Help with the Energy Screen

I'm sure the question has been asked many times and if there is the definitive thread, please lead me to it.

Can I get a SIMPLE explanation of the yellow bars on the engery screen.

I surmise that the vertical one is a current bar graph of 'instant' mpg. But I'm lost with the horizontal one showing 'minutes' and that some bars show the car icon and other don't.

How can I manage it? What is it telling me about my driving tendencies? What should my 'goals' be as I watch it?

Help educate this 10 day owner.

Thank you.

Each bar represents the average mpg over the 5 min interval.

The little green cars represent 50Wh (Watt-hour) regenerated.

The screen basically tells you the mpg trend over the last 30 min.

Edit: dang it, doc beat me to it. Don't u have ppl to save?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 8 2006, 01:52 PM) [snapback]251605[/snapback]</div>

Thank you so much. I hope it wasn't a stupid question.

Another participant made a rather demeaning note about me and a previous question or comment of mine.

I appreciate your patience with me.

I understand that it's better to have little (or no) leaf cars. Is that true? If so, that would be a goal.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 8 2006, 01:52 PM) [snapback]251605[/snapback]</div>

Evan,
Doesn't being at a stop during part of the 5-minute interval cause your graph to display a higher value? I seem to recall seeing two maxed-out bars during a recent stop -and-go journey through a construction zone. It made me think, that with little or no fuel consumed, the computer is trying to divide by 0.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aaf709 @ May 8 2006, 03:13 PM) [snapback]251617[/snapback]</div>

Never having to brake or slow down is always better, but not always possible. The leaf cars are showing regened energy from braking, slowing down, or holding speed while going down hill. On a normal car, all of that energy would be wasted as heat, but on the Prius about 40% is captured and reused through regenerative braking. It's a good thing that the Prius regens that energy when it has to, but it's even better if it doesn't have to.

Tom

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ May 8 2006, 04:59 PM) [snapback]251701[/snapback]</div>

That's why I'd like to see Toyota switch over to (or have a selectable option for) reporting average mileage over distance rather than time (say 1, 5, or 10 miles rather than 5 minutes). If you don't move, the screen wouldn't update and when you looked at the bar graph, you could accurately estimate your overall average mileage.

But you could also be running the ICE when you are stopped (and not accumulating mileage), so those results would be skewed, too.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(brandon @ May 8 2006, 05:27 PM) [snapback]251720[/snapback]</div>

Nope. The gas used would be used in calculating the next x-mile bar.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kiloran @ May 8 2006, 02:42 PM) [snapback]251735[/snapback]</div>

I'm not so sure that is happening. I can now switch the speed wire off that feeds my MFD while I drive, so it thinks I'm holding still. When I click it back on, it thinks that I just started moving and starts counting from the beginning. Doesn't seem to care what I was doing when it thought I was holding still and burning quite a bit of gas (65mph)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(qbee42 @ May 8 2006, 01:22 PM) [snapback]251669[/snapback]</div>

Tom... curious where this number comes from. I've heard (and believe) a much lower value, though I have no hard numbers one way or another. 40% would be amazingly high for a system like this. The best EVs, that are tuned for max regen are only getting on the order of 50% - and that is with many more systems in their favor.

I'll give it my shot too.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(aubergaz @ May 8 2006, 11:24 AM) [snapback]251589[/snapback]</div>

I'll try it with the fewest words I can muster:

Each bar represents the average mpg for a given 5 minute interval of driving.

All the bars are vertical. The 5 minute ones just march across the screen, moving one position over every five minutes of driving. Eventually, the first bar will fall off the left side of the chart as the next one comes in from the right. The far right one, is as you surmise, the instantaneous mpg bar. You can see a repeat of this in digits on the energy screen.

After a couple of weeks, you'll have this all figured out, and won't bother looking at it much.

Just my two cents, but for in-town driving, I have found the Energy screen (the one with the car diagram) to be most useful for trying to keep myself on battery power if possible.



On the other hand, I have found the Consumption screen the most useful for extened highway driving (which for me is usually from Bowling Green-Findlay or Bowling Green-Toledo or in the summer Bowling Green-Catawba Island/Port Clinton For me it is 25 miles south on I-75 to findlay, 15-20 miles north on I-75 to toledo and about 45 minues northeast on SR 105/163 to the lakeshore or an hour to cedar point amusement park (#1 amusement park on earth 8 years in a row!)



Consumption screen below:

[attachmentid=3332]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ May 8 2006, 06:51 PM) [snapback]251768[/snapback]</div>

It's not. This is a wish-list item.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Kiloran @ May 8 2006, 05:19 PM) [snapback]251712[/snapback]</div>

Miles per gallon does not have a time dimension, just miles and gallons.
That's why the current screen is problematic.
When I look at the consumption screen, I want to see how far I've driven and how much gas was used.

(I expect the current arrangement was dictated by the marketing division so most owners would occasionally get to see 100mpg bars when stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ScottY @ May 8 2006, 02:57 PM) [snapback]251607[/snapback]</div>

It should also be noted that in countries that run on the metric system such as Canada (and other countries aside from the US), the consumption is measure in Litres per 100km, which is a measurement of how much gas is consumed for a set distance, rather than MPG, which is a measurement of how much gas it consumes for a set distance.

Therefore, in this system, the bars are inversed - having NO BAR means you are burning zero gas, while having a full bar (10+ Litres/100km) means you are getting very low mileage - generally during warmup. In fact, the four Y-axis marks are 2.5L / 5.0L / 7.5L / 10L, so it numerically resembles the US system very closely with simply a shift of the decimal point, and readings often hang around the mid-mark of 5.0 (~47MPG).

Otherwise, the car is identical. B)

Kevin

Did you see the 2007 Camry hybrid screen? Looks like the have a per-minute graph. It's awesome!

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(beeri @ May 9 2006, 12:46 PM) [snapback]252192[/snapback]</div>

Except that it's not per mile.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(beeri @ May 9 2006, 12:46 PM) [snapback]252192[/snapback]</div>

Yeah, but look at the MPGs. 16.3 best and 26.8 average.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mike0422 @ May 9 2006, 10:03 AM) [snapback]252207[/snapback]</div>

Cool...average is better than best. That makes no sense at all.

Oh, yes, it does. If we're talking liters per km then smaller values are better. But then why does it say MPG?