Toyota Synergy Drive Question

[rickkop]

I love my 09 TCH but, I just wish I understood the operation more. Maybe you smarter guys out there can enlighten me. In the following scenario, you are coasting, under 40mph, or at a stop, and your battery is not fully charged, (say 3 bars) the ICE is not off and is in fact running according to the rpm on my Scangauge and at the same time the MFD shows “no” arrows leaving the ICE, then what would be the reason for the ICE to be running? With these conditions wouldn't it make sense to be charging the battery?

[donee]

Hi rickkop,

Yes, it would. But the HSD does not. That is one of the things you realise right off when you have instrumentation. What it means for fuel economy driving, is you have to get your foot way back to get the engine to kill and then cruise along using minimal battery power. And then at the first hint of a hill, or when your down to 30 in a 40 get the engine on and up into its good efficiency zone, and in a charging accelleration level. Run it back up to 40 and repeat...

I think what is going on is that the system asumes when the battery is low, downhill decelleration is going to happen. Because it took some uphill accellerating to deplete the battery. So, on average everything should even out.

And with good pedal training, you can drive the car like that. The trick is as I mentioned above, to accellerate at a level where the battery gets charged. Then over time the battery will drop to 5, then up to 7 then down to 5 and up to 7 and so on. And wont get down to 3 except if you park the car overnight at the bottom of a hill, and do not wait for stage one to complete before charging up up the hill...

[rickkop]

Originally Posted by donee

Hi rickkop,

Yes, it would. But the HSD does not. That is one of the things you realise right off when you have instrumentation. What it means for fuel economy driving, is you have to get your foot way back to get the engine to kill and then cruise along using minimal battery power. And then at the first hint of a hill, or when your down to 30 in a 40 get the engine on and up into its good efficiency zone, and in a charging accelleration level. Run it back up to 40 and repeat...

I think what is going on is that the system asumes when the battery is low, downhill decelleration is going to happen. Because it took some uphill accellerating to deplete the battery. So, on average everything should even out.

And with good pedal training, you can drive the car like that. The trick is as I mentioned above, to accellerate at a level where the battery gets charged. Then over time the battery will drop to 5, then up to 7 then down to 5 and up to 7 and so on. And wont get down to 3 except if you park the car overnight at the bottom of a hill, and do not wait for stage one to complete before charging up up the hill...

I already try to drive the way you described the best I can most of the time. I'm more than happy with the mileage I'm getting. I don't understand why the scanguage shows the ICE running and the MFD shows it as off at the same time?

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by rickkop

I already try to drive the way you described the best I can most of the time. I'm more than happy with the mileage I'm getting. I don't understand why the scanguage shows the ICE running and the MFD shows it as off at the same time?

The MFD does not have an engine on/off indication. It only shows energy flow, so if the engine is running, but not supplying power, you won't see any arrows. The engine does this when it is warming up.

Tom

[rickkop]

Originally Posted by qbee42

The MFD does not have an engine on/off indication. It only shows energy flow, so if the engine is running, but not supplying power, you won't see any arrows. The engine does this when it is warming up.

Tom

Ok yes. The MFD only shows energy flow. I remember hearing this before but I forgot. Maybe I should put a stickup note saying just that above the display till it sinks in. I know this is simple stuff for some of you guys but for the rest of us this can be confusing. Soone ror later, I'll get it. Thanks, Rick

[qbee42]

Originally Posted by rickkop

Ok yes. The MFD only shows energy flow. I remember hearing this before but I forgot. Maybe I should put a stickup note saying just that above the display till it sinks in. I know this is simple stuff for some of you guys but for the rest of us this can be confusing. Soone ror later, I'll get it. Thanks, Rick

It would make sense to have an engine-on indicator. I don't know why it wasn't included.

Tom

[acdii]

What is amazingly annoying is when the engine is running and has no need to be running. Occasionally it will run when I am doing 25 MPH with full batteries, and after I stop and park the engine will continue to run for 3-4 more minutes, and this is after driving for 43 miles in 80* weather with the AC off. It doesn't do it very often, but annoys me to no end when it does.

[rickkop]

Originally Posted by acdii

What is amazingly annoying is when the engine is running and has no need to be running. Occasionally it will run when I am doing 25 MPH with full batteries, and after I stop and park the engine will continue to run for 3-4 more minutes, and this is after driving for 43 miles in 80* weather with the AC off. It doesn't do it very often, but annoys me to no end when it does.

Oh my I totaly agree. This can be very frustrating and bothers me to no end especially when I was assuming the MFD was showing the ICE off. Now I try to keep in mind that the MFD is only showing energy flow and not whether the ICE is running. I now use the scangauge for that. Someone suggested that I read about the 4 stages of operation which I did. I was experiencing the condition you decribed and I think my car was in stage 3. In a nutshell it said if the car is warm and up to operating temp, if you come to a stop and the ICE is still running, to stay stopped, if possible, till the ICE shuts down on it's own. Then he said then you will then be in stage 4 and full hybrid mode. I've tried this and it seems to work for me, so far. Below is a linc to one of the many different sites to read about this if you haven't already. It has help me a lot.

http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/five-stages.txt

[acdii]

Originally Posted by rickkop

Oh my I totaly agree. This can be very frustrating and bothers me to no end especially when I was assuming the MFD was showing the ICE off. Now I try to keep in mind that the MFD is only showing energy flow and not whether the ICE is running. I now use the scangauge for that. Someone suggested that I read about the 4 stages of operation which I did. I was experiencing the condition you decribed and I think my car was in stage 3. In a nutshell it said if the car is warm and up to operating temp, if you come to a stop and the ICE is still running, to stay stopped, if possible, till the ICE shuts down on it's own. Then he said then you will then be in stage 4 and full hybrid mode. I've tried this and it seems to work for me, so far. Below is a linc to one of the many different sites to read about this if you haven't already. It has help me a lot.

http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/five-stages.txt

I tried just waiting for it to turn off at a stop, but the people behind me were getting impatient, they were too eager to do 35 in 25. I even stopped and put it in park once and waited, took 2 minutes before it shut down.