On a long downhill, with EV mode selected, the car goes out of EV mode when one surpasses 65. When slowing down from 70, the car will not go into EV mode until one is down to 62. THen it stays there until one exceeds 65. I wonder if there is any difference in what is happening when one is going downhill at 66 vs 61? Both are using 0 gas. But one counts as an EV mile and the other does not. Here in high Colorado, this sort of thing makes the EV ratio somewhat meaningless. On a more positive note, with the display showing the EV %age, and resetting it for current fillip, the number at right shows the number of gallons used. It is only to the nearest gallon but if one starts with a full tank of 10.6 gals. this helps one understand exactly how much is left when the lights start blinking. (Seems to be about 2 gals).
I had the same observation. ICE is started if you exceed 65 mph, to prevent MG1 from revving over 10,000 rpm. Starting the ICE uses very tiny amount of gas for some reason (knowledge from Gen2 Prius). I am not sure if it still applies in PiP. Generally, PiP does not count ICE spinning miles as EV miles. Well, what fuel did you use to climb that long uphill? It is not a simple situation and there is no perfect way to track EV and HV miles. BTW, what's your EV ratio and how is your commute like?
So then the ICE is coming on, the miles don't "count" as EV miles, and the little ICE icon does NOT spew out the orange arrows (since I am going downhill here at, say, 70 mph). Is that what you guys, who all agree, are saying? I guess the bottom line is whether there is any virtue in adapting one's behavior to these numbers when going downhill (e.g., 11100 to 5280 in Denver). By the way, when I got my '05 Prius there were some cool animations online explaining the PowerSplit Device and its use of a sun-planet-planet carried system to manage the hybrid work. It seems like a very nifty system, and I assume this PSD is still the basis of the '13 PiP. To answer: I do not commute. I go down to town about once a day (5 miles r.t., so pure EV there). But every few days, like today, I drive 50 or so miles. E.g., today: Down 750 feet from house. Up 2500 feet to tunnel Down 2500 ft other side. Up 2000 ft to trailhead. Then reverse it all to get home (rushing so I can get some recharge before my wife goes out for errands (failed there today)). Oh, and my EV ratio is about 33% EV.
After the ICE is started, it revs under 1,000 rpm and it maintained (spun) by MG1 using electricity. It takes about 300 watts (about 6 headlight bulbs) to keep the ICE idling. During this time, ICE does not generate power and therefore no arrow is coming out of the ICE. In fact, it should show an arrow going into ICE since it is consuming some electricity. I guess it is so small that it is not shown.
The above spinning is with no compression and no fuel, right? But if the ICE is cold, then it is going to first do its warmup cycle, burning a small amount of gasoline; I am not sure if it is producing any power during this time, or burning just enough gasoline to spin the engine. Toyota is not forthcoming about a lot of these details, since these proprietary algorithms have significant value to them. Other auto manufacturers like GM spend a lot of money trying to reverse-engineer Hybrid Synergy Drive technology.
Yes, I can see the warmup issue could play a role -- my observations were from the Eisenhower Tunnel on down, and getting up to the tunnel of course gets the engine very warmed up. And, as many of you have been saying, charging to less than full for those of us on a hill does seem wise. I just went out with the car about 0.5 charged. Down the hill got it to about 65% full. Then I did some errands and -- for the first time ever -- the ICE never came on. It did come on at the end of the climb home, but the MPG for the 5-mile run was the best ever. So this is a little frustrating: One can use the timer if one knows exactly when one is going out (set it to stop X minutes past the time when one is leaving), but that is awfully fussy. I need a way to charge it to, say, 80% full each time, since I'll get the rest going down. But there appears to be no way to do that. A poster mentioned turning the AC on full, and the fan on full, but that did not quite work as well as what just happened....
This is very similar to what happens with a non-PIP Liftback. At 46mph the ICE kicks on but when coasting down the engine will not stop spinning until 43-42mph. Keep in mind that the displayed mph is approx. 1-2mph off (fast).
