% SOC (I forget exactly) in hybrid mode. As said, if you're getting enough regen it can bring it back up into EV mode availability.

 

op's question is confusing. hacking the computer is not going to charge the battery. you have to plug it in, or drive down mount mckinley.

 

Probably one way to look at it is that in hybrid mode the system will maintain close to the state of charge when it was started. To do this it will only use the range of battery capacity that would be available when the Prius automatically enters hybrid mode at a low state of charge.

 

wow, that's impressive! i've never gotten anything around these flatlands.

 

The most I ever regenerated was from 50% HV (zero EV) to 100% full EV. This was in Yosemite, where you're completely empty at the top of Glacier Point, and 16-20 miles of endless downhill back to Yosemite Valley. Just keep riding the regenerative brakes!