2014 Plugin Cruising range question

the wall charge is added to the cruising range. observe the range before and after you charge, and you'll see the addition. then, as you use ev, you'll see the subtraction. the computer gives total driving range for both fuels, and keeps track of them separately, except for the total you see in range.

as for estimated ev range, it is not a set figure. window sticker says the spa measured 11 miles on their test.
how you drive it, and in what conditions, will determine how far you can go on a charge.
the ev estimated range is a mathematical prediction based on your past driving ev distances.

 

Yes, I've only seen charging add to the range. I've also noticed that a full charge can also increase the fuel gauge...

 

when you switch to hv, it uses about 20% of ev capacity. not sure why. maybe to allow for regeneration.

 

agree completely.

 

Your EV range displayed depends on how you drive. Mine has been as high as 16 miles and as low was 9.5 miles.

 

absolutely, and temp, weather and driving conditions.

 

I am not sure if the followings is what you are experiencing but:
If you manually switch to HV mode while you still have EV miles in the 'bank', the car will try to keep this amount for later EV drive.
Now, if you are doing it when the engine is cold - the engine goes thru a warm-up period first. In this period, for sake of minimizing emissions of cold engine powering the car, the engine runs on minimum amount of fuel enough for warm-up but less than enough to drive the car, so the system 'borrows' charge from the 'bank' to help the engine.
Once the engine is up to a good working temperature, it will produce a bit more power than needed to run the car and charge is returned to the 'bank' until the target above is reached (or close to it).
Note that the return of charge to the 'bank' is preformed quite slowly to keep efficiency high. It can take sometimes 8-12 miles of highway drive at constant speed to complete. If you do not have these miles and you switch back to EV mode sooner, the return of the charge is stopped.
Note also that if you need high power (torque actually) during the warm-up period, like high acceleration, you will cause the engine to produce it and stop the 'borrowing' of charge.

Added.
If you are doing this switch to HV mode at the beginning of your trip, full charge and cold engine, the car will still use charge to help the engine during the warm-up as described, but I am not sure all of it will be returned later (frankly, I have not done it ever immediately at start), could be that not all of the charge is returned back. One explanation may be that the system avoids being in full charge, another may be to leave room for regeneration as bisco pointed.
Anyways, these 'lost' 1-2 EV miles have been used to improve HV mpg, so, not completely lost...

This car is smart.

 

I think you have it figured out, giora. If you're in EV and the engine is cold, hit the EV/HV button and notice that your MPG goes from pegged to maybe 60-75 MPG for a little while. Once the computer decides the ICE is ready to take over, you'll see MPG suddenly drop to maybe 30-40 and feel a transition. MPG will gradually climb as the engine warms up. I haven't really paid attention yet to if or how quickly EV miles come back during that second phase, but I would guess that would depend on your speed. I'm usually doing about 50 mph when I make the switch.

 

i was referring to the second situation. when i leave my house and hit hv right away, i lose 3-4 miles that never come back, on a 50 mile trip.

 

But even if you punch the HV button as soon as you hit the street, doesn't the battery help the engine while it gets up to temp? I'm still figuring out stuff, having only had mine for about a month and 1500 miles so far. But I have noticed that I sometimes get back a little EV range, but never all of it no matter how I try to game the system.

BTW, I paid attention today and saw the impact wall charging and then EV mode have on the cruising range. I hadn't noticed that before. Thanks.

 

it must be adding some charge, hard to say how much. when it's full, it can't add any, so, not sure at what point it can or does. i lose 3-4 miles driving 4 miles at about 40 mph.

another thing is when the engine finishes warm up, it still doesn't want to use the engine. i have to really punch the accelerator, and the hsi bar goes from the middle line to the power area, and as soon as i back off a hair, it drops back into ev. i can't feather it.

 

Do you have Eco mode enabled? If you turn it off, throttle response will be a lot more linear and allow more precise use of the upper half of the HSI bar.

Regarding losing charge when switching to HV mode: Using the ICE via MG1 to charge the batteries is inefficient, and is more of a last resort when the SOC is low. In HV mode there are various load conditions where it will use either solely EV power (MG2), just the ICE, or both combined. If you still have a few EV miles left it will use some of this in HV mode, but not all. The Energy Monitor display will show you what's going on.

 

Yes, in my second paragraph I should have said "full or almost full charge".
We have several evidences of the system trying to avoid staying in almost full charge while driving, in my opinion it is done to protect the battery, regeneration opportunity can be at high rate.

Do you have any reference to back-up this?
I think you cannot generalize and there may be situations where charging by the ICE is efficient. If this charge is done at constant highway speed, the controlled extra load of charging the battery can lift the ICE thermal efficiency thus covering the losses in the electric pass to the battery. Some reports here of Prius Prime 'charge mode' results indicate it.

 

Yeah it was a generalisation. I was thinking more in low speed or idle situations, where it's much better to not having the ICE run at all.