To solenoid or not to solenoid?

The track edition is awesome. If you drive fast this may give you better gas mileage, it did for me. Get the track edition it’s worth every penny. Also get a throttle controller. I got the 9-drive throttle controller on amazon it’s cheap but works.

 

I'm a little confused as to why Toyota - who SELLS cars based on gas efficiency, doesn't use them.

HOW exactly to they make the car more efficient?
I'm nearing retirement, and I figure that if I can get Toyota USA to use these and pay us 1/1,000,000th of the money that they would gain from using Red Bullet and Quantum Power solenoids, I wouldn't have to fix phones for a living!!!
Just imagine!
The G5 Priuses have an EPA-estimated 57 miles per gallon combined fuel economy.
They use same basic powertrain as the G3's and G4's - hopefully without the horrible engineering defect in the G3 that makes them suffer from the death rattle at 150,000 miles.

Most people have 10 fingers, and so they think in base-10.
If we could improve the G5s by just 3 little MPGs by adding just a few hundred dollars(?) worth of this undiscovered technology then that would be SOLID GOLD for Toyota-USA's marketing team!

60-MPG by US EPA metrics instead of 57!!!

We could even sell it to domestic car makers suffering under the oppressive yoke of our CAFE regulations.

I'm telling you.
It's a billion dollar secret!!!!

 

Or it was, till you went and blew it wide open. Nice going.

 

I have the track version of the Red Bullet.

I can not see a drop in mpg as I have other things that improve mpg installed.

So I am enjoying the quickness it provides.

Right now I am getting 50-65 mpg.

So I would have to say to solenoid is the answer to the question.

Make it a Red Bullet solenoid and use promo code "azusa" to save some cash.

 

It's all in how you drive it, the more power adders you put on, the more you're in the throttle burning more gas, more RPM...if you have self control and use these just to get to speed while pulse and gliding, you should see the best results. Driving faster or harder never ever nets better MPG, don't believe the lies.

 

In 14 years of driving a G3, mostly in ECO, I can't remember it doing any 'engine lugging', ever. Lugging is what our stick shift cars do when the spouse, or sometimes I, pick a too-high gear.

According to several old threads here, the most gas efficient speed in a Gen3 Prius is about 15 mph according to one domestic source, somewhere between 10-20 mph according to a group of Japanese hypermilers. As speed rises above that, MPG goes monotonically downhill. Bob Wilson measured out and posted an excellent MPG vs MPH chart, unfortunately the essential graph image was lost to one of many website host migrations since.

 

The eCVT is a power split device, not merely a "transmission".

The normal way that the Toyota HSD system works is that the engine management system spins up the ICE RPM to deliver whatever power you request, then the eCVT is managed to operate at whatever 'effective gear ratio' is needed to match th engine speed to the wheel speed. The eCVT should not be holding down the ICE RPM in a similar way that a poor gear choice in a traditional car causes lugging by holding engine RPM and power too low.

As for the deep bass of the engine, note that the Prius engine is nearly always managed to operate on a specific high-torque load line on its BSFC (brake specific fuel consumption) chart, even in gentler flat road less-noisy conditions. That line runs right through the middle of the engine's most efficient operating conditions.

That is a reflection of the fact that in normal use, much of the friction losses are to air drag, which keep dropping rapidly as speed drops. Other mechanical frictions also fall at lower speeds, though not as dramatically.

In theory, MPG could continue rising as speed drops even further, down to walking speed or slower. But in practice, this is limited by the electrical housekeeping power of the many engine and braking and other system controllers and human interfaces and displays in the vehicle. In the Prius, these fixed loads run somewhere in the vicinity of 400 watts. At lower speeds, this energy is amortized over less distance, reducing MPG. From several analyses from different groups, the Prius's balance point between fixed- and variable-speed power losses seems to be approximately 15 mph, thus the highest MPG happens at the about this point. In the future when these electrical controls can do all their jobs with less electrical power, this highest-MPG-speed may shift to even lower speeds.

Prius low speed fuel efficiency is so good that, when making speed vs cost tradeoffs, your equations must include the value of your time. There is usually no sense going ever slower to save fuel cost, when the resulting fuels savings is less than the increased loss of the value of your time.

 

Yes get to desired speed quicker and then stay in the inertia at desired speed will net good MPG . The best tool would be a throttle commander like ShiftPower 4.0+ though since it’s power can be adjusted on the fly rather than a Solenoid that’s more or less one power setting and requires tools to remove.

 

I see that's another one of this kind of thing, plugged between your pedal and the ECU pedal input. Changes what the ECU sees for the pedal position.