Really?!? Doesn't seem like it would actually do much by itself except really confuse your internal thermometer.
The main problem is, the display may show engine running, but that does not mean that’s true, it may be just getting rid of excess energy. This can happened at any stage. Should the car be experiencing a large load then the engine may really be on. Iv gone up some big hills in Ev only. It’s all somewhat confusing and there is no way to define or measure either mode. The only number I believe is Lifetime mpg...e at 123 now.
that never happens to me, (but we don't have any mountains) and won't happen in decent temps, flat ground and easy acceleration. keep in mind, we're testing, no need to go up a mountain.
Be careful in being too conservative with AC in summer. The HV pack needs to stay at about the same temps that we like. The rule is: If you need AC, so does the HV pack.
That range number has got to be significantly affected by past driving style. My car is up to almost 34 miles on a full charge.
The range displayed on the Guess-O-Meter aside, the actual EV range changes quite bit from day to day. I have used Prime for my daily commute for the last 9 month. I must say my routine daily commute is so routine that there aren't much variation I can think of other than daily and seasonal weather related conditions such as rain, snow or low temp. Yet without much noticeable changes in driving conditions, I am getting one day only 28 miles and next day up to 34 miles of actual EV drive. In last 9 month, I was able to complete 36.6 miles round trip commute entirely on EV once, but I can't point to what I did on that day allowed me go much longer than any other days. I have not been able to repeat the feat again.
I wouldn't really call the prime a different animal then a PIP at all...if anything it's more of an evolution. Same technology, bigger battery pack, newer software. To this point I've found the prime to be fairly predictable with the EV range (aside from the weather variable). As @A_Grey_Prius said the 'estimate' seems to be directly affected by driving style/use over time. I'm not completely sure how it comes up with it's estimate but it's surely based on your actual Miles per KWh. When I spent a few weeks traveling on EV via highway my actual range went down (as did my estimate after a week or so), when I resumed traveling on back roads to my work day in and day out it went up and has stayed consistent (albeit climbing now with the warming weather) As an aside I can usually hit pretty close to the original estimate I get in the morning, or if I don't travel that far have the same amount of EV remaining + miles driven as the estimate given when I started for the day.
agreed, but fluctuations of 6 miles (20%) under the same conditions does not sound right, as darken mentions above. it would be interesting to hear from other members, but i don't recall reading anyone else having large range fluctuations under similar conditions.
Here is some data I collected last year from my daily driving before it got too cold. The first 4 columns are directly off from Eco Log of the car. Ave EV Range is the distance displayed on the "Guess-O-Meter" each morning after overnight full charge but before any driving was done. The number for the column "Actual EV range" was recorded manually from tripmeter. For the sake of consistency, I have included only the data for EV driving that was done without switching between EV and HV. This means for each morning the car with full charge was driven EV mode without any switching until the traction battery was depleted to 0 EV range then recorded miles driven on EV only. The last column is kWh used for full charge, read at wall using Kill-a-watt meter connected to L1 charger. The data is sorted by A/C Load Ratio. As expected, overall inverse correlation can be seen between A/C Load Ratio and Actual EV distance driven, however if you look at 0% A/C load data points, you see wide EV range from 27.8 miles to 35.9 miles. I have no idea what factors have made those differences.
Thank You, Very nice job. Which proves what I said. “ no logic” which leads me to suspect, the cars computers have their plan, as programmed by Toyota Engineers. The KWHs used is quite consistent tho. Still overall the car is a vast improvement. I would never have the patience to make that detailed effort but I’m glad somebody on PC does. Thanks again. Similar, means different. No day, conditions are exactly alike. The Prius, and its sensing devices and various computers respond differently each day. Fortunately we as human are different and are not aware of minor differences around us, if that was not so, we’d probably all go nuts.
Hummm, maybe I should have plotted my data against phase of noon? There may be some cosmic laws at work!