Tom's Trips with the PHV

I'll be getting a chance to drive one for a few days soon - any questions left at this point I can try to answer?

I have no ScanGauge/etc, so no hard #s. But I'll be taking it out on a multi-hour drive down I-10 just for the heck of it, and trying to find picturesque spots in barren NW FL for photo ops.

 

There's no easy way to test that, unfortunately, as the 65mph stretch near home is only about 3 miles long southward, and I'm far from an interstate to test. I'd have used up the entire EV range before I can get to a road to test 60.

If I north up the 65mph road, it drops to 55, but if the construction is still going on, the limit will probably be lower. I'll check, though, just in case it's done, in which case I can test at/near 60 if traffic allows. Though the first 2.5 miles to get to the road are at 45.

 

So it got dropped off early last night, but I just dropped by my dealer for a quick wash, and did some shopping on the way back home. Since it was driven from TX, of course the PHV battery was depleted. Got it home, plugged it in, checked on it about 4 hours later, fully charged (it's supposed to take 3 hours). Taking the driver to the airport today, stopping back home for what little charge I can get, then heading to a winery in Perdido, AL, that I've never been to.

Tomorrow I take it to my dealer for them to check it out, while my 06 is in for a check on a popping noise in the steering (back to the dealer on Mon for the 04 to get the 60C steering recall finally).

 

OK, just got back from a 49 mi round trip to drop the driver at the airport.

Caveat on these mpg figures - I just checked the tire pressures, they were 34-35, instead of the 38 F/R on the door jamb sticker. I just bumped them to 44psi max tire pressure (probably a good 2psi lower cold pressure, though, as the tires are hot right now). Going to have to try to remember to drop them back down before giving the car back.

Dealer to home last night - 18.5mi, 55mpg, 28mph avg (lots of 55/65 in here, so it must count stopped times too)

Home to Holiday Inn, full charge - 16.7mi, 99.9+mpg, 36mph avg - EV kicked out at 13.9mi - I tried to get it to use ICE up steep hills, but it insisted on chewing up some battery anyways - I'm going to have to remember to stomp on it hard on those hillls if I have EV available, I lost about a mile or more on just 2-3 hills in 55/65 zones.
Hol Inn to airport - 9.4, 55.5, 31
Home to airport trip, above 2 - 26.2, 92.1mpg, 34
Airport to home - 22.8, 54.4, 25

Full round trip - 49.1 mi, 69.7mpg, 29mph

So it can definitely be useful. Though on my longer shopping trips, 120-150 miles, obviously the overall mpg is going to shrink. But at its' worst, it still tops my 2G by a decent amount.

Heading to Perdido Vineyards in AL in a bit, about 40 miles each way. I'll probably only get about 30min of charge into it, so it won't do much there.

Tomorrow, dealer trip, then heading to my in-laws to show them the car. Will be fully charged for the trip to the dealer, hopefully I can plug it in there, then at the in-laws, to get some decent #s for the 100-120 mile trip.

Sunday - trip to recycling center, shopping, don't think there will be much else. Round trip of at least 50mi, so I'm not expecting above 65-70mpg.

Mon - drop my wife's 04 at dealer for 60C recall, take my wife to work, then recycling, home to charge, then back to pick her up in the evening. The evening pickup will the the only time I can get a decent gauge of how well a PHV would work for her commute (she'd never be able to charge at work).

Tues - trip to Tallahassee, just for the heck of it. Around 180-200mi each way, with a vineyard or 2 to stop at on the way.

Wed - do I really have to give it back?

 

I've been using Trip A to track total mpg for the time I have it (not tank fills - just finally filled it yesterday, won't be filling it before handing it back, just adding a bit to finish my trip), and Trip B for each trip. Been keeping track in a notebook, will post #s tomorrow after I have to give it back. So far, though, I'm at around 500mi at 62ish mpg. There have been a few times where I had to go back out without getting any charge in, rushed to get as much done as possible in the short time I have the car. If I owned one, those trips wouldn't have been rushed, the mpg would be a bit better.

Finally tested my wife's commute last night. A bit of a PITA, as we had to pick up her 04 from the dealer, and headed home then to the dealer, lengthening the trip by quite a bit. But her 50mi round trip commute with no charge at work netted me 74.5mpg. With her feather foot (YOU try not having a lead foot with my size 16s!), she'd easily near 80mpg.

Today's trip will tank that badly, though, as it will be 450-500 miles with 90% of it on I10 at 70mph. So the full charge on the pack won't help much ;-) (though I DID finally find the most efficient way to deal with the several steep hills heading into town - on my several trips to the dealer, EV was kicking out at 12.6mi. Flooring it at the right point on the hills to kick the ICE when it made sense got me 15.0mi last time)

I really, really, REALLY don't want to give it back!

 

Boy, have I been bad about updating this thread with the info I wrote down for each trip. OK, time to buckle down and enter it.

Pics here, here's a quick one


Driver dropped the car off Thurs night instead of Friday, so I took him to his hotel, stopped by my dealer on the way home. Took driver to airport Fri.

