Electric ONLY from gas

Charge mode does work in Park, however.

 

welcome!

it's a fairly sophisticated system. you have gas for powering the wheels, then, a battery was added to recapture energy that is often lost with a gas only car, which can then be used to power the car alone, or in concert with the gas.
then, a plug and larger battery were added to do even more of that, increasing overall efficiency.
in the end, you have the best of all worlds.

 

toyota is smarter than us? the goal is low emissions. everything else follows.

 

To answer your question YES, Hold down the HV/EV button and it will show HV. This only works until the engine warms up and then it returns to EV. However, step on the gas a bit and the engine will come on again, let it coast in drive and it will continue to charge. I went from 13 miles to 25 miles today just doing some local shopping. Have fun with your Prime.

 

<ST: voyager>?
in my pip, when i run out of juice and the engine fires, the warm up cycles will often allow me to continue on in ev, as the engine is recharging the battery.

 

If I remember, the Pip 2012, was similar to the Prime. Initially, when the Engine is on, all of the energy goes to the wheels. Later it is shared with a portion going to charge. It always depends on the load factor i.e.:
Uphill OR Downhill. sometimes it is difficult to tell.

 

i don't have a scan gauge, just going by the hsi and energy monitor, which i know aren't totally accurate.

 

From a full charge we get about 20 to 25 miles of EV operation. Then the engine runs to propel the car. Some power flows to the battery while the engine is running at light load, and some power flows from the battery at heavy load (engine + electric power). Electricity also flows to the battery from regenerative coasting, braking, and B mode as we know. The oversized battery in the Prime (vs. the conventional Prius) will power the car at light load situations even when I expect the car to run in HV.

So...plug in and recharge when there is no cost except regular electric rates. Then just drive and let the wizards at Toyota figure out the best mode. (When I know I'll drive beyond EV range changing to EV Auto mode does yield better gas mileage for the trip--engine operation for high power segments that would otherwise rapidly draw down the battery.)

 

If you actually empty the EV charge, it takes a long time for car to show charging again.

 

I just realized why the car went from 13 miles to 25 while driving locally. I was making a lot of stops, so each time I restarted and went to HV, the car had to go thru it's HV first priority and since all speeds were 35-45 the excess energy charged the Traction Battery.

 

wow, 12 miles of recharge during hv without force charging is amazing!

 

Yes I was amazed. so to run around in HV is a good idea. at some point it does stop charging. It seems to be about 26 or 28.