Navigation?

I've been using the built-in navigation.
Short list of pros and cons:
Pro: It puts the turn by turn directions in front of you in the forward instrument panel.
Pro: It seems to provide updated maps.
Con: Harder to type on the on-screen keyboard.
Con: Search doesn't always bring up the nearest destination choice; they are shown in truncated form and sometimes the first choice is thousands of miles away.

I don't use Waze anymore, since Google has adopted most of it's best features. They did away with the stalled vehice reporting for obvious reasons; people were finding stalled vehicles to rob, using it.

 

I agree with this. My main gripe is that is doesn't have a "Home" feature that brings your to your home address. And the favorites list doesn't seem to keep the favorites that have been so designated.

 

I theorized that for the Gen 3, Toyota contracted with a nav company to design their system. They probably didn't want much competition from it, so they downgraded it a bit.

 

Exactly. I said that you don't have Predictive EV drive. You then said "it is in the manual", but you were talking about something different.

It doesn't. I said "only". I said I believe your manual only has the "Predictive Deceleration Support" section and not "Predictive EV drive".

You would know if your manual had a "Predictive EV Drive" section under the "Predictive Efficient drive" heading. That's what we're looking for and I'm claiming isn't there.

I assume you must mean "Predictive EV drive"? I don't - I use Predictive EV drive when I've manually selected Auto EV/HV mode.

But what Predictive EV Drive does is the car switches to HV mode when it thinks it's efficient to hold charge. And it switches back to Auto EV/HV mode when it thinks it's a good time to use charge.

The car chooses the most efficient times to use the electricity spread over the whole trip, using the knowledge of the desitination. Unlike basic Auto EV/HV which tends to use it all immediately. The switching to HV mode is how it holds off usage until later, same way a driver could manually.

It is a bit weird that it's flipping the same mode that you flip manually. I've never investigated exactly how the manual mode select and the predictive EV drive interact - I just know that as long as I select Auto EV/HV and then stop touching the mode button, then it will do temporary flips to HV mode and flip back to Auto itself. Maybe if I manually switched to HV mode it would stay there, or maybe it would still keep flipping, I don't know.

So you think there's a function that prioritises using electricity more than EV mode already does - which basically uses only electricity, unless cold or the battery runs out?

I'm still not getting what you think changes, if you're running in EV mode and enter a destination. Does the charge run out later? Or does the charge run out at the same time, and it's then more efficient in the HV bit afterwards?

In a car with Predicitive EV Drive, it's very obvious what the car is doing, because you can see it doing it, and the function itself makes sense - "don't waste EV on high speed bits, safe it for upcoming slow speed bits". Something you could do manually, but it automates for you.

You've yet to even come up with a coherent explanation of how the car could be gaining efficiency with your undefined destination-aware function.

 

To possibly labour the point, here's the feature table from the Japanese brochure, with dodgy machine auto-translation. The point being to show the full set of features to make sense of the limited set you're seeing.



Left-hand column is the PHEV, right-hand column is the HEVs (same in all trims).

"Look ahead eco Drive" (Predictive Efficient Drive) is the general heading, not a specific function.

Then the 3 functions:

• Predictive deceleration support all cars have in all countries.
• "Look-ahead SoC control" is HEV only.
• "Look-ahead EV/HV mode switching control" (Predictive EV Drive) is in Japanese and European PHEVs, but not American, as far as I can tell. (Not in the manual, and no-one in the USA has reported having it).

So for North American PHEVs, "Predictive Efficient Drive" is only Predictive Deceleration Support. That's it.

They're the only models where you have this manual with the "Predictive Efficient Drive" group heading with exactly one subheading, thus confusing people into thinking "Predictive Efficient Drive" is describing a second function.

 

Yes. Exactly. When the car does not know the destination it runs about 25% of the time on gas and 75% on electricity in EV mode. For example last night I did a round trip to the airport part of the time in sport mode and the car used about 93% electricity and 7% gas. These are numbers from the car data given on each trip from the time I start the car to the time I turn off the car.

Rough estimation from round trip mpg last night somewhere between 180 to 240 mpg. Calculated by taking the distance of the trip (24 miles) and estimating fuel consumption based on decrease in estimated range. Gas predicted range decreased by 4 miles last night so I estimate that is about a tenth to a seventh of a gallon.

Prior to using destination in the Toyota navigation system I was seeing about 150 mpg max.

No sooner. My understanding is that it is prioritizing using electricity over petrol gas.

Here is a quote from Green Car Reports that captures the essence of what Predicitive Efficient Drive in the USA is doing.

the feature (predictive efficient drive) as it's offered to America in the Prius Prime might not help you be more efficient on a road trip, it will help "learn" where it should prioritize electric driving on your daily commute, or on another trip that you do regularly. And that should help minimize the amount of gasoline you use.

Just because it isn't in the manual doesn't mean the function doesn't exist. The manual is missing a lot of details about the Prius Prime. I doubt that Toyota likes to mention that it requires an active $10/mo WiFi Connect data plan or some other connection to a wifi hotspot.

In addition you can not use a mobile hot spot from your phone if you are connecting to your car via wireless Android Auto or wireless Apple CarPlay since these both use an ad hoc wireless network in addition to bluetooth.

I have never noticed my car switching modes when I have been driving with the one exception being running out of charge when it switches to HV mode and displays a message that it is making the change.

No. We do not have what you call Predictive EV drive. Can not find any mention of it in the manual or on the web with the exception being you posts on this site.

I am pretty sure the way your car changes modes is due to the European geofencing feature which automatically activates electric mode in urban low-emission zones. The USA predictive efficient drive does not have geofencing and as far as I can tell no major city in the USA has low emission zones currently.