Switching out of "EV Mode" will trigger the engine to start and continue to run until the warm-up cycle is complete.
Nope, have daily commuted with my Prime for weeks without the engine ever coming on. However, as its getting chilly out: Did you turn on the defroster or turn up the heat? From both my experience and understanding, high electric loads, such as from heating, will cause the Prime engine to turn on. Just hit the rear defroster button and watch as your engine magically comes on even in EV mode!
As John pointed out, once ICE starts it will have to complete the warm up cycle and during this 2-5min depending on how cold it is and how hard you are pushing the engine, ICE will not stop even if you keep the car in EV mode. There are some other instances when the car automatically decides ICE needs to come on even if you are on EV or EV AUTO mode. Read following description from the manual.
This really should be a sticky in the main forum as it causes endless confusion for new Prime owners.
Our morning temp has reached 30s now. My routine is now to start my car and push HV and the front window defogger bottoms first thing after starting my car.
I’d like to record my fillups but I’ve only had one fillup since I bought the car back in Dec, 2017 and that was only 6.5 gal. about year ago. Now with a little over a 11000 miles on the car and still a 1/2 a tank, I probably won’t hit the gas pump until sometime next year .
That’s quite an achievement. I suppose your Prime ranks #1 for % of EV miles. I did read about gas going stale of not used up. Do you do anything to prevent that?
Looking for suggestions to fill up: My first prime, bought it 2 months ago from an out of the state dealer. Had to visit the dealer twice, so had to put on more gas miles. Now with 1800 miles, 20 miles of gas left and got low gas indicator lighting up. Have few questions: 1) Should I charge up the battery and run on Hybrid mode to totally empty the gas tank before filling up? (So that I don’t have old gas anymore). Has anyone tried that? 2) When I fill it up, Should I fill only half the tank? To avoid it going stale? (I’m habitual of filling the tank full on my highlander) I commute to work only on EV miles, only on weekends use gas miles that too very limited. Any suggestions or tips would be helpful.
Your record is very amazing. You literally have around 1,000 mpg... Then again, I wouldn't recommend you depending on gas stabilizer. First is because I genuinely do not trust those things enough. Secondly is because you're just negating the effect of saving money by going with PHEV Prius. What I'd recommend is that just fill up $3 every month to get about 1 gallon of gas. That should last about 50 miles or 70 miles. Just use one gallon every month or two. That way, you're not ripped off by paying $7 every month but it's not even a gallon of gas, just stabilizer. Keep your tank on 20% all the time since you won't be using it most of the times anyway.
Trying to add my car to the spreadsheet. Can you do it on an iPhone or do you have to do it on a laptop or iPad?