ICE vs charging on depleted battery at low speeds

here one solution to short journey wows or just moving out of garage to wash it..... works a treat best mod I ever did..... cost less 20 euro
.. just turn it off for longer journey

yet another thermistor hack for Gen3 | PriusChat

I used circuit 1.... easy to switch off!

 

Ahhh,, now it is starting to make sense! Thank you for the link, and helping on the confusion of my ICE starting so often in "EV" mode. We live 3 blocks up from the pacific ocean in Central Coastal Calif., our usual temps for summer -most the year for that matter- are night time lows of around 55 degrees f, high of around 70 f. So it is like around 65 most of the time. I would imagine I am going through an ICE "warmup" every time i move our car! That sucks, as it surly defeats the EV mode for short trips, ICE will start way more than actually needed because the engine is just "cold" most all of the time.

 

Well, I'm not going to worry about the EV button, just doesn't seem worth it. It's in the 90's in the morning here right now and I don't think the ICE started this morning when I went out to play with the nav. I'm still learning how it works, so I spend a lot if time in the garage playing. The ICE does come on after awhile to charge and goes off after about a minute, give or take. It's great being able to use the A/C and not burn a bunch of gas.

 

Hang on: you hang out in the Prius, in the garage, with the car in ready mode, AC compressor and engine cycling on and off?

Actually not that bad I guess...

 

Only right now because I needed to set up the addresses in the nav unit, etc. It's over 100 degrees out here, so it's too hot to sit outdoors and I can't play with the nav while driving. It's not like I sit for long, maybe 15 minutes if that. The point is if I had to do that in the van or truck, I'd really waste some gas. Tomorrow I'm going to try to learn the voice commands.

BTW, the phone really works well via Bluetooth. My first real experience with Bluetooth and car audio for phone calls. There are a lot of things to learn before I'll feel comfortable doing many of them while driving.

 

I think if you push the start button twice WITHOUT foot on brake, you'll get car "on" but it won't start up. I'm not 100% sure on that, but it worked thus a couple of times in the last few days for me, setting up Bluetooth phones.

Little cooler here, but trying, 33 C right now.

 

You know, I remember reading about ACC/ON at some point, but totally spaced out when I wanted to check the info display and found it doesn't work in ACC mode. I forgot there's also an ON, just like any other car, so thanks for waking me up. Even so, I probably wouldn't want to run the A/C too long or it will run down the battery, right?

I should be pretty much done checking that kind of stuff. Most of it I probably won't even use, but right now it's all a novelty. Next up will be to go for a drive and check out the voice controls for the phone and navigation. I really want to learn navigating by voice and not succumb to the temptation to buy the mod to bypass the lock-out feature. I got in the habit of playing too much with my Garmin on previous trips and I want to try to be safer, part of the reason for buying a new car with built-in navigation in the first place.

I will admit that there's a thread here about the battery and it has me a little paranoid about it failing because I've overused ACC/ON or did something else wrong. The trouble with a lot of this stuff is I'm joining in without understanding all the context for some of the discussion. I'm probably way over-reacting and I should just drive the car like any other car and things will gradually become apparent, like the EV button that seems pretty useless, at least for where we go.

 

In IG ON, you won't get any A/C, because the hybrid battery is still disabled, and the compressor runs off the HV electrical system. It only turns on the 12V system, which is enough to get the navigation/audio and the vent fan. It's a good idea to not spend too much time in this mode (30 minutes should be fine, if your battery isn't weak), because you're drawing power from the small 12V battery. When in Ready mode, the HV battery is charging the 12V battery, and the engine will keep the HV battery charged, so you can do that indefinitely if you like. Or at least, for however many days a tank of gas will last you.

 

With all the screens to keep an eye on and, then add the scanguage, you might as well text while driving, too because it can't make it anymore of a distraction while driving.

 

I think I may have given you folks the wrong impression. I was in the car with it running for maybe 10 minutes while I was troubleshooting my problem getting the nav to import addresses from my phone. Other times I read the manual inside and then go out for a couple of minutes to make sure I understand what I read. I also cycled through the gauges once for several minutes because I thought I saw a decimal point in the display for 'miles to fuel'. The display is kind of small and right about where my bifocal line is, so I thought it was showing me average mpg. At first it looked like 62.3, then 50.3, then 58.9 when it actually read 623, 503 and 589. I didn't actually 'see' a decimal point, I just assumed there was one, duh....

Anyway, I don't intend to spend any time 'watching' the display. Right now it's all new so there's a curiosity factor at work. I need to learn things, like how the trip odometers work because I'll use Trip A for fuel stops/mpg and Trip B for tire rotation or something. Since most nav options are disabled while moving, I need to learn the voice commands because we are always looking for places to stop along the route, be it restaurants, rest stops/visitor's centers, Walmart, lodging or other POIs. I want to know how gas prices work because even though I won't have to be as conscious about prices, I still like to patronize the stations who gouge us less.

The more I learn before our trip, the safer and more enjoyable the trip will be. I'm going to try very hard not to use my Garmin, though I'll take it along. That's the biggest negative to built-in navigation, I can't sit in the house and enter all the known stops along our route like I can with the Garmin. Now I need to go out and sit in the car to enter all that stuff and, again, it's hot out there right now, so I don't mind using a little gas to get it all done. I also understand some of the phone and maybe nav data can be saved to a USB stick, so I need to learn that to. I do a lot of preplanning for our trips and I need to know what part of that process I'll need to change.

 

DoublDaz When you enter your "home" address into your nav, you might want to make it a couple blocks away from your real house. I read that it is a good idea to miss-direct a potential car thief / burglar away from your true home. But then their is always the garage remote, insurance and registration papers in the car they can use if they try hard enough... Just to say,, if someone gets your keys, don't give them your house easily too!

 

Funny, I was just thinking about that. We've got just a Garmin, and it drives me nuts trying to coax a destination out of it sometimes. But at least I can do it away from the car. I can even plug it into the 12 volt outlet on my jump pack, if it comes to that.

 

My PiP seems to have decided that stored EV power is no damned good unless you use it. I like to keep a little in reserve, but every time I start the car, it goes into EV mode by default. Eventually, it drains all the EV energy, even though I'd like to leave it in reserve.

 

I keep one in my car, attached to the corner-window. Most of the time it works better than the built-in nav.

 

^ D.O., suction cup on that little triangle window. Just fits.

 

Shades it from the sun, too.

 

I wish someone would steal my entire house.

Totally agree. My iPhone is superior to my Garmin I used to stick on the window. Can't believe auto makers still sell Nav systems as options anymore. Same with satellite radio. I had an add on unit when it first came out. Now with Bluetooth and everything that streams, I'm surprised that hasn't gone by the way of 8 track tapes.

 

There's something to be said for the large nav screen with spoken commands and directions, in comparison to fiddling with a smartphone while driving.

 

Esp. us old foggy's like my 7 inch!! Garmin!

 

Don't fiddle with anything. Put in the address, put it on a dash clip then ask Siri where the closest POI is. No updating of maps at all. Plus I get alternate suggestions based on traffic or construction problems and don't have to worry about outdated maps. V