Gaming the system: record EV range!

... unless one's employer has set the charging stations to charge a fee, as mine has.

 

Here at Disney we pay 28¢/kWh with a buck minimum. ie; not so free

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Everything was paid for by someone; even a "free lunch."

 

me, when i buy disney tix. i don't mind taking good care of mickey and hill.

 

YouDaMan!
my 401k thanks you

 

AGREE!

 

I'm confused, what does "avoid using the battery for any direct propulsion" mean? Are people generally saying that with the PiP you're better in HV mode after maintaining a certain speed?

Or are people saying use gas when you are accelerating to that speed?

Or both? Sorry for my ignorance - I just want to know what people have found out.

 

Switching to EV mode at the beginning of a "glide" at speeds below 62MPH will shut down the ICE and allow coasting with no ICE drag with careful use of the "go pedal". The unfortunate side effect is that the distance covered while in EV mode is added to the running totals of EV miles in the car's computers when, in fact, all the energy came from gasoline. This results in much better EV MPGE and no improvement in calculated HV MPG and the EV range estimate will be inflated far above what can actually be obtained. There are clear efficiency gains to be had by shutting off the ICE but calculating or even estimating them is difficult. (I haven't actually tried this) To avoid most of the side effects it might be better to turn off the ICE by selecting EV mode then shift to N, then re-select HV when starting a glide, then end the glide by shifting back to D. As an example of the side effects, I have been using this and My EV range estimate has ballooned to 20 miles while my actual range is about 12 miles.
Another indication is my EV MPGE on my last tank was 161MPGE, about 153% of the EPA benchmark. While my HV MPG was 54.24, only 8.5% better than the EPA benchmark.
The spread sheet includes a weighted average performance on the two fuels to EPA benchmarks that helps eliminate the distortion this technique will create. Using the weighted average I achieved 116% of benchmark for the tank which suggests if I'd not used any EV I could have gotten 58MPG.

 

Well since no one has put a bullet thru the brain of this ~ 2yr old zombie thread ... lemy lock & load

actually - when it comes to gaming ..... the OP is/was late to the party;

Top 20 - MPG Record Holders | PriusChat

and ... climbing aboard your wayback machine (reading a few of the truly old old zombie threads) you'll discover that even the lowly genII Prius, some of 'em now over 13yrs old, were gamed - all the way up into the mid 80's mpg's. Thats right ... & even tho the link posted doesn't apply - especially to Japanese genII's, those' gamers managed to squeeze over 1,000 miles out of a single tank ... not just a measly 500 miles per the requirement of the linked post. Now if one wants to game via a 300 mile benchmark, per the OP, well then the longest range ev will now epa at ~ 325 miles /100mpge - and if you game it by 'only' driving @ a constant 60mph, you'll go way beyond 350 miles. Presuming you're not getting free solar juice - but instead, paying at least the utility's wholesale cost of electricity (~2.7¢), then your trip cost ~$2.47 - or less. If the juice was free (a substantial ratio of plug-in owners do run on solar), then your cost for fuel is free, and thus game over. So as Barney Fife would excitedly say, "move along, nothing to see here!"

Lastly, the OP's assertion that 'rolling hills' helped his efficiency. That, defies the laws of physics.
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Not really.

Consider this. Drive a regular Prius of a PIP using gas on a road that goes up a hill. Assume you get 50 mpg on level ground, but going up this hill you get only 25 mpg. If you turn around and go back down the hill your energy usage will be 50 mpg. Right? (double the normal energy usage to go up and zero energy usage to go down) But you also could have regenerated some and filled the battery. If you think that this violates some laws of physics you are wrong. There has to be some hill that you can climb and get 25 mpg and you can roll back down using no gas (or battery).

Not only that, you could take a longer road back to the starting point...the same vertical drop but a longer road. So it might be 10 miles up but 30 miles back down (just less steep). And in this case your mpg goes way up.

The problem is in applying the laws of physics incorrectly. The amount of energy consumed going up is the amount recovered going down, but the horizontal distance covered is independent of the vertical distance.

Mike

 

(sigh) no
Such Logic - carry it out to its utter ridiculousness .... It's best exemplified via a similar whacky example. Take a few gallons then head up to the top of the Rockies. Do whatever trick you want & get back down to the bottom. Now according to to the wacky increase theory - you have more efficiency than when you started, apparently, because according to the whacky theory your efficiency will continue to go up & up & up eternally. Best of all, (not even counting resistence via MG's recharging, & AC to DC conversion losses) you didn't even have to account for wind resistance!

