I just picked up my Prius III 5 days ago, and admittedly I'm in an early phase of testing and getting familiar with the vehicle. That said, I tried EV mode a couple of times when going down the street to a close neighbor's house. Both times I got bumped out of EV mode at about 10 MPH and received a message saying I exceeded the EV mode speed limit. The battery seemed to have plenty of power left. I know that there are gearing and traction motor RPM limitations, but I thought I had read that the max speed was higher in this mode. Can anyone shed light on this subject.
Your car must be 'warmed up' before you can get the EV mode to hit a higher speed. I bet if you run the car for 5-10 mins and then switch it to EV, you'll notice a big difference...
Is there a way to get the ICE running from cold without the car actually going anywhere? I only ask because when I went to a pre launch day the test drivers were sat stationery revving the engines to charge their batteries after the previous test drives. It just got me thinking how they did it. I totally forgot to ask on the day, sorry. Thanks
Is there a way to get the ICE running from cold without the car actually going anywhere? In the II all you do is press the accelerator with the dash lights on and the ICE starts and runs while you have your foot down. Lift off your foot and the motor stops. hope this helps
It seems that this is completely counter to the way EV "should" work. Why do I want to burn gas to warm the engine to use the battery?! Besides the fact that 10 mph is a ridiculous speed. I'm not sure I have ever seen a 10mph speed limit.
That answer to why is simple. It's because emissions are given a higher priority than efficiency. Fortunately that only means a few seconds of gas consumption for the sake of being overall cleaner. .
When my Prius was brand new (I picked it up four weeks ago) I got kicked out a number of time at 12 mph with the same message you did. It also happened once or twice when the ICE was already hot. I've had the car for just over a month and it hasn't happened in the past two or so weeks.
Come across this issue as well. Got kick out of EV mode traveling @ 10 mpg as well as 10~15mpg. Even when the car is warmed up, the battery only seem to last me no more than 5 minutes.
The car is not designed to run primarily on battery for very long, so this isn't surprising. EV mode is a very, very narrow niche, really only useful for things like pulling into a campground really late at night or something. On top of which, if you simply accelerate slowly enough in Normal or ECO mode, you will stay electric-only going 30 mph or more. Don't obsess on EV mode.
Alright, a bit of clarification for my sake. What is ICE? Is that some acryonmym for the engine? On my power display, I see the wheels, the engine *ICE?* and the battery. There are only blueish lines going to and coming from things, so when I stop on the break I see lines going from the wheels, to the engine, to the battery. I assume this is recepricol breaking? When I start up I see lines going from the engine to the battery, assume this is charging the batter, when I put it in D i see lines going from the engine to the wheels, and assume this is using the engine. When I put it in EV mode, lines go from the battery to the engine to the wheels, so I assume I am riding on electric only? Any clarification here would be great.
You do not need to be or want to be in EV mode so much. The car will shut off the ICE when appropriate, and you can even learn to influence its decisions with your gas pedal. All of the energy comes from gas, so converting gas to battery charge so you can run in EV merely reduces your mileage. The 2010 EV limits are 10 cold, 25 hot. But there are other requirements in terms of SOC, acceleration, etc that can cancel EV mode. Use EV mode mainly for moving around the driveway or parking lot to keep the ICE from starting. Instead, learn to glide in ECO, Normal, and PWR modes, and your mpg will improve.