I am posting this in this forum because this does not really fit the fuel economy, Technical discussion nor other forums. This is for those who are wondering how far you can drive with the HV battery without using any gas. The stretch that I drove was mostly slight downhill and probably the most ideal case you can get in a real world traffic. More than five minutes of pure electricity powering the Prius. Travelling 1.5 miles with one bar from the HV battery (1 of 8). Sweeeeet!!! The video was taken on LIE (I-495) around exit #32 (right after the HOV ends) to exit #31N. See this stretch on hybrid map: http://maps.yahoo.com/beta/index.php#mvt=h...60537&mag=3 Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=12...59956&hl=en
Sweet Just wondering why the ECU did not start the ICE when the battery dropped to under 2 bars? B) What was the MPG after this and while the battery was charging?
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nicos @ Mar 2 2007, 01:28 AM) [snapback]398922[/snapback]</div> I think he's saying he went the entire stretch using only one bar (not that he dropped down to one bar).
mercat got it. It is hard to see the color of the bars in the video. Basically it went from green (7 blocks) to blue (6 blocks) after driving 1.5 miles. I got 99.99 MPG in that 5 minutes!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ByWire @ Mar 4 2007, 12:16 AM) [snapback]399767[/snapback]</div> Yes, I have a custom button installed but I did not use it in this video. I was purely in stealth meaning any Prius without the EV button can do it also. The difference between Steath and EV mode is the amount of juice HSD allows to draw from the battery. I believe: Stealth: 10.5 kW (14hp) EV: 21 kW (28 hp) EV mode goes to 34 mph while Stealth goes up to 42 mph.
The opposite will happen when you travel back, and at the end you'll have the same fuel economy as before.
I had a similar experience yesterday, but I drove for 10 minutes in congested traffic without starting the ICE. My SoC dropped 2 bars in that time, and half of it was on an uphill stretch for about 1/2 mile. I didn't get 99.9 for those 10 minutes though... I got the blank "divide-by-zero" bars on my consumption graph. At the end of my trip I had gone 410 miles with about 50 mpg avg.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(usbseawolf2000 @ Mar 4 2007, 05:42 PM) [snapback]400015[/snapback]</div> Seawolf, I have to ask you, how are you able to travel so far just on battery? What annoys me about trying to use just the EV method is that I have to really press light on the gas, and that doesn't accelarate the car fast enough to keep up with traffic from a standstill. No matter how lightly I press on the gas, it keeps switching back and forth between ICE and EV. What's the secret?
I think the EV-mode threshold is a little lower when it self-cancels; I can only push about 80 amps [16 kW] before the beep-beep-beep but I can continue doing that down to a much lower SoC of course. . _H*
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(zaxinc @ Mar 7 2007, 05:48 PM) [snapback]401915[/snapback]</div> The secret is the route. The whole stretch is slight downhill which enables me to use light acceleration to get moving. What makes it sweet is that the HOV lane ends right before this stretch. As I slow down from HOV, I recharged the HV battery which then allows me to go on battery for another 1.5 miles! As someone pointed out above, I will be burning more gas climbing it back when I head to work in the morning. It is no biggie because I will need to warm up the HSD and the cabin anyway. This stretch is about 5-10 mins away from my home. Once the car get to the operating temperature (190 deg F), I am in the HOV lane and I am able to get around 50 MPG. I also have a rough idea how much hp the pedal is requesting so I don't push it too far and turn on the gas ICE. I have to guess because I don't have CAN-VIEW like Hobbit.
I just realized yesterday what actually happened in the video. I used the captured regen energy to void the 1.5 mile traffic congestion!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Mar 7 2007, 09:46 PM) [snapback]402008[/snapback]</div> NiMh is sensitive to the temperature. What was the temp when you were measuring the amp?
