Hi All, new prime owner of two weeks. Got a question about the response of the throttle in EV and HV mode. I drive mainly in EV mode but noticed that when I switch into HV mode and the engine is running, (even being fully warmed) the car is much more sluggish and requires me to 'floor' it to keep up in normal speed traffic, where as when I'm in EV mode, it's much more responsive and doesn't not require a heavy foot. Why does it feel like I have half the power with engine running? Am I doing something wrong?
welcome! electric motors have much more low end torque than ice. try power mode to see if it helps at all. it just remaps the pedal, but your brain doesn't understand that, it feels much quicker.
Yes, it real and it's pronounced. I think @bisco is onto it with the comment about the electric motor having more low rpm torque. I notice it in both directions. When going from HV to EV it's almost like driving an old turbo charged car and hitting the boost rpm. But it's not nearly as severe as the old Kawasaki 750 2-stroke triple that lofted the front wheel when you hit 6,000 rpm no matter what the throttle opening.
Yep, EV is so much more responsive. Your ICE has, what, 120 hp? That might have been fine in the 90s but with heavier vehicles today it’s not enough for responsive driving. (Not that Prime drivers get them for that!) Since getting my Prime I’ve become addicted to EV. My next vehicle will be Toyota’s response to Tesla if they choose to go that way. iPhone ?
Suggest you try Power Mode when in HV. It remaps the throttle response to be more responsive and might be more satisfying.
Toyota managed to map the throttle response in the PiP to avoid this. I wonder why not in the Prime. It's not just a difference in the torque between electric and ICE motors. There is a transition that suggests it's a managed transition between throttle sensitivities. Meaning, when I switch from EV to HV the drop in throttle sensitivity isn't instantaneous. Instead, over the course of about 5 - 6 seconds the throttle becomes less and less sensitive. If I progressively press the pedal down over those seconds I can keep the speed almost constant. There's also another interesting quirk: the first time you press on the throttle after switching from HV to EV the throttle is hyper sensitive. Pushing the pedal down less than a quarter-inch or so will drive the bar on the HSI from the bottom to the top of the scale and the car lurches forward in acceleration. All subsequent presses of the pedal behave as expected. It's especially annoying in my case because I probably switch between modes about a dozen or more times on my commute, each time the car reacts as if I had lifted my foot from the gas pedal. I have become somewhat adept at applying progressive pressure to the pedal to compensate, but they could have just mapped it better like they did in the PiP.
Man, the PiP was programmed so much different. with changes in performance, behavior changes too. weird that you describe that way. I've noticed that too, except I see it in the gauge(s) response and how data is processed from the senors. I've read that some in cali have a hard time merging on 5 in EV. I don't switch EV HV often, but I do notice that surge. And I rarely push the go pedal very hard either, and I thought EV was like a rocket the few times I ran it. I guess not so much all the time. or I'm just way to used to driving slower must of the time. I'd love to test the top end sometime, it's just getting the right circumstances all lined up. Last year I had to retrain my pedal foot. Way different muscle use and to many a waste of time. Backing off and/or holding the pedal steady is still hard to do, especially topping hills. But, it's dynamically registered over time ( not instantaneous ) by the computers, and not shown at least that I can see in real time. It's the way the thing is programmed.
That gradual transition could also be a gradual transition from which motive force is doing all the work. If the MGs just stopped the instant you hit the button to go to HV, there would be quite a lurch because the motors would stop propulsion before the ICE came up to speed. So the motors give partial support for a while.
That's the annoying thing: the ICE never comes up to speed unless you stomp the pedal. The PiP does not do this. You can switch from HV to EV and back with impunity and be hard pressed to feel the switch.