Does Charge Mode Reduce EV Range?

Interesting: We just took a road trip in our P.Prime Austin->Houston->Austin: ~400 miles plus driving around a bit in Houston. This time, I tried recharging the battery a bit with Charge Mode, especially on the way back. In short, I didn’t want to end up with more gas in the tank than necessary. It’ll just lie around getting stale, so I figured, why not burn some of it to charge up the battery.

However, I’ve noticed since getting back, that it seldom charges up to the usual 32ish miles of range anymore, but to 29.x miles.

Now that being said, I‘m not yet sure whether it’s just being more pessimistic in its estimates or that the range really is reducing. I need to check the #KWh charged stats. Also, I should mention that I saw a few occasional cases of this before the trip, so it could be a gradual-degradation type of thing.

Have any of you heard of evidence that using Charge Mode degrades the battery in EV operation? Or Hybrid Mode, for that matter? That, or briefly driving in either of those mode makes its EV-range estimates more pessimistic?


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In one case, on my 19-mile trip to work, I noticed that the EV range estimate reduced by about 22 miles. So, assuming that it’s still charging the same number of KWh as before (not sure of that yet), it’s probably just estimating more accurately than before.

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It’s an estimate — reasonably good one, from what I’ve seen, but certainly not perfect. For me at least, it tends to be a few percent on the high side, all in all, but It depends upon driving style and conditions, and other factors, so ... complex.

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Yes, I noticed that — only up to 23.7 I think it was, in my case.

However, I was talking about charges from a charger before and after the road trip in which I used Charge Mode.

I finally had a chance to charge it from almost nothing (1.6 miles, I think) to full, and it took 5.8KWh. As I recall, that’s pretty close to what it took before, although possibly a little lower. Not sure...


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I think I’ve concluded that it actually is charging fewer miles recently. Granted, I don’t know that has anything to do with road trip. I’m guessing it’s more likely temperature-related, or just how the car naturally breaks in over time. Not sure.

I think it actually is reducing the number of miles charged, as opposed to the Estimate-o-Tron losing accuracy: The number of miles being charged is going down, it’s still reporting the same 4.7 miles/KWh, and certain trips that I used to juuuuust barely make on EV are turning into trips that I juuuust barely don’t make on EV.

I think it’s still a fairly-precise (although not super-accurate at ~10% too high), estimate, and it really is charging less.

Edit: To clarify, I don’t think heating provisions are likely big contributors, since, although the average temperatures are considerably lower, which I’m guessing is what’s mostly affecting it, it’s still pretty rarely going low enough to merit turning on the heat pump, and when I do, the EV range definitely drops not-unsubstantially.

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11.4 and 15.1 miles ... per charge, or...?

In my case, it would previously come off the charger with estimating 31-32 miles. Now it comes out of a charge at 28ish estimated miles.

Again though, I typically find its estimates about 10% high. My 19-mile trip to work requires what it estimates as 21 miles or thereabouts.


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So much for conservative driving!

Yeah, that’s certainly true. To some degree, I’ve been monitoring tire pressure, and in this case, it’s clearly still reporting 4.7miles/KWh.


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On a Prius Prime or an original PiP?

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