What is the most weight you've ever towed? Moving in a few months, plan to supplement w/ EV switch

what purpose does using ev serve?

 

You don't understand how the EV switch works. Its just to chug around the parking lot briefly and slowly. Pretty worthless. You wont go 10 feet in ev with the trailer and car loaded. Well actually you can drive in ev till the battery is depleted. With a big weight load you can count that in feet on a 2008 battery.

Not sure how far your going but at that many miles on your car hope not to far. Age and mile wise Your right in the window for a tired hybrid battery and doing what your planning will put an extraordinary load on the car and that battery. You will quickly discover the weak point in your car.

If you must do this put all the weight you can on the center of the trailer axle and try to balance it. I tow alot and the bad part about towing in a G2 is it basically disables the regen braking so your left with the really weak hydraulic brake system so not much braking with a big load.

The car is finely tuned for its base weight but was never designed to haul around weight.

And hopefully you will not have to go up any big hills because that will kill you in this heat.

 

without putting it in ev, it will use engine and battery, which i think would be better. does she burn any oil now?

 

a few hundred pounds isn't going to hurt anything. put the heavy stuff in the other car.

 

For $600 you can rent a truck and a trailer to put your Prius on. Why are you trying to use a screwdriver to drive a nail?

 

How far are you going?

 

How does pulling a trailer disable the regen braking? I would think you would get more regen and that would help getting rolling again thus slightly cancelling the extra weight of pulling the trailer. What am I not understanding? I can see losing gas mileage from extra wind resistance when highway driving but a short trip around town shouldn't hurt too much?

 

You Have never towed anything in a Prius have you?

I said basicly meaning it feels like it has no regen braking.

And how does more regen help you get rolling again and in closing what he hell are you talking about?

 

Regen braking has its limits.
So you can drive around and use almost only regen brake if you don't have steep or long downhills and start slowing down early. But with extra weight (trailer and stuff) same downhill or same slowing distance requires you to press the brake harder and engage the hydraulic brakes or fill up the hybrid battery (energy can't be stored in the battery anymore when it's already full). Yes there's a bit more regen happening with the extra weight but not much because regen and battery size have limits (and they are designed for just for car itself) and system is not nearly 100% efficient. Also with the extra load you will likely get the gas engine to high powered less efficient operating area more and that will further reduce the fuel economy.

 

I have really pushed the limit and towed about 1500lb with another 600lb of stuff in the back seats/trunk. Generally the Prius does fine but you do have to be very careful how you load the trailer not to get any sway. Remember heaviest objects at the front and light objects at the rear and centre the load. Regen works fine, it charges the battery faster with the extra weight. But that doesn't translate to faster acceleration. Brakes suffer, you need to brake very early. To some of us having driven larger trucks from the 80's it does not feel unsafe at all. If you are used to towing with a modern pickup truck then you have some adjustments to learn. Tire pressure very important as well make sure trailer tires and car tires are all properly inflated. If your car burns oil make sure it is full and a coolant change is wise.