Newbie Question: EV & HV Modes

You are correct. Once the EV range portion is gone and you are entirely in HV mode there is no way to get back into EV (or golf cart mode similar to the reg Gen3) until you charge the car again.

 

Car can recharge while going downhill, braking, etc, and then EV mode can re-engage, I'm pretty sure.

 

congrats on your pip!
mark and barbara are correct, but you need a pretty good hill, depending on how long you've been out of ev mode.

 

maybe someone will chime in with better data. i don't know if the pip is different. whenever you keep the hsi bar to the left of eco, the engine stays off until the battery gets too low, yes?
(i never had a non pip gen3.)

 

Its not how long (time) you have been out of the EV mode its the battery level when you start the downhill charging. It kind of seems like it "sticks" in the HV mode because when it goes back to EV it shows about 1.2 EV miles available rather than the 0.1 you might expect.

 

The PiP behaves like a gen 3 after EV mode is depleted and will go into golf cart EV if there are 4 or more bars on battery display and engine is all warmed up. The battery indicator even changes from a more solid to 8 segments like the gen 3 indicator after EV miles are gone. So on the PiP in HV mode (after EV miles depleted and engine warmed up) can glide in EV mode up to 62 MPH (or is it 46 MPG gen 3 limit) as long as you pick your glide to be on level or downhill.

 

You should look at it this way:

If you had just a regular prius, then you wouldn't have access to 11 miles of "golf cart" action.

So now that you have a PiP, you are starting out with 11 miles of golf cart action, something that wasn't available with a reg prius.


So switch between HV and EV to your heart's content.



iPhone ?

 

If you want to use the golf cart mode, say later in the day or the next day and you are currently draining down the battery...then simply switch to HV BEFORE the miles remaining get to 0.0...perhaps at 1.0 miles. Then later when you start the car cold you will be using that 1.0 mile. If you want to drive much further, be sure to manually switch into HV right away.

Mike

 

Saving EV miles can be very useful. However, switching to HV at 1 EV mile left may not be a good idea. Depending on the demand, when switching to HV there is significant drain on the EV battery while the ICE warms up. That's not a problem if you have a few miles to go since the battery will be recharged to the original level, However if the distance is short you might lose most/all of your saved 1.0 mile. Switching with 2 miles or more of EV left may be more useful.

"Golf Cart" ?? Who ever heard of a golf cart will go 62 mph up hill for several miles.

 

Or faster in N. There are some pretty beefy golf carts out there though, so YMMV.