0-60mph ECO vs. PWR

It sounds like resume on a flat road will act exactly the same. I hadn't read the whole thread. My observations really are only about sustained speed in cruise control on hills.

The gear teeth do remain constant, but the ratio of rotation between the wheels and ice do not. If MG1 is free turning their is no transfer of rotation. If MG1 spins one way the ice will spin faster relatively to the ring gear, that is eventually geared to the wheels. A stopped MG1 would have a one to one correspondence, and MG1 spinning the other way would multiply the ice rotation or what is normally thought of as over drive. Since the rotation of the ring gear has a variable rotation corresponding to the ice shaft, I would call it a variable gear ratio. Not having worked in transmissions there is probably better terminology for what is going on in the eCVT.

 

Power Split Device. That's a better description. It's not a variable gear ratio in any sense of the term. You could correctly say "variable effective gear ratio", which sounds almost the same but is technically correct.

Tom

 

.. you mean "ect"

 

I guess when you're accelerating from a red light in either eco or power mode it is the same. I've driven in standard mode for one month and am now running purely in power mode this month and I do find that i accelerate faster from stand still. My fuel economy hasn't changed much either. Standard mode acceleration feels very sluggish to me. I did not do any scientific observation of course...so i find it really hard to believe that eco mode will accelerate as fast a PWR mode.

So since I'm now addicted in PWR mode, is there away to keep it in that mode all the time after I shut the hybrid system down? Right now everytime I get in the car I have to push the PWR mode button all the time. Anyway to default it?

 

No. If it could be defaulted, discussions here several years ago figured it probably would have had to go through EPA testing in that mode. Toyota already appeared to be on the hairy edge of not getting that 50 mpg label, and could not afford to lose even a small fraction of 1 mpg without falling to a market-disappointing 49.

 

What the? You gotta love the level of bureaucratic intrusion we have to face. I'm achieving over 50mpg in the winter running at pwr mode for the past 2 weeks! I'm loving this car.

 

Because your driving pattern almost certainly does not match the standardized test, the fact that you can get 50 in winter in your particular circumstances isn't very relevant. Similarly, post-hypermiling, I get 27-29 in winter in a nonhybrid now re-rated (2008 rules) at 21. Pre-hypermiling, I was getting 32 in winter in a car since re-rated at 26. But many other drivers in other circumstances can't get these results even in ideal weather, which is why the EPA has to define and stick with standardized test methods.

There is no government bureaucracy forcing Toyota to not allow PWR as a default. There would be no skin off any beaurocrat's hide if the Prius carried an EPA label of 49 mpg just because it fell 0.02 short of the rounding or other threshold for a label of 50. But this label would have really hurt at Toyota's marketing department. Toyota drove the choice.

 

a minor inconvenience from toyota for not allowing us to default certain features. Consumer's report has done more for the environment than the epa could ever imagine.

 

The acceleration is the same if you apply WOT. Only the throttle mapping is changed between the 3 modes.

 

Isn't the short version that the buttons only affect the sensitivity of the pedal and do nothing to the actual engine/motor output? That's what it seems like in my admittedly short but growing time in the car.

 

Yes and no. The most notable difference is response from the ICE when the pedal is pressed. ECO is a "softer" response. PWR is a "harder" response, and neither = default response.

HOWEVER, being in ECO mode has other items of the car (most notably the AC) run at lower power levels. It gets the job done, but over a longer time. PWR (I've found) actually seems to cancel out the "ECO" range on the HSI. You're not even in the PWR band but ECO is not lit. If you want the AC to work at maximum effectiveness, switch into PWR mode.

I'm not sure which does what if you have neither mode selected.

 

Yup. And using neither, throttle response is very linear.

 

Wow, the increadable recurring thread!

 

I wish I didn't have to push the power mode button again each time I start. That's not true of the eco button. I guess they want you to drive in eco but sometimes I forget to push the power button and drive a while in the normal mode.

 

That's not the end of the world.

 

Bump it to the top on October 31 as a zombie thread.

 

Dang, and I was just going to ask if it's faster in Power and B mode....

 

No and hell no. (B mode only affects Deceleration)

 

Are you sure ? There has been very little to no real analytical discussion covering B mode and its relationship to ECO, PWR and Park.