Declining EV every day after full charge??

Same decline happened to me. Now, I'm back up again. But that change took weeks. You're drawing a conclusion with very little data.

 

Craig,

Tell us what your normal Daily driving is like?

 

I have not followed this whole thread but, have you tried rebooting?

 

Well, I doubt Toyota is going to refund your money, plenty of standard Prius drivers don't get 50 MPGs and not one has ever gotten a check from TMC for that reason! I hope you at least tried some of the suggestions that have been posted here over the months, but in any case I wish you well and a Volt is better than a Suburban!

 

First, who told you 13.9 average. That is a very "precise" number and not one I've seen.
The EPA spec is 11 mles and before that Toyota was saying [10-15] (a range) or up-to 15 (up to is always vauge saying if you are lucky you can get 15). If your dealer told you 13.9, then they were stepping out of the offical statements and its them you have a problem with.

Given the many other posters on this board, it seems most likely that
the PiP does not do as well in your hillly terrain (there are others posting with hills that get < 11, but not as low as you).
or
2) your car has a lower range (could be battery variations).


Before you give up and try a different model car (and I like Volts!) I have one more suggestion you might want to try. Since your dealer seems to have mislead you, get them to loan you a different PiP for 1-2 days and measure the actual EV milage (not the estimates) you get from that. Then you'll know for sure if its your car or the Pip+terrain in general don't meet your need. , Training in the PiP probably means modest financial loss as trading in a new car rarely works out well, so its worth your while to explore this a bit more.

 

Trying to get to the bottom of a particular situation is one thing. But switching over to something totally unrelated and making a blanket statement about they system doesn't make any sense... especially after having provided so little information in the first place. Simple things like mentioning whether or not the A/C was running are curiously absent.

It is possible to get longer EV. My results clearly confirm that, delivering much more than I had seen when I first got the car...

 

suze, if you're serious about trading in on a volt, pm me, i have relatives in sac and would be willing to fly out and drive it back to boston. i will give you more than the trade in value.

 

Reading this thread reminds me of the quote "No good deed goes unpunished".

The following will happen some day in the Plug In Hybrid world. A new owner is going to bring the car back to the dealer after having the car a few weeks. He will complain that he was driving along then all of the sudden this monstrous vibration and deafening noise came from the front of the car, so he was able to limp along to the dealer immediately. After much troubleshooting, when the engine comes on, the owner will shout "That's it, You found the problem". What is a dealer to do?

 

take out the ice and give them back an 8.7 mile range electric car.

 

I have a feeling it's going to be common hearing complaints about EV range.

It's a sad reality that people will seek out a venue when they're upset but remain totally unknown when pleased.

What's worse is the disguard for purpose, which is to boost MPG, not electric-only driving.

I'm sure we'll gain quite a bit of experience with this in the next few month. Hopefully, maybe, some of those silent owners who are quite pleased with their purchase will sound off too.

 

what i find disheartening is how they don't even bother to read in detail the many posts offering helpful advice. they get it in their heads that something has to be wrong with the car and they refuse to do some simple testing to see what is actually happening. it seems they only come here to vent. or troll.

 

Yes, we've seen a lot of venting over the years... where they've already made up their mind. So no matter what suggestions are offered, they're already done.

When it comes to plugging in a hybrid, that is definitely new territory. We are bound to encounter a variety of misconceptions and unrealistic expectations.

The best we can do is what we've done in the past, just keep sharing real-world experiences.

 

exactly.

 

What is the basis for your statement about its purpose?
On the Toyota Plug in Prius website's faq
The first bullet is "What are the key advantages of the Plug in Prius" to which the official Toyota Answer is:

Third bullet in the faq is "Should I buy a prius or a Plug in Prius", to which the official answer is

So while you may feel the design is for it's ability to do MPG boosting, that is NOT what the Plug-in Prius web page says.
Not a single one of the 18 faq's mention it. The word boost does not occur anywhere on the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid site, and there is no stated relation of EV mode and milage other than the 11 mles.


People like the OP seem to have made reasonable decisions based on what was stated (expcet maybe the 13.9 being too large.. as the web site says "Rated to travel up to 11 miles [1]in EV Mode [2][3]

" (with footnotes to explain its a blended mode with a mixture of battery and gas).​

If SocialSuzi is only getting 8.7 miles of EV range while doing < 30mph, she definitely should be going somewhere to try to undertand why. There were a few helpful posts in the thread, but many more just blindly defendng the PiP as if she as improper motives.

Of course there will always be people that don't get the EPA, but that does not mean people are disregarding the purpose. Its reasonable to at least expect to be within 10% of what is stated is on the toyota website.[/quote]

 

but you have to admit, when bill says he's taking his car to the dealer last monday (07-02-12) and he'll let us know what they say, and then he comes back later in the week and doesn't even mention it, it is a bit fishy.

 

I would consider that fish. But this thread was dormant from June 21 until Suzy's update today which says she has been to the dealer multiple times.

I could find no bill (Ohhhh nooooo Mr Bill is missing!)

I'm sooooooo conused. Who is bill and what does he have to do with this thread?

 

check out ' ev miles estimate after full charge low' bill3888. different thread, same problem. and suze may have been to the dealer, but she hasn't replied to one helpful post here in any meaningful way. except to say she'll be buying a volt which is fine with you and me because you get one for your side and i hopefully get a cheap pip.

 

She replied 5 times.. maybe not the most useful. She did talk about the type of trip, elevation changes etc.
Her replies are seamingly consistent with someone that is not really into the Prius, but bought it thinking she could do all EV.. her first posts were more positive, then this post which was more asking then condemning.

What is it with these car forums where people keep smelling trolls when nubies ask for help.. (Happens over at gm-volt too).

 

i suppose i'm more cynical than some, but if i posted asking for help, i would carefully follow the responses and reply to the people who are trying to be helpful and try the things they recommend and do my best to describe exactly what is happening. but that's just me. read the other thread and tell me what happened to bill3888. maybe you can pm him, he might be at the volt dealership.