Evan's turn for the PHV Prius!

I've had a few people who's looks seemed to linger longer than usual, but, of course, I start driving this and all the Prii I see on the road every day suddenly disappear! How'm I supposed to show this thing off?!

Last night's commute to work report--Kind of interesting.

I chose a 1/2 side road, 1/2 highway route (60mph max). I drove the entire way in EV with the exception of one, brief, highway stretch that is up a fairly long steep 60mph hill--I let the car stay set on 60mph on the cruise control. So, it EV'd up that hill and for a flat stretch until I yeilded and it shut off (ICE temp 117 degrees F)...maybe a total distance of 1/2 - 3/4 mile in HV mode.

And, again, I was able to drive the rest of the way to work on EV only showing only 0.1 miles of EV range left when I got to work. It, again, did not turn on at 1.6 miles as it did for Tony--apparently since it had already done a partial warm-up cycle during the trip...the ICE temp had dropped to 100 degrees F by the time I parked.

 

Gonna confirm Tony's observation of mandatory ICE kick in at 1.6 miles left of EV range. I ALMOST made it home today in EV, but less than 1/4mile from my house, on the same hill mentioned earlier, I went from 1.8 mile range at the foot of the hill and within 100 yards up the hill it dropped to 1.6 miles and the ICE kicked in...arrived home with 1.4 miles EV left, but the ICE running.

 

I'll check, lots of the gauges don't work.

 

Had an opportunity for a bit of a longer trip today. This morning I had a short errand which did not exceed the EV range--which was nice. But I punched it just a bit too hard pulling out of a parking lot to get onto the road, and ended up kicking on the ICE anyway--which wasn't as nice. I really didn't push that hard, but it must've just broken the threshold.

This afternoon we took a drive to my lake house and back (~120 miles or so round trip). We started out with a full battery, had one side trip to the post office, then immediately onto 60mph highway. It actually stayed in EV quite well, even on relatively steep/long hills at 60mph--which impressed me. Once EV was depleted it drove just like any other Gen III Prius....

And here's my technical 'discovery' of the day:
Before the EV indicator goes off (indicating EV range depletion), the car will coast with ICE-off below 65mph--that's pretty nice and has always been an annoyance that I can't ICE-off coast my Gen II above 41mph. But, once the EV is turned off the system seems to revert to the exact same programming every other Gen III has and you now must be below 46mph to ICE-off glide.

So, even though the vehicle is clearly capable of ICE-off glide below 65mph, it won't allow it once you're in HV mode with EV battery depletion. Now...why?? I can see no good reason for that. I have to wonder if it's simply a programming issue--that there are 2 sets of firmware--one for EV, one for HV and they simply plugged in the same HV firmware that is in the other/standard Gen III.

 

Well, the threshold has something to do with the HSI indication...but be that as it may, yes, if you accelerate and the HSI indicator goes into the "power" range that's when the ICE kicks in.

That is the case, but I don't see why it still wouldn't let the ICE shut off if you're gliding/coasting/whatevering below 65mph as it does in EV mode.

 

The Discovery of the Day:
As Tony 'discovered' and discussed, if you've been driving in EV mode and never broke the threshold to fire up the ICE, when you reach 1.6 miles of EV range remaining the ICE will kick in no matter what to begin the warm-up cycle.

What I don't think he mentioned is how incredibly sensitive the throttle becomes once you hit that 1.6 mile threshold--and I mean really sensitive. Very subtle movements of the pedal will result in pretty dramatic swings on the HSI almost as it if it wants you to hit the "power" section to start the ice back up. It actually can be quite difficult to use that last 1.6 miles of EV battery range without firing up the ICE again. It tends to extend the battery range b/c you're using the ICE more, but it's sure tough to drag out that last bit in pure EV.

 

Australia x ~6 1/2 months and then around the world.

Ok, my
Second PHV (mini)Discovery of the Day:
Tested out B-mode today--in EV mode, dropping into B increases regen but absolutely does NOT kick in the ICE at any speed! Cool. Guess it figures there's plenty of room to regen or something.

Final PHV note today:
I had a lot of commuting, logged over 85 miles on the PHV over the course of the day starting with a 9am 25ish mile errand (full charge to start), then a trip to town for lunch (8 mile EV showing after partial charge)--~20 miles more. Then finally another fully charged ~30 mile trip (ok, my numbers are off somewhere, but I reset Trip A this morning and now it shows 85 miles--so that part is right).

In any case, I held 99.9mpg for the day right up to the last 5 miles or so on the way home (cold start, no EV) and the Trip A mpg began to slowly drop. Ended up home with 96.4mpg on the Trip A HSI.

Had I had a 220V charger (incomplete 2nd charge would have been a full charge) it would have been over 100mpg, but probably not a whole lot higher. Still, even with all that driving, a 13 mile range makes a difference. I think that normally I'd be right at 60mpg in my Gen II Prius for the same commute--and I was using the air conditioning in the PHV much more liberally than I do in my Gen II and took highway on a couple stretches where normally I'd have been on back roads.

I think this is a great statement to what even a short EV range PHV can do for your real world fuel economy...color me happy.:rockon: