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Does HV battery mileage affect mpg?

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Fuel Economy' started by Hybrid Dave, Mar 27, 2014.

  1. Hybrid Dave

    Hybrid Dave Member

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    IV
    When I bought my 2010 used, it had just a little under 50k miles on it. Right now I am at 53k miles and as I've been driving, I was wondering what kind of life the battery has with higher mileage. I know all batteries diminish with age and repeated cycles, so after 50k miles there must be some impact on EV range and electric assist.

    With that said, I have read that EV mode drains the battery and you are lucky to get about 1-1.5 miles of EV out of a full battery. Every time I hit my neighborhood, I drive about 2 miles with pure EV. This is slowing down in the turn lane and cruising to a stop sign about .3 miles to a stop sign and then another 1.7 miles until I reach home. Usually while I am driving, I am at 6 bars of battery life at any given time. It rarely goes down unless I do lots of EV and rarely goes up to 7 bars unless I do a lot of braking. Overall, I calculate about 51 mpg for every 500 mile tank after I fill up. It seems like the hybrid system works really well. I was just curious if this is how it would have been 40k miles before or if my mpg will steadily go down with age due to battery capacity disminishing over time.
     
  2. JimboPalmer

    JimboPalmer Tsar of all the Rushers

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    There is no direct relationship between age and MPG. If it lasts 250,000 miles it may be slightly diminished. (Heat and load seem to be the culprits, you have no steep hills, so focus on keeping the interior cool)

    Most folks measuring EV range start from a full stop. A 'running start', especially if you are decelerating from a higher speed can do quite a bit better, as you have just filled the HV Battery.

    6 bars is right, you want room to do regenerating braking, if it was 'full' you would have no room to fill it more.
     
  3. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Just to amplify JimboPalmer's comment, the traction battery is part of the transmission. The transmission simply allows the engine to run in high-efficiency, power settings while avoiding inefficient modes. This may sound too simple but our Prius are not plug-in. Our Prius get no energy beyond the gasoline put in the tank (not counting the Plug-In Prius.) It is a hard concept to wrap one's head around.

    Bob Wilson
     
  4. Former Member 68813

    Former Member 68813 Senior Member

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    There is always room for regenerative braking. The very few times I reached all bars, the Prius computer burned the excess charge itself by using EV without my intervention.
     
    kgall likes this.
  5. JimboPalmer

    JimboPalmer Tsar of all the Rushers

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    You can go down long enough, steep enough hills so that regenerative braking turns off and M/G1 spins the engine (without fuel) to act as an air pump to work as engine braking. You will notice that the harder you brake the louder the engine gets!