What is 50WH REGENERATED mean?

That is referring to the amount of electricity that was regenerated by stopping/slowing down. On a trip, it would likely be a lower amount since you would be more likely to be moving most of the time.

 

Hi Alanda..,

If you go down a long hill the car would regenerate much more energy than cruising at a steady speed on flat terain. This is because you have swapped the altitude potential energy for electric energy in the car's battery, as you came down the hill.

So, a difference in regenerated energy is just an indication of how much braking and down hill driving you have done. Its not bad or good. Just a status indication.

 

some use it as a displacement guide. if you don't burn off the energy in the first place (trying to use mainly the ICE with pulse and glide driving) then you shouldn't be generating too much electricity later.

if you drive like me.. faster than most with brisk accelerations up to speed... then you'll learn to bleed out the stopping so you get maximum regen. most of my stops turn my battery green. almost every hill does too.

 

Are you saying that the icon that states green car= 50wh once showed green car=100wh?

If that is the case, every Prius I have seen shows 50wh, not a 100wh. 50 wh is normal and nothing to be concerned about.

 

I think there may be a misunderstanding of the OPs question. The consumption screen has a car icon in the top left corner followed by '= 50WH'. This means that the every car icon which may appear in the 5 minute mpg segments corresponds to 50WH of regenerated energy. So you might get (say) 4 icons in a 5 minute segment going down a long hill which indicates 200WH regeneration. On the level you may well get none.

There should never have been a 100WH indication. I think your memory may be as faulty as mine is now!

 

Mine has always shown that each green car = 50WH. I've never seen this change.

 

right. The icon always says "50wh".

 

It means the regen is working at a rate of 50 watts per hour. But of course it's not actually that much, because the guage is giving you a reading each 5 minutes. Thus, you'd have to continue for a whole hour of regen, to actually be doing regen for the full 50wh. It's like refering to miles per hour (mph). You don't get 60mph, unless you actually drive for a full 60 miles, and do it averaging 60mph.

 

I don't believe this is correct, I believe each car symbols equals the amount of 50 Watt/hour, not just the rate.

 

It is a measure of the power regenerated by the Prius regeneration system during slowdown or braking with the green arrows showing on the MFD. 50 Watt-hrs is equal to 3000 Watt-minutes, Since the HV battery is a nominal 201.6 V and the regenerative current is restricted to around 10A or less, probably 5A on average, 3000 W-minutes (50 W-Hrs) would be achieved in 3000/201.6x5 = 3 minutes (approximately) under these conditions. This would thus show on the 5 minute MPG bar.

Much of course depends on the type of driving profile (accelerating and slowing) the car is undergoing during the trip.

rah

 

Almost there :_> kWhr means kiloWatt-hours, kiloWatts multiplied by hours; this is a measure of total energy because it is power (a rate, energy per unit time, measured in kiloWatts = 1000 joules per second) multiplied by time (hours). The time ought to be in seconds, which would result in the regenerated energy being reported in joules, but people are more familiar with kiloWatt-hours because that's how their electric utility bills are reported. Four green cars (0.2 kW-hours) represents approximately the amount of energy needed to accelerate the car from zero to 60 MPH once.

One other point is that there are unavoidable energy losses in charging and discharging a battery, so to maximize MPGs you want to *avoid* regeneration as much as possible. Regenerating is better than braking, but gliding (using just enough accelerator so that there are no arrows on the Energy display) is better than regenerating.

 

50W is about the power a good sportsman can sustain for 10 - 20 minutes. Just think he jumps on a trainer and creates 50 Watts for one hour, there you have the energy that you just saved. Imagine that sportsman pushing your car for an hour, or 60 of them for one minute,
that's what you get for free, and this is exactly what your electrical motor does for you with the saved energy.

frosh ;-)
Energy=Work*Time
(formula is good for saved or spent energy)

 

ive always wondered this.. lol