EV mode warm up

AldoOn - yes around 5% sounds close enough to what I've seen as well. The only slim speculation I can think of about why it would not show up after changing the 12 volt would be the loss of history data during the battery change.
I've notice a reduced EV range at low SOC after restarting the car for several years. I don't shut the car off 2 and 3/4 miles short of home often with low EV range left, but when I do I always notice the reduction in EV range after restarting the car. Not when restarting the car initially, but in how fast the available EV range depletes for the remainder of the trip.
I'm very sensitive to exactly how much EV range I need to make the last 3 miles home, because it's a mostly uphill climb with a couple of flats and a couple of mild downhills with a steep 1/10 mile downhill, a steep 1/10th of a mile uphill, a steep 1/10th of a mile downhill again and 2/10ths mile flat at the very end for the last half mile home.

I've also noticed the behavior after stopping at the store and I know I don't have enough EV left to make it home, there is a chargepoint 1/4 mile back down. Even going back down I've noticed the EV range depletes much faster than expected after restarting the car at the store.

It's really weird to see the range get gobbled up so fast and the engine switch on, when thinking beforehand there is plenty of EV left to make a destination.

 

Percent of EV range at 60 mph or 30 mph? 10°F or 80°F? Are you getting 20 miles of range or 35? EV range is not a useful metric as I've said dozens of times because it's a product of capacity and efficiency that's influenced hugely by weather, traffic, speed, and driver intelligence. Miles/kWh is useful because it's a direct measurement of how all those factors are affecting efficiency.

For the first mile, unless you're going downhill, expect to use over twice the energy that you use on average per mile for the rest of the trip. The farther you go, the less the impact on the trip. Just like a loan, the more payments you make the smaller they are. If you only drive three miles, getting just 2 miles/kWh for that first mile and five for the other two, which would be typical for me, you only average 4 miles/kWh. But if you drive 20 miles getting two on the first mile and five on the other 19, you average 4.85 miles/kWh. That's a 21% better average than on the three-mile trip.

[edit to add;] What helps me on those short trips is that they are usually very slow speed, so instead of 5 miles/kWh on the second & third miles, I get more like 6.

That's not surprising at all. The ailing 12V was requiring lots of juice from the traction battery to get charged back up. A healthy 12V battery will require less because it loses less charge while the car is "off."

 

Jerry, is it only your dislike of EV range as a metric to use in discussion, and that for you and perhaps others mi/kWh is a much more accurate gauge of what to expect from the cars EV capabilities?

The reason I take issue with the use of mi/kWh as the only metric to accurately gauge the cars EV efficiency is that I use 3 gauges in tandem, to gauge EV range of any single road trip while driving it and the EV estimate is one of them. And I really don't care if you believe the dynamic nature of the EV estimate is a poor measure of efficiency as I've seen in your many of your posts.
I'm not saying that mi/kWh is not a good gauge, it's one of the gauges I use too. And 5 or 6 mi/kWh per trip is fairly high on average. But if you knew the car was capable of 8 to 10+ mi/kWh consistently under ideal conditions, do you think you'd really be so gun ho about pushing your view of which gauges are the most important metrics for your use cases?

I happen to like using the EV estimate and % EV range in my descriptions, because they are sometimes easier for others to see on their dashes and I understand how dynamic and misleading they can be. But many of the dynamic features of the Prime are complex and misunderstood - in my opinion - by most Prime drivers.

 

Miles of range isn't all that bad for measuring efficiency if you're using actual miles rather than GOM miles and if you use all the range before starting the ICE. But if you look at your history on the eco diary page of the MID, you won't find miles of range there -- just miles/kWh. I only use all my EV rage in one day about once every two weeks and it's mildly interesting to see the actual miles when the remaining range goes to double dashes. But I already know about when that's going to happen so it doesn't tell me anything I didn't already know.

Also, if I drive maybe 10 miles around town in EV, then get on the Interstate and drive a couple hundred miles in HV, then get back onto city streets and drive for 8 miles and then stop for the day, what was my actual EV range? I suppose I could figure it out if I noted the odometer reading in a log every time I switched between EV and HV and calculated the range used and range still left to get the total combination of actual miles and estimated remaining miles. But that's a lot of work just to get something that's probably wrong. Miles/kWh always works and if you want to compare today with the average for a year ago or what you got two days ago, it's right there in your MID.

 

I see your point Jerry and it is a valid one. The thing is, to me anyways, is that mi/kWh gauge is not the end all for everyone, and although it works well for you and I in most situations, it's not all that meaningful for all scenarios, nor drivers perceptions of what the car is doing from the gauges they see by default.
I also believe that the mi/kWh gauge shouldn't be promoted as the best gauge for understanding the car nor the physics laws that may or may not be involved with reading a gauge or set thereof. And I'd just like to make that clear so you understand where I'm coming from when you quote and respond to my posts. They are not always directed at you for argument sake. Thanks

 

To illustrate the notion that the GOM (Guess-O-Meter) EV range prediction is not a very reliable matrix for showing the real EV efficiency, one just needs to look at what the GOM shows and compare it with what distance in miles the car actually can be driven on EV mode from 100% to depletion on the battery alone.

On my 2017 PP, I had an EV range of 48.4miles on GOM before I sold it. If I did not traded it and kept going, I could have achieved the max number 50.0 miles on the GOM, after which the number will not increase anymore. However, my true lifetime average EV range on the car was about 28 miles/full charge or 5.1miles/kWh. The longest I have ever driven on EV mode continuously was ~37 miles during ideal condition in summer. However, during winter the EV range could shorten to ~20 miles/charge even with the most conservative driving technique.

 

Some might be interested in the methods used to reach that 48.4miles on GOM,
If I remember correctly PiPLosAngels described the method. Was it actually Fooling the car or was there some method to the madness?

 

Yes, the way I achieved the high GOM EV range is by using the method described by @PiPLosAngeles. Read this thread for detail: EV Range Estimate Capped at 50.0 | PriusChat In essence, you can achieve a high GOM EV range by always recording the highest possible miles/kWh on the car's ECU. As you may know by now, miles/kWh is recorded only during the EV mode while you are driving using the traction battery power only. In an extreme case scenario, you can drive PP on HV mode most of the time and only switch to EV mode while the car is on the downhill descent using no battery energy. This results in ECU recording 99.9miles/kWh for that portion of EV mode drive. Your average EV efficiency will be 99.9miles/kWh, and your GOM over time will show 50.0miles. In practice, one would mix HV and EM mode during a trip so that the gas engine is used during acceleration from the stop and uphill climbs while switching to EV mode on flat and downhill terrain to coast and decelerate. This method would not yield the most efficient way to drive PP if the trip is too short, but if the trip is regularly over 50 miles before the next full charge, this will give better EV efficiency AND overall gas mileage.