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Help - Mileage Sucks

Discussion in 'Gen 1 Prius Plug-in 2012-2015' started by GaryJ, Dec 12, 2012.

  1. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    For short trips without EV, that is indeed reasonable to expect. Go longer or warmed up with EV, the results are quite different... as is driving sometime other than winter.
     
  2. Borislav75

    Borislav75 New Member

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    Stupid question but "warmed up with EV" ???
     
  3. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    warm up in hv then switch to ev. ice will cycle to provide heat and ev miles will increase your average mpg's. you have to be able to plug in tho.
     
  4. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    It takes around 4 minutes to warm-up the system with temps in the 20's. During that time, the engine & emission system gets heated coolant circulated. The battery also receives some charge from excess energy caused by the running the engine at a controlled rate, while also drawing some electricity. All that is considering warming. When done, you've got EV available, even with the heater on. That's when you start seeing 100 MPG segments on the consumption screen.

    For my morning commute, there is often just 3 minutes of MPG segments followed by most pegged at 100. So, it really depends on the circumstances. On one of the really warm days of summer, I made it all the way to work (17 miles) without the engine ever starting. No chance of that happening in the winter.
     
  5. Borislav75

    Borislav75 New Member

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    That mean I have to switch only on EV not EV and ECO together ,SORRY but I don't know to much for hybrid and probably for someone this is stupid questions .
     
  6. lensovet

    lensovet former BP Brigade 207

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    EV and ECO together is fine. Are you saying you're getting 38 mpg in EV ECO mode?
     
  7. mmmodem

    mmmodem Senior Taste Tester

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    Really? If we can't agree on facts, then we're not going to get anywhere. Then again, I disagreed with most of the suggestions on this thread. So what do I know? Good luck. Be sure to take pics.
     
  8. GaryJ

    GaryJ New Member

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    I reset the EV ratio display Monday evening, charged the car overnight and then the car was driven on regular commute Tuesday. Took a picture of the EV ratio display last night - it is in this location. I'm not exactly sure what all of the information displayed means, but the ration looks more reasonable. What do you think?
     
  9. GaryJ

    GaryJ New Member

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    I took a pic of the EV ratio display after a reset and 1 day commute - about 22 total miles. Pic is here.
     
  10. usbseawolf2000

    usbseawolf2000 HSD PhD

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    It shows you went 8 miles with 2 kWh of electricity. There is about 2.7 kWh usable in the battery so you did not use it completely. Calculation shows you still had ~2.8 EV miles left.

    Can you take a pic of the summary screen after turning off the car, tomorrow?
     
  11. ny_rob

    ny_rob Senior Member

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    Does the display round off the figures to zero decimal point? I can't recall seeing 2.7 or 2.8 kWh used on my display. I think it will show either 2 or 3 kWh just like it does with the gal used figure. I recall looking at my display once with a completely exhausted EV batt (where I started off with a full charge) and it only showed 2kWh used not 2.7 or 2.8 kWh.
     
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  12. GaryJ

    GaryJ New Member

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    Sure. My wife reports that on the outbound commute this morning the mpg reading on the summary was about 58 mpg, and that the ICE was on most of the trip - not sure why but I'm seeing from other posts that EV/ICE behavior can seem irrational to mere humans.:)
     
  13. Hello Gary, How did you go about resetting your EV/HV Ratio ?
     
  14. usbseawolf2000

    usbseawolf2000 HSD PhD

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    I think you are right. The display truncates to a full number.

    Assuming all the battery charge was used up, we can break down the consumption:

    22 miles / 58 MPG = 0.38 gallon used for the trip. Since only 14 miles miles ran on gas, 14 miles / 0.38 gallon = 36.9 MPG on gas.

    Plus 8 EV miles on 3.1 kWh means 388 Wh/mi (with charging loss) on electricity. Those are high consumption numbers for both electricity and gasoline. For your reference, I am averaging 264 Wh/mi on electricity and 55 MPG on gas.

    At this point, we should focus on the driving condition, speed and the trip duration (mins). It may turn out to be the car (alignment or brake stuck?, etc..).
     
  15. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    58 mpg was on the outbound commute. does that correlate to the 22 miles?
     
  16. GaryJ

    GaryJ New Member

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    Hello Andy, when the ratio display is active you can cycle between 2 of them by using the "Trip" button. I just got to the one I wanted to reset and held the Trip button down a few seconds and it reset to zero - same as TripA/TripB function on the odometer.
    Gary
     
  17. GaryJ

    GaryJ New Member

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    No - that's for about 11 miles. 22 is round trip.
    Gary
     
  18. Hello Gary, I believe that the only way that one can reset the Ratio is by rebooting, that is by disconnecting the 12V battery for a few seconds. All you did was to reset the A and B trip indicators. I may be wrong on this, if so somebody will correct me.
     
  19. GaryJ

    GaryJ New Member

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    This trip with the 58mpg was for 11 miles, plus the ICE was on most of the time but I do not know for a fact how much battery was used. However, if we assume only 3 EV miles (my wife said the ICE was on most of the trip) then we get: 11/58 mpg= 0.19 gallon used; 8 ICE miles/0.19 = 42.18 mpg on gas , with an upper bound of 58 mpg if the ICE was on for the whole trip. Real value likely somewhere in between. Do you agree?
    Gary
     
  20. usbseawolf2000

    usbseawolf2000 HSD PhD

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    Yes, if it was 3 EV miles.

    That also mean the return trip got 5 EV miles because the total said 8 EV miles.

    The only way to know for sure is to look at that EV mile counter on the EV Driving Ratio screen before and after.

    What's the reason why your wife cannot use more EV miles? Is it because,

    1) She turns on the heater?
    2) Very hilly road?
    3) Manually switch to HV mode?

    11 miles one way trip could be covered with pure EV even at highway speed (50-55mph).