HTML:

Trip                      Miles  MPG    mph  Notes
Dealer to home            18.5   55     28   After pickup, no charge

Home-hotel                16.7   99.9   36   Taking driver to airport, full charge
Hotel-airport              9.4   55.5   31   Charge gone by now
Overall home-airport      26.2   92.1   34
Airport-home              22.8   54.4   25 
Home-airport-home         49.1   69.7   29

Home-Perdido Vineyards    39.1   67.0   45   EV kicked out at 6.5mi - 1/2 charge
Vineyards-shopping-home   51.6   54.6   47   Different route home

To this point            139.9   62.6   38


Home-dealer               16.4   99.9   34   Full charge. Taking my 06 in for service
Home-dealer-home          32.8   99.9   37   1/2 charge at dealers lot.

Home--in-laws--home      121.8   51.5   26

To this point            294.6   60.4   32

Home-CVS-Kmart            14.4   99.9   34   EV kicked out 13.8
Kmart-home                14.5   62.5   37

To this point            323.6   62.2   32

Home-dealer               16.3   99.9   37   EV out at 15.0
Dealer-work               16.0   50.8   44   Dropping wife's 04 at dealer, taking her to work
Work-shopping-home        56.3   50.6   25

To this point            412.5   61.3   31

Home-work                 25.2   99.9   38   FINALLY testing wife's work commute, where
Work-home                 50.5   74.5   31   she'll only be able to charge at home - she normally
                                             gets 3-5mpg better than me in either of ours, so I'd
                                             realistically expect 80mpg from her.  But Toyota 
                                             would only let me drive it, so we'll never know.
To this point            463.1   62.5   32
Home-dealer-home          39.8   59.5   36   No time for charge here, had to pick up 04.

To this point            502.9   62.3   32

Home-Tallahassee         213.9   49.0   62   EV kicked out at 15.7mi, right at I10 ramp, right
                                             before dealer.  I10 was 70mph the whole way.
Home-Tallahassee-home    428.0   48.0   60   My 06 gets 43.0 on this trip.

Total for my drive       931.0   54.8   41

NOTES - some of these are about the 3G in general, as I don't own one.

The charger cable needs to be about 3-5' longer on the wall plug side. My garage outlets are higher off the floor, but even normal ones leave the charger hanging from the socket, which will damage the socket over time. Not everyone will custom install a plug at ground level for the charger (especially with the rains we get around here - ground level DOES NOT WORK, it would blow the circuit multiple times a year).

PHV battery gauge is stuck at 2 bars once EV kicks out - THIS SUCKS. For many people, it's what they'll see the vast majority of the time. What they NEED to do is run the EV bars in green, and
when EV kicks out (which is obvious, as the EV symbol disappears), use the entire range in a different color if necessary.

99.9 is the max mpg that displays. Bad, BAD Toyota! They NEED another digit (and I don't mean 99.99)

The EV packs NEED to pull from regen all the time. I know they did what they did on the test vehicles to save the SMRs, but the fix to that is to rebuild the pack so the SMRs are easily accessible and make them FRUs.

I'll repeat what I've said before - THE DASH SUCKS! At least the center dash/console swoop does. The Prius is NOT a sports car, it does NOT need a wraparound dash. Losing the 2 rear cupholders in
the console is bad enough, but requiring the console to be open to access the 2nd front one is even worse. And the one that is in the dash is obviously only made for 12oz cans - anything larger blocks
the shifter. And who decided the shifter needed to be back where a "normal" one goes? Seriously, how often do you have to touch it? I use it maybe 1% of the time, if that, and it's front and center
like you have to use it all the time. And the center dash top/bottom parting line is very sharp, and happens to be right at my knee level. When on a long trip, my knee rests against it, and it scrapes my leg up. If I owned a 3G, the first thing I'd have to do is sand those edges down. The next thing I'd do is find a wrecked 3G, buy the whole dash, and shred it, so I could fold the center of the dash down more like the 2Gs (looking at it, I'd bet all the wires in the center area would reach if the "swoop" was cut out and everything was folded nearly flat to the rest of the dash). The storage area under the middle is pretty useless to me. On my 2G, I can put a 2L bottle in the drawer. Can't do that with the 3G. Nothing is easily accessible down there compared to the 2G.

The door panels seem a bit flimsier than my 2G. If I lean my leg against it, it flexes a lot. Just a tiny bit more reinforcement back there would make the car seem less cheaply built.

I'd MUCH rather have an inflatable lumbar pillow than heated seats. Many people that complain about the seats in the Prius would benefit from a lumbar pillow, negating the need for most to either pull the seats for something else (usually losing the airbag in the process) or selling off the car (don't laugh,those who have been on PC long enough know).

The hill brake ROCKS! I'd bet they could program this into the 2Gs, but I know they never will :-(

 

Pensacola Beach is known for it's sugar white sands. Hence none of us were too happy when BP messed it up. Luckily, it seems to have been cleaned up decently (and gone underground) long ago, so most of the area is still white.