2020 Prime XLE - must know/have's ?

By no means, I am an audiophile. I can tolerate some garbage sounds as long as the song playing is something I can hum to. That said, I noticed a huge difference in sound quality other days when I was listening to Spotify streamed music in our Pathfinder with Bose premium sound system. The sound off from direct connected iPod ALAC songs are fantastic, but Spotify stream off from Bluetooth, not so much.

I have not yet tried to hear the difference in my PRIME LE with the lower quality sound system. But listening to streamed iHeart Radio songs in my new LE yesterday made me think to dig out those CDs collecting dust.

 

Absolute pure nonsense. None of that is true. Just leave it in EV mode and drive. The car is smart enough to do a fine job for itself.

"Mode" means a couple of completely different things in these cars.
Accelerator "mode" is ECO, Normal, and PWR. That is simply how much scoot you get for pushing the accelerator pedal part way down. The choice makes little difference. Pick the one that feels best to you and leave it there.

EV, EV-Auto, or HV "mode" are completely different. EV runs on battery power until the battery is depleted, then the car switches itself to HV mode. EV-Auto runs on the battery except for uphill or full accelerator pedal runs it uses the engine. HV is hybrid with mainly engine and some electric. Again, don't try to outsmart this very smart car. Leave it in EV. It knows what to do.

 

I don't use EV-Auto. In theory EV-Auto mode will automatically switch between EV and HV, but in my daily drive, it behaves like EV. In EV-Auto, you really have to floor the pedal to engage in HV. Instead I manually switch back and force EV-HV if I want to maximize the EV efficiency. If you are not maximizing EV efficiency, just leave in EV until range reach zero, then rest are automatically HV.

 

But the Prime doesn't recognize FLAC files through the USB connection...

 

I think he means when FLAC files are placed in USB thumb drive. If you connect iPod via USB, yes it should play ALAC or native FLAC.

 

I save my EV for the parts of my trip that are most economical for EV. I find EV basically useless on the highway at 75-80mph and drains out fast. But at everything below 60mph EV is great.

 

We are still waiting on delivery of our first Prime and I was working on figuring out ahead of time what modes to use when.

We'll do most of our driving locally in our small town where the highest speed limit is 45mph and other roads 35mph, 30mph and 25mph so EV mode is obviously best locally.

Then when we occasionally travel to the nearest large city about 25 miles away at first the very long road leading to the expressway is 55mph, then on the expressway is 70mph until it gets closer to the city where it drops down to 60 mph, so I need to figure which mode is best during those times, HV mode maybe ?

The 55mph road going to the expressway is quite long so I'm wondering if we should go to HV mode on that long road or keep it on EV mode until we reach the 70mph expressway and then switch to HV mode ?

The reason I ask is because if we can preserve enough battery power we can switch to EV mode while driving thru the city itself at slower speeds and go back to HV mode when we get back on the expressway to head back home to our small town.

 

Geez I wish you guys would just speak colloquial English once in a while.

 

Just don't get so fixated on making the best use of EV that you don't get it all used up before you get home from the 50-mile or so round trip. It's a real shame to be burning gas at 5 cents a mile when you could be using electrons at 2 cents a mile. I keep an eye on remaining EV miles on the way back and I'll switch to EV even if I'm going 70 mph if that's what it takes to use up the EV range. Don't worry about starting the engine under those conditions. The electric power will do most of the work while the engine warms up.

 

Only thing I'll add is that I do 38 miles each way to work. I switch the car from EV mode to HV mode manually earlier in each trip prior to being up to freeway speeds .

Not a huge fan (even though the car is designed to do it) of starting a stone cold engine at 70mph or accelerating up a hill.

 

Chicken.

 

Yes.

I did successfully avoid a gen3 head gasket job though through 10 years and 200k miles of ownership.

I'll play cautiously.

 

Okay, I was thinking also about making sure to use up all the EV before getting home after a non-local longer trip when I knew we would not need to go anywhere again till the next day and could have a fresh charge on it by then.

I figure after we get the car and have a chance to take a few of the 25+ mile trips that we'll have a better idea of when we might need to switch to EV mode if there is still some left on the way home.

Does already having it in HV mode when needing to accelerate from the "on ramp" to the 70mph expressway enable you to accelerate more quickly up to expressway speed ?

Glad you brought up this interesting point, I'm really trying to educate myself as much as possible BEFORE our Prime is delivered

We do prefer to err on the side of caution if there is a risk of damaging the engine, but you had mentioned "the car is designed to do it" so I'm wondering has there been any reports or studies showing people having done damage by switching to EV mode at higher speeds ?

I don't mind erring on the side of caution when necessary, but if no one ever reported engine damage from doing so then I also don't want to be overly concerned if the concern is not really warranted.

 

I have never heard of that happening. When you get yours, try watching the mpg and/or the EV miles remaining. Or, if you have an OBDII device and and app for your phone, you can watch engine RPM. I think you'll see what I mean. The car will go 84 mph in EV, so unless you're driving crazy fast, the EV part of the drive train will have no problem supporting the gas part while it warms up.

 

I have an OBDII device but I don't think it has the ability to connect to my smartphone, but no problem, I don't think we'd likely ever be going over 84 mph

I was just now thought of it from another angle, I would think in the interest of avoiding the potential of any lawsuits that Toyota would not say it was okay to do if there was any real risk of it causing damage