If you stay below 62-65 mph, you'll be in EV mode. If you go above and start the ICE, you'll be in EV-BOOST mode. You can tell you are in this mode by this screen (notice the EV icon missing). In this mode, the battery gets drained and gas can be used. In another word, it is a blended mode, therefore miles driven cannot be counted as EV miles. Yes, PSD is still the heart of HSD in PiP. They made it lighter and more efficient. If you start with a full charge and regen brake, ICE may start (to waste generated electricity) and kick you out of EV mode. Those miles downhill will not be counted as EV miles. As a workaround, you can partially charge with the timer or use neutral to disable regen brake (may be illegal in your state). Understanding how PiP works may allow you to increase your EV ratio to reflect the actual. Hope that helps. [Edit]: You are aware of partial charge with the timer. I guess, give the neutral gear a try. It'll use the brake pads.
ICE warmup cycle makes power. If you are at rest, the battery gets recharged (if it is not full) and the energy screen shows that with the arrow.
I thought that's how EV miles worked. If I'm going to own a Plug In, I want as many EV miles as possible and recorderd. Periodically, like everyone else, I loose some EV miles. The other day I was out, and had about one mile of EV range remaining. I was at a stop light, cut my Prius off to get the credit for almost a full range of EV miles, and then drove on. The first time I did that, but not the last.
One can play all sorts of games to skew the EV/HV report; some of these techniques actually change how much mpg you are getting, many don't. For example, how should one report the so-called "EV-Boost" mode, where both ICE and battery power are being used to move the car? Suppose you go up a long climb in HV mode (using the ICE), and then switch to EV mode on the downhill and subsequent flat: the electricity you are using on the flat in EV mode was really obtained from the ICE to climb the hill and recovered on the downhill with regeneration, but will be recorded as EV miles.
>>>the electricity you are using on the flat in EV mode was really obtained from the ICE to climb the hill and recovered on the downhill with regeneration, but will be recorded as EV miles. Good point. I think, at least for me, paying too much attention to EV accounting is not terribly important. MPG and minimizing visits to gas stations is all I care about, and it is not exactly the same thing as the subtleties of EV counting. One good thing I noticed today: My 05 Prius had the annoying habit, when battery was low and I was at the top of a big hill, of turning on the ICE on the way down to get the battery up to satisfactory levels, despite the fact that I knew it would get to satisfactory without this, because the hill is long. So most commonly I would flip between N and B, since ICE did not come on in B, and this would get 3 bars of power, and the problem would go away. That seems to not happen now: Going down a big hill with the battery low -- the ICE (already warmed up) stays off. Good. [[Some on this forum said that use of N at such high speeds (70 mph) is bad, but the car got beyond 100000 miles with no proble.]]
. What's wrong with getting credit for all the EV miles we drive? "Skew" and "playing all sorts of games" is kind of harsh. With a short commute, charging on both ends, I'm going to accumulate a lot of EV miles. I drive a Prius Plug In for a reason. Skewing and playing all sorts of games is not my intention.
In some sense, the "harshness" is intended. There are various techniques to get a bigger EV number to display, but the connection to how far you are going on a charge or how far you are going on a gallon of gasoline can be very tenuous. The control software on the plug-in does a complex mix of EV and ICE usage, including use both at the same time. Sometimes the software decides that the ICE is a more efficient source of power in a particular situation. It's not like the Volt, which is envisioned as an EV, with the ICE only used as a last resort, like when the battery is drained. (I don't intend to be critical of the Volt; its design is better suited for some people, depending on their usage patterns.) It is not always clear what the EV/HV numbers should be.
In retrospect, that's exactly what the serious Prius driver does. More do than don't, or at least try. It's not a matter of ethics, right or wrong.
It is possible to play with the system to skew how EV/HV gets accounted. It'll take a lot of work though. Favoring one side would make the other side suffer. That's why looking at the efficiency of both fuels is important.
