2021 - 2005 = 16 years. That is a BIG difference in TSG Technology!

You're talking about two cars with extremely different capabilities and design philosophies. It's unreasonable to expect the same behavior.

The regular Prius whether it's a Gen 1, 2, 3, or 4 uses the battery as a sort of energy spring that expands and contracts to absorb energy during deceleration and then release the energy to the wheels during acceleration.

The Prime, with a wall charge, is an EV. It has a vastly larger battery than a regular Prius. Not all that different from a Tesla or a Leaf other than range ... until the battery SOC gets down to about 14% actual SOC. At that point, the battery becomes an energy spring, just like any other Prius. To lug around a 288 pound 8.78 kWh battery and not make full use of it would be just plain stupid. If you want it to be like a regular Prius in how it manages the battery, the put in a battery that's sized for that use, not the monster battery currently in use. And remove the plug. But then it won't be a Prime anymore.

 

Graz, don't over think this. You won't over use the battery. The system is smart. Just run in EV until you get a very good feel for the car. Then try EV-Auto for your usual trip and see if you use less gasoline. EV-Auto will switch to the engine during higher load operation like up hill or brisk acceleration, then revert to EV. One regular run of ours, more than battery range, gets lower gas consumption with EV-Auto due to some hills. The other regular runs the mode makes no difference. Forget about using the engine to charge the battery. I've never seen a benefit there. (Maybe if I knew very steep long hills were ahead and I wanted both battery and engine to work together, but that scenario is a stretch.) Even if you switch to HV mode (engine operation) the system will shut off the engine and run on battery part of the time. Some of us switch to HV before a freeway get-on ramp to warm the engine. OK, but some of us just run in EV and everything works fine, too.

Battery & engine modes (above) are completely different than accelerator response modes. Another button switches between ECO to Normal to PWR. This just gives different responses at part-throttle. No big difference, but try each and see which you like. My mild-mannered wife likes ECO around town and PWR on the highway for a bit more scoot to get into a gap in traffic.

Above all, be safe. Don't fiddle with push buttons or the Ginza-by-night multi function display at the expense of looking at the road and at traffic.

 

i don't think there is a way to do that. there is a start time, OR a finish time. you can't have it both ways, it won't charge at all.
most like the finish, iirc

 

Check the time and date to make sure you have it set correctly. I remember last time I set it in 24h format, somehow the charging schedule did not work. Then I switch to 12h format it work perfectly. Just to make sure you pick AM or PM right.

 

I don't change my charging times often. 2 years ago I set it to start at midnight, which is when the prices drop for me. I also set it to "leave by" 3PM, since that is when the electricity rates soar. If I plug in after 3 PM it does not start to charge till midnight.

I noted that when I changed it this week to start charging at midnight it did not behave as expected. I did not put in a "leave by" time. That should have given me 24 hours of "charge whenever it's plugged in". It did not kick off till the next midnight. I suspect that because I did this at 11 am, the program had not yet encountered the "start now" time. That's a common mistake in scheduling on a computer.

 

The common mistake on using the Prime's charging schedule is not following the instructions in the manual to use either start or end time, not both. If you have a start time scheduled, don't use a departure time. If you have a departure time scheduled, don't program a start time. You already know how long a full charge takes, so pick the method you want to use.


When you plug in the car, it will wait for the next charging event no matter how long it has to wait. For example, if you plug the car in on a Friday, and the next scheduled charge event is Tuesday, it won't charge till Tuesday unless you override it. If there's only one charging event scheduled, the car won't charge till that time unless you override it.

I have about 14 charge events programmed and all are departure times. In 2-1/4 years of ownership, it has always finished a little ahead of schedule and it has never ever failed to charge as expected. If I know when I shut the car off that I'll want to do an unscheduled charge, I hit the "Charge Now" button on the screen at shutdown. Or, if I miss that or have an unexpected trip, I just do like the manual says in order to start charging immediately. Works every time.

 

Two points Jerry.

