HV/EV button (taking advantage of it)

and if your temp is set to 68, you will call for heat at some point and the engine will start. set it to 'low'.

I'll bet the next version of the plugin has a inline electric coolant pump/heater that allows for pre-warming the engine/cabin.

I could see that as a huge benafit both comfort and MPGe wise for all the sub-zero weather folk.

This would be marvelous.....

Ok so I've been following you guy's advice on utilizing the HV/EV button... HV for acceleration, EV for coasting. Great for freeway also. I drive a lot in Los Angeles. Live in Long Beach. Freeways are a killer for MPG. I try to stay in the right lanes and keep my speed around 60-65mph and let the lunatics fly past me.

Using the HV button when going up steep hills and pulling away from red lights, then going back into EV has allowed me to consistently hold about 100 mpg for my trips. Want to see how well I do on this next tank. Last tank ended up being around 85mpg. Disappointing. My goal is about 125-150 mpg.

May push my tires up to 42 front / 40 rear tomorrow. Right now they are at 40 / 40

that is a very agressive goal and proly depends more on how often you can charge than how well you drive.

It is a worthy goal. Increase EV ratio by recharging often. Use the gas engine when it is most efficient.

Here is a strategy to try on the freeway. Use gas engine to go uphills/inclines. Glide down (arrow only from battery) with th PHV battery. That should put the gas engine in more efficient region (>1,000 rpm).

That sound very impressive. The most I've gotten was about 73mpg and that was only once. I average between 60-65mpg. My commute is just over 90 miles RT (unfortunately I cannot charge at work yet). about 16 miles are on surface streets and the rest is all freeway. I do have some hills here and there as well. So what's your secret to get 89mpg? Just curious )

OK - where I live, no matter which way I'm going, I have to go uphill for about a mile. If I know I'm going to go further that EV can take me (the hill uses a lot of EV) is it better to switch to HV to go up the hill, or wait til I'm at a more level area and can coast in HV? Also - any reason ever to NOT drive in ECO mode? Thanks from a newbie!

i would start out in hv because it wouldn't be much fun using up most of my ev on a 1 mile hill. then i would use up my ev on more level roads at speeds under 40 mph. of course, you don't want to get to your next charge point with much charge left.

I tried an interesting system yesterday, normal mode would be HV, DRIVING 60 to 65 mph, on any gentle crest, switch to EV and further charge the EV over and above what you had already saved. After slowdown return to HV again. Then do the same thing the next crest.

this charges the battery faster than releasing the accellerator in hv?

So, taking all this into account, when I leave for my 47mile commute to work in the AM I should be primarily in EV mode for side street then go to HV when I enter the freeway. I live about 4 miles to the freeway onramp....and conversly I work about 4 miles from the freeway off ramp. Unfortunately I cannot recharge my car at my work place as of yet.....is this the best way to maximize my mpg?

There are instances on the freeway when traffic builds up to avoid using the ICE and use up EV miles. If traffic is going 45 mph, you can also stay in EV. Anything in the high 50s I switch to ICE.

When it is in EV mode and decelerating, the EV mileage will increase, on the freeway I increased my EV from .1 to .7 and also used this in city driving. If you want to charge, you must take your foot off the accelerator, that's a given.

Morning,

The regen you are referring to is better explained by Paradox in this thread. He was one of the first on the east coast to receive his car in March. I personally call this method of stacking a charge "Paradoxing"
This is something I do on long trips.

My EV/HV mileage for 2 days round trip and continued updating with pics | PriusChat

Isn't using HV to go up hills, EV to go down, essentially just using the ICE to charge the battery, which the normal programming avoids, with the general design philosophy of the PiP being to use the grid to charge the battery?

Actually, it isn't. The system will take advantage of recharging opportunities, for the most efficient HV overall.

Remember, the ICE charges only to the extend of replenishing some HV buffer. When it reaches a certain tolerance, it will switch to deplete.

Maybe I am not understanding "stacking". I thought the idea was to use HV going up the hill, which preserves the current charge level by using the ICE, and then to use EV on the way down to add the regenerated power into the battery. This is an indirect way of using the ICE to recharge the battery. In physics terms, the ICE is used to build potential energy by climbing, and reclaiming it as kinetic energy going down the hill via regeneration.

i'm finding this thread quite confusing.

Relative efficiency of the engine and motors depends on demand: the more power you need the better it is to use the engine.

If you can't make it all the way in EV mode the car will need to run the engine at some point. If you simply leave it in EV mode it'll always do those HV miles at the end of the journey. But, we know that it's better to use the engine on more demanding parts of the journey.

Think of manual mode switching as letting the car know the tough bits.