hello priuschat.... i am a new owner (3 weeks) of a prius, and so far i love it. i have been averaging around 48 mpg for my first 700 miles, and from what i've read in this forum, that's pretty good for the break-in period. but my question for you concerns the energy monitor screen. i am both fascinated with and slightly puzzled by it. is there a quick reference for understanding the changing colors of the battery, and the colors and directions of the various arrows? what's good?what's bad?what's ugly????
The colors merely tell you at a glance whether the battery state of charge is high, medium or low. There is no good, bad, or ugly. The car's computer will never let the range go above or below where it wants it to be. Look at it out of curiosity. But it absolutely does not matter to the operation of the car what the color is or how many bars are showing. In particular, you should never worry that the charge may be too high or too low. The car will control it, charging it whenever necessary, and discharging it as appropriate. The arrows show the direction of energy flow from the gas engine to the wheels and/or battery, and into or out of the battery. They are color-coded for direction, nothing more. This also is there for your curiosity and amusement. The car will always do what is right, and again, there is no good, bad, or ugly. Your relatively high mpg means you are driving it well. And there is nothing in those arrows that ever indicates anything bad. (There are separate warning lights on the dash to tell you if something bad happens. Those are described in the owner's manual.)
You can use the Energy Monitor for hypermiling (google it). While driving you can achieve better gas milage by managing the accelerator pedal to use the internal combustion engine (ICE) the least possible. I try to keep my batteries at least 50% charged, below that the car will run on ICE and use more gas. How do I do this? Don't drive in a hurry, and let the batteries charge during down hills. I also use the Energy Monitor when I need to run on ICE, I monitor the MPH and the MPG to make sure I'm not using more gas than necessary. Finally, when traffic permits, I cruise between 30 and 40 MPH. On a level road and with well charged batteries I can run on electric and alternate with gliding, boosting my MPG to 80.
how do I get to the energy monitor screen. I've only had my 2017 prius 1 week and I'm frustrated with navigating the controls. I'm very visual so book doesn't help, maybe I should check out you tube
Hi Doriankur, You landed in the wrong section (2004-2009 Prius). People who still linger here, are driving classics (=Prii of close to a decade old or more) and might have no clue about those technically advanced 2017 Prii/Priusses
