How many bars does your Prius like to maintain?

[echocanyon]

Sorry if this is redundant, but I can't find a thread on it elsewhere.

My 06 seems to always want to maintain 7 bars, and will often charge the battery while I'm accellerating, even uphill, even when it already has 6-7 bars. When I'm driving in mountainous country at moderate temps, that means the ICE works hard going uphill, and I crest the hill with 7 bars. I quickly get to 8 bars on regen going downhill, and if it is a long downslope, I assume I am wasting the rest of the potential energy.

Doesn't that suck?
Does this happen to anyone else?
Why does the car try to charge the battery going uphill when it already has 6-7 bars?
I've contemplated getting an ev button, but I doubt I could safely go under 34 mph anyway on public highways.
Is there any other solution?

I'm already pissed that my car never seems to do much better than 48 mpg even though I drive moderately, carry no extra weight, and always try to avoid hard late braking.

[Tideland Prius]

Mine likes 6.

It should charge going up hill, but then again it depends how steep the hill is. Going up the local mountains, my battery is never used. The engine goes straight to the wheels or to the motor and to the wheels.

[excuseMeButt]

My Prius has a hard time driving past a bar, especially if there is a good band playing.

:P

~S

[iaowings]

On the freeway all blue. When I am on the streets it is all over the place, depending how I am driving. If I know I am going to a 45mph+ area I will try and make it there using the ice as little as possible this means I can have 3-5 bars at any given point or only 2 red ones. If I am driving in areas <40mph for long periods I try to keep a decent charge and use the ice as little as possible but I will accept the ice running for a block or two to go from 2 or3 bars to 4 bars I typically only get to 5 if I get a good regen run. My average for 10 months owner ship is 48mpg and I keep my car 76-78 in the cabin year round; well except spring I have the windows down until it gets way to hot out for that to be effective. Now on the freeway I don’t think that it affects mpg to have the ac or heat running.

[efusco]

The Prius is designed to maintain a 60% SOC on the battery...the level above and below that are simply buffer zones to take advantage of the hybrid system.

Thus, any Prius operating normally will aim for a 60% SOC...that is the area of 5-6 bars on the Energy display.

[echocanyon]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Apr 5 2007, 01:53 PM) [snapback]418450[/snapback]</div>

The Prius is designed to maintain a 60% SOC on the battery...the level above and below that are simply buffer zones to take advantage of the hybrid system.

Thus, any Prius operating normally will aim for a 60% SOC...that is the area of 5-6 bars on the Energy display.
[/b]

Thanks Evan
When my car was brand new, I saw it in 4-6 bars most of the time, and I can't remember if it EVER got down to 3. But since 6k miles total, my car seems to almost NEVER get below 6 bars. It is 6 bars about 40% of the time, 7 bars 50%, and 8 bars 10%. Obviously, I have never seen 0, 1, or 2 bars either, and I live in somewhat hilly country. Can that be normal?

My overall mileage is about 48, and I am a very moderate driver.

[allargon]

My overall mileage is about 40mpg according to the MFD. My Prius maintains five bars on surface streets (blue) or the freeway without traffic. It's nice and green at the end of hills. However, rush hour traffic, playing a CD or cranking the stereo sends the bars down to two or even 1 into the magenta zone! It's quite annoying since when rush hour traffic breaks I want that strong blue/green band for acceleration purposes!

[efusco]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(echocanyon @ Apr 18 2007, 12:25 PM) [snapback]425409[/snapback]</div>

Thanks Evan
When my car was brand new, I saw it in 4-6 bars most of the time, and I can't remember if it EVER got down to 3. But since 6k miles total, my car seems to almost NEVER get below 6 bars. It is 6 bars about 40% of the time, 7 bars 50%, and 8 bars 10%. Obviously, I have never seen 0, 1, or 2 bars either, and I live in somewhat hilly country. Can that be normal?

My overall mileage is about 48, and I am a very moderate driver. [/b]

Pretty normal, you'll tend to see a higher overall SOC in the winter due to the ICE running more to keep itself and the Cats warm and it dumps the extra energy into the HV batt.

You'll see 2 bars at some point, and probably 1, but it'll take a long wait in a traffic jam or a long stop at a fast-food drive through or a very tall hill to do it.

[orionll]

It has been a little while after the Prius got crashed into and it seems to be maintaining 3 bars. On the trip back it averaged about 35 miles per gallon and went from a low pruple (2 bars) to a high green. And ever since It has been maintaining around 3 bars (well it seems that way it probably goes from 3-5).

[acdii]

Hitting 1000 miles on it this week, and so far the lowest mine has gone is 3 bars. That was sitting in stop light traffic when the power went out. Spent 30 minutes moving 6 feet at a time. Majority of my driving is 55+ MPH, and so far I am at ~47 MPG on the MFD. I noticed that some areas I will get solid green, but for the most part I maintain about 6 bars for the drive. It is a real challange to balance out the engine to wheels to battery, and I'm finding glide real difficult at times above 45 MPH. It is almost non existant doing 55 or more. I found manual driving over cruise control is getting me better results too since I can anticipate hills and valleys where the cruise cant, but it sure tires out the foot!

BTW when doing 55MPH or more, having the AC on should not affect MPG noticably, city driving though, probably. I havent noticed any difference between having heat on or off for my drives, the MPG is going up still, so time will tell.