Test drove a 2024 Prime

Short answer: Yes.

Try another test drive later when the battery is up to a decent charge. Doesn't have to be 100% or anything, but at least 25% so the car has some battery power to work with during accelerations.

 

shouldn't the battery give the same power in hybrid mode as ev mode?

 

That's nonsense. Anything above EV 0% has loads of battery available, and most of the way through the HV buffer will still give you full acceleration.

You have to actually deplete the HV range to reduce power output.

Here's a video with someone demonstrating the same acceleration with 54% and 0% EV range.

Back to the OP, maybe the car was in EV mode? A G5 in EV mode is probably slower than a G4 in HV mode.

Or maybe you just weren't pressing the pedal enough? Was it in Eco mode, making the pedal less responsive?

Or, conceivably, if "right off the truck", is there any sort of software limiter for the first couple of miles, that would resist someone immediately flooring it - a forced break-in period? Not aware of such a thing, but possible.

Did anyone here try flooring theirs with 5 miles on the clock? I didn't...

 

When they said 4%, I assumed they were talking about the complete battery, not just the EV range(as in all the EV range was gone and almost all of the HV range was gone as well due to discharge from shipping). If they had the full HV buffer and 4% EV range on top of that, then I would agree that my post was nonsense. But what else would account for an extremely sluggish Prime?

 

Yeah there is no way a G5 is slower than a G4.

 

The G5 can default to EV mode from startup - it will be in AUTO EV/HV if it was turned off in that mode, otherwise it will be in EV, unless the EV range is at 0%, in which case it will be HV.

And if it is in EV mode, full pedal pressure won't engage the engine - the power is limited to halfway through the "PWR" range on the hybrid gauge.

So I think the most likely scenario is that you did "start it and go", it was in EV mode, and it was fast enough for you to not realise that, and think it was just slower than a G4 overall.

It is possibly true that a G5 starting up in EV mode will be slower than a G4 starting up in EV mode, if you floor it, because the G4 will engage the engine for more power.

If you want full hybrid power to be available in the G5, you need to be in AUTO EV/HV or one of the other modes. Fortunately the EV vs AUTO EV/HV choice is remembered across power cycles, so your preferred behaviour sticks.

Edit: actually, maybe this doesn't make sense - I was thinking of European G4 "EV Mode" behaviour, which is different from the US's...

 

Electronic brake on?

 

Butt-dyno's have been shown to be very inaccurate. Got data?

"I wasn't in the car long enough to datalog all the different widgets and bullshit on the screen but it was SLOW."

OK.

 

Unbelievable

 

It’s electric parking brake, not electronic as I said. Maybe the person jockeying the car on the truck manually set the brake and you didn’t release it? That’s the only reason I could think of. “All I did was start it and go” It’s nothing unusual, how many times do people do this? Lots of times.
Maybe that’s why they have an auto mode and manual mode for the parking brake. In auto the car releases the brake. It must be because they felt in manual people would forget to pull up, or push down, on the switch to release the brake.

 

Was it still attached to the truck? Did you notice anything in the rear-view mirror?

 

If you are talking about P, doesn’t it get automatically switched off when you engage D or B?

 

I wonder about some of these new "features". I've had a little experience with electric parking brake on a Mazda CX5; found it maddening trying to determine if it was set or released, and how to reliably accomplish either state. Oh and when I replaced rear pads on it, struggled for about an hour till I discovered the chicken-dance required to retract the piston.

I'd put it in the same category as touch-screen controls on the dash, of benefit primarily to the manufacturer.

 

Electric parking brake set to manual mode, not P.

 

The brake on was just a suggestion of the cause btw. If I was asked if I could have left the brake on I would write, I remember yes I released it. There was no criticism involved, just a suggestion.