I think the answer is no, but if the EV range gets to zero and I have 1 mile remaining to go, is there any way to just use some of the HV battery reserve to drive that final mile without the engine coming on. It's just annoying to know that 1/4 of the battery is remaining (HV reserve) that I could potentially use part of for such situations.
you are correct. and it is frustrating, because ford has had this feature for years, and we had been requesting it from toyota for many years before prime came out. the engine warm up puts more wear and tear on it than anything else, and is completely unnecessary in many cases. i'm currently at 460 miles ev, and 40 miles hv, and many of those hv miles are just from the engine kicking on when i'm only a few hundred feet from my destination.
They could just let us hold down the EV/EV_Auto button or something to engage an "EV Extend" mode and allow the car to use up the portion of HV reserve that it allows while in HV mode. Shouldn't be that hard. I wonder if they are just very conservative and worry that people will use it all the time, shortening the life of the battery.
My view is more of a just chill and enjoy the car. The difference between EV and HV is on the order of 1-2 cents/mile. Even if Toyota did let you extract half of what's remaining in the battery (you made it 25 miles on 3/4 of the battery so another 1/8 of the battery could get you up to 4 miles), we're talking about something between a nickle and a dime for the trouble. Yes, if you save that nickle 200 times a year it is enough to grab a nice free lunch.
Wait so if you're in EV Mode and drain the battery and automatically go into HV mode, it automatically kicks the engine on even if you're light on the throttle or coasting? I would think you would be able to stay in EV even if in HV mode as long as you're not heavy on the throttle (And from Gen 4 experience, the leeway before the engine kicks in is quite generous - moreso than Gen 2 or 3)
What you suggest makes a lot of sense. But from what I've heard, there is no grace period. The PiP is the same unless the engine is already warm.
Plus, we KNOW that some folks are going to abuse it, possibly creating increased in-warranty battery failures.
engine fires as soon as ev miles are done. i think it is so there is a buffer during the warm up process.
I agree. After it kicks on it doesn't seem to immediately rev, but rather warm up at idle speed while some EV is still being used. That's probably part of the reason for not allowing a dip into HV reserve.
but there's a lot more battery than the hv portion. toyota does not allow the state of charge to ever go below 25% or so.
I've gotten my battery a little below 25%. I used up the EV range (obviously) and, by driving around 30MPH, it still ran off battery some of the time.
