My wife drives the Hymotion Prius. My Prius is a production model. I will ask her to take a picture for the official initiation. Now that I think of it, her commute is 10 minutes so I will have to take her car this weekend for a trip to get a picture.

PeakOilGarage - what has the air temperature been in your neck of the woods? My Hymotion has been averaging over 99.9 since I got it a month ago UNTIL yesterday. Air temperature is now between the 30s and 50s and MFD shows 98MPG with 178 miles traveled.

renewablesnow, it has been around 40 F early in the morning. But my car is garaged and I have the EBH now. I also live at the top of a serious hill, so I have a 1/2 mile drive with a STEEP grade to climb about twice per day. If there is no traffic, I drive the hill at 10 mph in pure EV mode, but sometimes I have to drive normal and it kills my average. So I have other issues besides temperature in order to maintain my 99.9 average.

If you look at my picture, you will see that the temp was 46 F when I took it during my EV range test. If your car is going through a longer warm-up phase early in the morning, that could explain your reduced numbers.

I am looking into the front grill insulation to maintain engine temp during the winter.

wow... thanks for invite (offers low Zenn as only plug in option...no hymotion available)

From some of the various threads, I am really surprised by the low numbers on range, even with mixed city/highway.

Would you guys do me a favor this weekend and do a highway range test? We should all try to do a similar test and report back our results.

Start with a full battery. Leave your home with Hymotion turned off.
Get out on the highway (flat area if possible), set the cruise control at 55 mph, turn off the AC and maybe crack the window if you need it. Radio usage is fine.
Then once your speed is set on cruise control, start the Trip A or B, reset your consumption screen stats, then quickly turn the Hymotion battery ON.

Tell us your range when the Hymotion pack gives out and your MPG. At 55 mph on the highway (if the terrain is flat), I would expect 40+ miles of range and 99.9+ mpg.

Tell us your range when the Hymotion pack gives out and your MPG. At 55 mph on the highway (if the terrain is flat), I would expect 40+ miles of range and 99.9+ mpg.

PeakOilGarage,I don't get mine til Jan., so I'm not speaking with any experience, but I was under the impression that the battery will put out the same Kw of power as the max in ev mode, ie 34 mph and therefore drain at the same rate. In other words, if the battery runs out after 45 minutes at 34 mph, it will run out after 45 minutes at 55 or 60 also.
Check out this graph...
http://theeestory.com/topics/13?page=1#p30

=D~~~

gkalkas, that is interesting. So logically, we should just do the max speed if the goal is just the maximum distance electrically assisted.

Maximum efficiency at highway speeds with the minimum gasoline consumed is my goal. I recall reading somewhere that at 55 mph, the Hymotion provides about 75% of the energy and the ICE provides about 25%. But at 75 mph it is the reverse, 75% ICE and 25% Hymotion.

Looking at my SCII trip computer, it definitely shows much high MPG numbers at 55 mph than at higher speeds.

At 32 mph in pure EV mode, it is showing gallons per hour (GPH) of 0.01 and it shows crazy numbers of 3,000+ mpg. I think that SGII just has to calculate with some number, so it uses 0.01 even though it is really 0.00 GPH.

If anyone else has any thoughts on the most efficient speeds or better strategies for using the Hymotion battery, please share them.

Does anyone know the charging algorithm for the hymotion battery? Mine has been tripping the supposedly 20-amp circuit breaker about half way through charging.

Dave Roper

I have had an energy meter on mine a few times. The maximum it ever pulls is about 1,100 watts. Most of the early time is spent at 900 watts.

It rarely pulls more than 9 amps at any given time. Perhaps 10 amps. It should not be tripping a 20 amp circuit. Are you sure there is nothing else on that circuit during your recharge?

What is the voltage of the Hymotion battery and how many kWhs are required to fill it when it is empty?

Dave Roper