1) It allows you to use both "start" and "departure" in the same day.
2) By setting it to start at 12:05 am and depart at 2:55PM, I've never had it try to charge from 3PM to midnight. I have had it charge immediately the rest of the time as soon as plugged in.
3) The manual does not use the word "only" in front of the phrase "One of the two". That leaves it open to interpretation as "you may choose from this selection".

4) I have lots of free time to play with it this month. Maybe a little experimentation is in order. Thanks for pointing out the trick where you replug it to start NOW.

 

I set my schedule the same as you mentioned #2 because thats when we get the lowest electricity rate.
I have not tested but believe the car is not automatically charged if you plug charger after the "start" time. By setting up the "depart" time, then the car will get charged according to the departing schedule.

 

Of course. Just be careful that they don't interfere with each other. Make sure they are separate events. Early on, I had some set for start and some for departure. I decided that was kind of confusing, so now they are all departure and it's just dead simple.

Well, if depart is 2:55PM, why would anyone think it might start at 3PM especially if 2:55PM is the time you set it to stop? You can get away with this noon-3 setup using L2 since the car will finish charging before 2:55PM. Then it will ignore that 2:55PM depart event unless you manage to drive off some charge and plug in before that time. But if you do that, it's going to stop charging at 2:55. If you have L1 charging, I'm not sure if it would just stop at 3:55 and give you a partial charge or if it would ignore that departure event since it still wasn't done with the previous event. I don't know why I would set times like that. Conflicting or overlapping charge schedule events are bound to be unpredictable.

So, if I hold up two candy bars and tell you to take "one of the two," you think I'd be OK with you taking both? Adding "only" would be redundant. "One" is "one." How can "One" be "Two?"

If my understanding is wrong, and yours is right, why is it that you're having trouble and I have never had any trouble with charging? The results kinda speak for themselves.

I'd suggest thoroughly reading the charging part of the manual before experimenting. Big time saver.

 

His schedule is from 00:05 - 2:55pm.
I believe the car will stop getting charged accordingly to the depart time regardless the battery status (partially or 100% full)
The benefit of depart settings in this case is that he can plug the charger between 00:06 - 2:54pm to get the car charged automatically.

 

Actually it's two separate charing times. Plug in between 00:06am - 2:54pm and the car will begin charging at a time that will allow it to finish by the 2:55pm departure time assuming it got plugged in in time to finish. With a depleted range, it's going to start at about 10:00am on L1 or 1:00pm on L2. On the other hand, if you plug in before that 0:55 start time, it'll start charging at 0:55. Unplug, drive off some battery charge, and plug in again and it will do as needed for the afternoon scheduled charge.

So these are two separate charging times. Now I get what you meant, @dbstoo, when you said you can use both. You can use depart for one and start for another. Just not for the same charging event. This is my schedule. No matter when I plug in, it waits for the next scheduled event unless I plug in after it needs to start based on the depart time. If I want to charge immediately, I have to tell it as described earlier. If I'm taking a day off from work and not driving, I just don't plug it in till I need to. I never get any surprises because it's so simple.

 

You mean for this? Took me a while to figure out the reference. LOL!

 

BTW, it's been working well for me.

Now, back to parsing manual pages...

By limiting it to two things that are consumable, and adding a phrase to the sentence, you add context that is not similar to what is in the manual. If you want it equivalent, you'd have to start with two bins full of candy, and then say simply "One of the two candies can be selected." Given that sentence, I'd be free to take a handful of the kit kat bars. As much as you want of either one. One in this case being one bin or the other.

I'd also be free to take no candy, since the word "can" says that I MAY, not that I MUST.

In the technical documentation profession you go through a lot of work to make sure that an instruction has only one possible meaning. Nothing should be ambivalent. There is nothing in that instruction that says that you can't use both selections and nothing that says you HAVE to use either.

 

I can do up to 42 miles round-trip in the EV mode with the eco mode on surface streets. The A/C (both in heating and cooling modes) makes a huge difference. Set it to around the ambient temperature shown on the MFD if you can. Other than that, smooth acceleration and smooth braking and keeping your speed low will help you achieve the longest EV range. Check the A/C usage on the eco diary in the MFD.

To prolong the battery life, charge the battery just before you drive and don't leave it charged overnight.