Now all you need to do is keep doing it the rest of your life. Thank you. Your eternally increasing efficiency machine just (in essence) created what is in effect, a perpetual motion machine - (gotta use up that energy somewhere) so you can now provide enough energy for the rest of the world - once we get a bunch of other Prius drivers to head up and down the Rockies .
Does that help?

I'd prefer to put a sail on the front of the car & a great big battery powered fan on the back of the car - facing the sail, to push the car down the road.
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The laws you are referring too were made prior to 1950 and their intentions have nothing to do with cars, they were made because big rigs would overspeed.

Though I suppose they could enforce that law on a passenger vehicle I have never heard of a single case

 

um, no, but you can look up legislative history & read the intent yourself.
Then read your vehicle code. In case a head start helps;
§21710
Law section
Maybe it's because they don't want all that Surplus energy created

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So Cali was late to the party 1959
And clearly says "Down Grade", if I coast on flat I'm legal.

Those in the know who are old enough to be of legal age at the time of the laws being enacted have told me repeatedly the reason for those laws was big rigs in neutral going down grades and loosing control.
It happened enough to become news and cause these laws which vary state to state.

Around that time you started seeing those pull offs for out of control semis as well.

Again the intent was never passenger cars, probably common sense not to go 120mph in neutral down a mountain though

 

Wow
By that logic, I can kill stupid people because the murder code was written in the 1800's & Ergo we no longer have to pay attention to it ... just because its old;
Codes Display Text
"And and and I know these people who said it only applied to mean people too ... because that's what some people told me".
Throw out the code. That's priceless logic.
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I can attest to the fact that selecting EV mode to kill the Ice, then shifting to N then re-selecting HV mode works and works well. The only possible downside is that while in N any braking is totally friction NO REGEN. The coasting miles are added to the HV total, not the EV total. Where I live, in south central Kentucky, every road is a hill, either uphill or down, some are steep some have just a little slope. Pulse up, glide down gives all the benefits of pulse and glide with less speed change. Today I made a 155 mile round trip on a mostly 55MPH road. I pulsed uphill cresting at 62 MPH then transitioned to a glide (HV) in neutral with the ICE off. I shifted back to D and began accelerating when my speed fell to 50 MPH, usually part way up the next hill. I adjusted the acceleration rate aiming to crest the next hill at 62 MPH. I had about 10 miles in each direction of city driving with speed limits of 45 or less and used what ever hypermiing traffic allowed. Ice warm up, both directions is buried in the data. The results: I used 1 EV mile, according to the EV HV display and my trip b which was reset as I left my driveway showed 155 miles 71MPG, 41 MPH. I began with a 16 EV mile estimate and ended with 14.5 mile EV range estimate. Subtracting the EV mile and recomputing still gives 70.5 MPG. Correcting for the 5% optimism of the computers MPG suggest 67 MPG actual.

 

@hill , from your recent posts in this thread I gather you agree that for certain speeds range, pulse & glide on flat roads can increase efficiency (higher mpg) as compared to driving at constant speed which is the average of the above.
Why can't you accept that the same is achievable on hilly return trip in certain speeds range? It is pulse & glide done cleverly when the road is familiar to the driver.
The fact one car (or drive) is more efficient than the other does not make it Perpetuum Mobile.

 

I certainly don't want to create animosity - nor is it necessary to garner advocates for 'physics'.
Simply put though, spending energy for travel (absent of all gravety & atmosphere) necessarily means you face resistance and loss ... friction from asphalt to tires, from the air - moving ice parts ... electrical loss via wires, and DC to AC HV. Flat ground, & moderate temps & speed will require one amount of energy to overcome, while climbing a hill, another. If you use 1 gallon to travel flat ground 50miles, ok. Use fuel to Climb a 25 mile hill then coast back down ... it will necessarily require MORE than 1 gallon - or you'll coast to a stop prior to arrival. Why. Your faster downhill coast will create more wind resistance, never mind higher turning/rubber resistance, if it's not a straight run. Use regen ? That'll recapture SOME energy for later use, but it won't supercede its own magnetic drag & AC to DC to AC conversion losses & of course way more fuel to pull the 25 mile hill. Sorry but you have to pay the piper.
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