Coastal EV Kit

As far as I know, the car does not keep track of time/mileage spent in EV mode.

By the way, you can do it yourself for about $5, to buy wire and a momentary push button switch. http://www.calcars.org/prius-evbutton-install.pdf

 

You won't like the Coastal kit. It works, but the 3-second delay is really annoying if you plan to use it on a regular basis. I swapped it out for the cheap, simple button and I like that much better.

 

In every day use, how and when, specifically do you use your EV button?

 

Tideland gave a good overview. By far, the most effective use is to avoid a cold start-up for a very, very short trip. You must be able to make it from point A to point B without running the battery down to 2 bars, though. Without an external charging source, the battery energy must ultimately come from the engine, either through regen braking or direct charging. However, when the engine is cold, it is burning rich and inefficiently, and most motive energy comes from the battery anyway. If you can make a short trip, maybe 1/4 mile, without the engine coming on at all, you can save gas.

The most ineffective use is to start out in EV mode with a cold engine, run the battery down to two bars, and then have the engine providing motive energy and recharging the battery in panic mode while burning rich.

Before going to the trouble of installing the EV switch, it is worth considering how often it will be useful. This is one reason why the EV switch is not offered as an option in North America, because the average driver here is not savvy enough to know when or when not to use it.

 

I use my EV button just about every single day. I mostly use it to shut the engine off when I'm approaching a stop sign or stop light. I think the engine may shut down anyway but I just do it quicker because I know it's approaching. As others have mentioned, moving very short distances I use it as well.

 

Hi CruZindon. Sorry if I sound negative about this but many of the things you're hoping to use EV mode for might not be very successful with just a simple EV button. Some of the things you want to do would only really be successful if you get an actual plugin EV conversion.

That's about one mile total. If there are any hills at all you wont make it in EV mode. Even if the terrain is dead flat you will still be running the traction battery down to about the limit (where the engine is forced to come on). Now the real problem is that next time you go to drive the car the battery will go right down to purple (SOC level) and the engine will strain much harder and use a lot more fuel.

Overall here's what you'll achieve.

Net gain: Nothing. It wont save you one drop of fuel.

Net Loss: More wear and tear on your engine next time you cold start. A huge amount more wear and tear on your traction battery.

See above comment.

Yes this could be worthwhile. I use the EV button sometime to make it easier to do the slow stop-start thing without triggering the engine to come on. Still be aware that there's only fairly limited capacity to do this and if you allow the battery to run down too far then you really pay the price later when the engine cut-on and has to work much harder.

 

I had to remove my coastal tech because it went haywire. This is not a common problem, but I've found other people on line who've had this same problem. Basically, what happens is the chip stops intercepting the stalk signals which is annoying because you lose control over EV mode. But what's worse is that after a time, the chip will start sending random (and often extremely frequent) signals to engage or disengage EV mode. Like every 5 seconds. Not only is this bad for the engine (when you're at speeds below 34 mph) but it's very annoying and wasteful of your battery. I'd say got with the simpler solution, though it might be more work to install, I doubt it will go insane on you. Some people have had excellent results from the coastal, but if you plan on using it a lot, the wear and tear on the CC stalk could wear it out. I'd got with the button if I were going to do it again. Next time I buy a car, it'll hopefully be an EV.

 

Yes, you can purchase the correct pin with a short length of wire attached directly from Toyota. I don't know the part number offhand, but it costs about $15.