Best way to drive PIP?

I've had my Prius Plug In one year this month. I'm still experimenting. For me, using EV at every opportunity until depleted. I hate arriving at my destination with anything more than .1 EV remaining. My situation is almost ideal with a 9.8 mile (one way) commute and charging at home and work.

 

I like the way you use it, city EV and highway HV.

I don't like ICE shutdown and restart in city stop and go traffic so I prefer EV.

One key point is to minimize ICE warm up penalty - don't leave a long gap between using ICE. You will have 2 for sure so don't make it 3 switching into EV and back to HV.

I may change the strategy if I need cabin heat or not.

 

How much of that 40 miles is freeway? How fast do you go on the freeway? If most of the drive is freeway, then your speed is going to make a big impact on your mileage.

 

i agree with usb. once you start the ice, don't let it cool down by going back to ev. of course, you'll have to warm up again after work, that can't be helped. when i'm doing a short trip, but longer than ev range, i don't use the ice until the ev runs out. that way, it never cools off and has to go thru warm up again. another thing is to practice pulse and glide. the best way to do this is to use up your ev, then you can practice getting the best mpg's out of the standard hybrid.

 

Great advice so far in this thread.

We could probably even give you a few more ideas and extra details if you gave us a little more information about your commute. Tell us about speed limits, traffic jams, stoplights...anything that might give us more insight.

 

I also use EV for the first 5.5 miles of my commute which is on local roads- then use the ICE for the next 18 miles which is freeway miles, then EV again 5 miles of local roads to my job.
I recharge at the free ChargePoint station in the adjacent parking lot to my work.

Of course all bets are off when it's 3F outside

 

I might be looking at this completely wrong, but wouldn't it make more sense to use EV on the highway and HV on local roads? I just switched to a PIP from a Gen II and by far my mileage was the best while driving locally versus on the highway with the Gen II. Taking that logic, would I not want to compensate the worst mileage on the highway with some EV and take advantage of the good mileage that the HV is giving me already? I know I must be missing something given most here are saying they use EV locally...

 

EV can't give me the 65mph speeds we need (plus even more power for uphill climbs) for our freeways (specifically the Long Island Expressway) here.... so EV isn't really an option for highway use on my daily commute.
EV is super efficient at low speeds on local roadswhere's there almost no wind resistance too.

 

Yes, the mpg figures with hybrids tends to be inverted from conventional ICE cars, due to the fact that start/stop city driving is helped by regeneration, whereas energy lost to wind resistance at higher speeds is just lost. But on the question of ICE vs. electric with respect to higher speed driving, with the PiP the ICE is more efficient than the electric motor when more power is needed at higher speeds. In particular, at speeds above about 62mph, the ICE has to kick in anyway due to mechanical considerations with the power split device. This is a distinguishing factor between an enhanced hybrid like the PiP vs. a range-extended EV like the Volt: the PiP tries to use the ICE when it is the optimal power source, and the electric motor when it is optimal, whereas the range-extended EVs really try to avoid using the ICE unless the battery is depleted.

 

this isn't a bad theory, it all depends on your driving style, commute and etc. if you have enough ev for your highway driving, it may be possible to get better mpg's off of the highway. but the question becomes, what's the overall efficiency of the whole trip?

 

I think a very good rule of thumb for you would be to use your EV on the 8 miles of streets (16 miles total) and HV on the freeway.

Switching back and forth can have its benefits to using both fuels to their fullest capabilities. Did you own a regular Prius before? Are you familiar with Pulse and Glide?

Correct on the long trip idea. (wish I lived that close to Vegas)

 

This commute is ideal for using EV mode on low speed streets and HV on the highway. You can add a little EV range by switching to EV when slowing or going downhill on the highway (regeneration will then add to EV range), then switching back to HV to accelerate.

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My housemate drives our PIP for the most part. She is at 68MPG. The average started at 99MPG on the 23 mile drive home from the dealership in October, and stabilized in the seventies for the Fall, dropping slowly again for the Winter. She does more low and medium speed driving than you, though.

 

Thanks for asking this question OP. I just got a PiP last week and it looks I have almost the same type of commute (I'm in LA too!). I have about 2mi city --> 35mi highway --> 2 mi city each way, about 40 miles each way. I use EV for streets and HV for highway as well except for the last stretch of highway on my way home when I'm trying to burn off the EV miles. I LOVE this car and can't wait for carpool access with the green sticker.

Can someone explain to me what ICE warm up penalty is?

 

In it's most basic form- the PIP is double dipping from both power sources.
While "warming up" it's burning gasoline to warm up the ICE- which is kept pretty much off line as far as adding to the propulsion system (think of just running the ICE in neutral) while depleting EV power the whole time for propulsion as well.
So you're getting almost no propulsion from the running ICE while burning EV power to move the car at the same time... double dipping.

If I had to put it into numbers-
Without ICE warm up penalty, I could drive 1 mile on a flat street in HV mode at 45mph and get 55mpg. My EV miles would remain unchanged.
Without ICE warm up penalty, I could drive 1 mile on a flat street in EV mode at 45mph I would burn no gasoline, see 999 on the mpg display and only consume 1 EV mile.

With ICE warm up penalty, I could drive 1 mile on a flat street in HV/EV mode at 45mph and get 35mpg and my EV miles would also drop by 1 EV mile or more.