2012 plug-in basic gets lower miles after full charge in summer

You only have one timer, with two choices to set. #1. is to set start time, #2. is to set end time. You can not set a start and end together.
So pick your choice and set. give your self about 3 1/2 hours to charge before driving.

 

If you want to find out how far you can go on a charge, find a road that is as flat as you can, as few stop lights or stop signs as you can and with a speed between 25 35 mph, and with very little traffic. Drive as slow as you can with out making people mad, 15-25 mph if possible. Drive like you have no brakes. Slow down early for stop lights, try to time the lights so you don't have to stop at all.

You should see about 15-17 miles of all EV.

P.S. Also! I forgot, for this test, do not use any air cond. or fan speed. Also use slow speeds when taking off from Stop signs and lights.

 

Listen to this guy. He has some amazing numbers and can regularly do 20 miles on one charge.

 

I was thinking a test trip. That would tell you if you had a problem or not!
Not your regular travel. Kind of a test loop / route to find out, to make sure your battery was all right. Which I'm pretty sure it is.

 

Record high temperatures here now are making things interesting. This morning's commute was 82°F with the dewpoint at 73°F, which is an extreme for Minnesota.

I left work with the A/C running, something I never need that early in day. That meant the expectation of lower MPG than usual. But having 9 miles of driving at 70 mph, following the initial 1/2 mile of suburb driving, I was quite surprised when reaching my standard milestone (at the slowdown, just as the highway decends into the river valley). On a good day, the average will read 150 MPG. Today at that point, it stated 172 MPG. There was more battery than usual still left too, despite being EV and EV-BOOST that entire drive.

But rather than running out of electricity shortly before arriving at work, the remainder of the commute was entirely in EV. In fact, I had over a mile remaining. 232 MPG was the overall average.

There is no doubt excessive heat & humidity contributed to that unusally efficient morning commute.

 

Measure your actual range, that is what counts.

 

Very nice John! Great job!
I noticed that also the last few day's in the heat mid 90's and high humidity. 20.2, 20.0, 19.2 three trips all EV.

 

Yes the warmer the better IMO......Im at my highest MPG and EV actual distance of all time. I have got my ESTIMATED RANGE up to a morning high of 15.8miles after charge using the END CHARGER each morning.

I dont think using END or START timers has any effect either which way. The OP needs to understand you only use either start OR end timers, not both.

IMO the OP seems to live on a Hi MPH route which is declined his EV distance downward since new.

Take the car to another area with less speed, charge to full...drive it at 35mph and you should get 13-15 actual miles easily

Dan

 

Exactly what I was thinking. An expected range is nothing more than an educated guess.

 

Have you considered that repeated partial discharges may impact the accuracy of your power gauge, as it does in other lithium-ion devices? In other words: Your range in miles may now be digitally less, but your actual range under conditions identical to previous readings may well be identical. That's what this short article from Techrepublic implies: Five tips for extending lithium-ion battery life - TechRepublic

 

This battery system is much much more sophisticated that your average cell phone or laptop battery. You won't have some of those issues here that you would with those.

 

Add to that the point that in HV mode, the battery is continuously doing partial charges and discharges. Same for the standard Prius, except that in that case, the percentage charge/discharge is much greater, given its much smaller battery.

 

Just a theory: Maybe it's because in winter the ICE is running on those 50MPH+ roads to warm up so you end up using the ICE on the highway and, at the end of the commute, when car car is warm, you are using EV mode in the City? (And in the summer, the EV mode deplete faster because you start your commute on the highway and it doesn't have to warm up at all. Then your average miles/KWh goes down and the Guess-o-Meter show you less EV miles with the same full battery)

 

This actually what I would lean towards as well.