EV Mode Cuts Out

maybe the ice had cooled down and had to go thru warm up again?

 

it has a mind of it's own and can be difficult to reason with.

 

It's the temperature of the coolant that is affecting the EV mode. Ours does the same thing. Your Prius is working perfectly normal. If you want to keep it hot, block the grill. That is the easiest way to keep the temp up, otherwise it will cool off very quickly especially if you are in the cold parts of the country.

Ron (dorunron)

 

I can't remember the exact levels everything needs to be at for "EV Mode" operation but a low charge could lead to early termination.

 

This could still happen after 8 solid hours of freeway driving, if you then run into the right conditions, e.g. long gentle hill descent or particularly slow city traffic in cold weather with cabin heat turned on. It doesn't take much temperature drop of the engine coolant for EV mode to be locked out of its 25 mph threshold and limited to just 9 mph.

 

Well yeah, that's been known to happen, lol.

Sorry, sorry, gratuitous posting, I know, I know...

 

the other day, i was driving in ev mode. it was 50 degrees outside. i turned up the heat to 75 and the ice came on. drove for 10 minutes and the ice shut off. i pulled into a parking lot and sat in the car while my wife went into panera. the ice came on again, so i turned the heat all the way down, but the ice had apparently cooled down so much that it had to go through the whole warm up cycle. thing didn't shut off for a good 5 minutes.

 

hey, how else are you going to get to 20,000 posts?

 

Not sure if it was obvious, or not. I just picture someone from 20 year back, reading about ice cooling down, bit of a head-scratcher. Oh, it was obvious, ok.

Hey, "engine" is 3 more letters.

 

I've found the low-speed threshold to be 9 mph and warmed-up, charged, on a down slope is 25 mph.

Other than reaching the parking lot exit, I don't have a lot of use for EV. It is neat but so limited. Instead, I recommend study of the control laws and it let the car handle engine off/on operation.

Bob Wilson

 

ya, but 20 times a day , time is money. tempus fugit and all that.

 

The evidence continues to mount that on all of the non-plugin models, the EV button is real close to worthless.
I actually think it works better sometimes without it.

 

I recall someone here referring to engine coolant as "ice water".

Ok, I'm outed, I'm the anti-ICE troll.

 

Good point:

It distracts people from understanding how the electric part of the transmission under computer control optimizes the gas part. But the operation has to happen faster and all the time to be effective. A manual, EV switch has few practical uses but if we didn't have it, there would be people claiming we need one.

Bob Wilson

 

Nope, even w/o using the EV button (as long as the ICE is sufficiently warmed up), you can with proper aka minimal throttle pressure get from light to light in reg city traffic on EV only as long as stated ICE is properly warmed and battery is not below half.

Slow and smooth...

Then there is that whole steep uphill thingy that might kick on the ICE but on normal flat city streets as long as there is not traffic behind you mind you as road rage might be a factor depending who is behind.

Honestly this is my second prius, I messed with the EV on my first and have not since on my persona. It's there I guess so you can have the personal choice to use it if you feel the need (moving the car from spot to spot, garage, etc)

Just use ECO mode and enjoy the "deadened" pedal that in my option makes the prius easy to drive as intended.

 

If you use the EV button the engine just has to run later on to 'top up' (there is nothing for nothing), whilst this may be at a more opportune time and pick up some wasted energy, in general I have not found it worth while fiddling with, except in underground garages, moving the car a few yards or chasing pedestrians who don't realise I am there, and so on.

Just sit back and drive the car, letting it decide what to do and enjoying the 'Prius experience'. The car is quite intelligent and the designers know exactly what they are doing and it it rare to get the opportunity to outguess them or the car and usually not worthwhile in the end.