EV & HV miles doubling up

EV miles are not recovered in the HV mode. When you switch from EV to HV the EV mile estimate stays close to its value when the switch was made, plus a little, minus a little more but generally within a 1 EV mile total range. That is, it acts just like a non-plug-in with that amount of battery charge as the working area. There is one exception. If the SOC is above 75% the HV working range will move down to between 70% and 75% and the corresponding estimated EV miles are reduced.

To recover EV miles one must switch back to EV when significant regeneration is available going downhill. Then to maintain those EV miles when regeneration is no longer available you switch back to HV so the new 1 EV mile operating range is maintained. When you get another chance for significant regeneration you switch to EV to gain EV miles then back to HV to store those miles. That is called stacking.

 

In EV-BOOST doesn't the car still try to use each fuel to the most efficient use though? It seems like when you accelerate the ICE will increase power and your iMPG will be less than 100. I don't use it a ton though, so I could be wrong.

 

We have HV/EV, it's PWR we don't have, replaced by EV CITY. We can't reproduce that 100mph, either at 65 or at about 55 or so real which would be the equivalent point after the ICE starts up in EV.

I don't seem to recover the loss after ICE start up unless I get the braking regen to do it. But yesterday on my commute home, with an initial EV range of 15.5, I selected HV almost immediately, lost about 1 mile in warm up, but then over the next 10 miles or so range dropped a further 3 miles as I had a number of stretches below 45 mph and below halfway on the power bar. Was not regenerating from the engine, eventually got about a mile of it back on a long downhill. The systems really do seem to be set up differently between EU and US.

 

The video above shows that it took about 1.4 miles to bring the coolant up to to the target (in ECO mode) of 113°F from 77°F, and the engine spun at 1500 rpm during this time. Yes, the engine can in some circumstance be driven by MG1 in freewheeling mode (no compression, no fuel) to avoid overspin of MG1, but I think that the system is pretty adamant that if the engine is turning for any reason (even without using fuel), that it must be warm enough. And it warms up REAL fast, in part due to circulating the coolant over the exhaust system to recover that heat. The PiP is designed to optimally blend the ICE and electric motor to maximize energy efficiency. At higher speeds, the ICE is actually a better choice than the electric motor. This design objective is different from extended range EVs such as the Volt, which are designed to avoid the use of gasoline as long as any EV capacity is available, without regard to overall efficiency.

John, without going into a lot of detail, what is outdated about the comment about maximum speed with the ICE off being limited by MG1 rpm?

 

EV-boost is almost magical, it is incredible the mileage you can achieve in the right circumstances. For my daily commute home I am able to save around 13.5 EV miles of my typical 18 or so with which I start the day off. The drive consists of about a mile of slow city driving in EV mode, maybe nine miles of interstate driving, and finally 4 miles of local rural roads. I switch to HV going up the highway on-ramp, let the engine warm up (which eats up a few EV miles), wait for them to be added back for a half mile or so and then switch back to EV at highway speed. EV-boost will easily get me to my exit in another 8 miles and I still have EV left to get most of the way home on local roads. Since the engine is still warm after the car switches automatically to HV I am able to do the rest in secondary EV, staying under 40 mph and keeping the HV/EV indicator left of the center line as best I can. Thursday I hit an all time high of 149 mpg on the shutdown readout. Each morning going into town I usually do around 75-80 mpg so the day's average is always over 100 mpg. I had never expected this when I bought the Pip.

 

Outdated information haunts us. People read something from a credible source, but have no idea what it means, let alone whether or not it is still correct. To further complicate matters, missing vital facts distorts interpretation. It's quite a mess to continually deal with.

Many of the tech write-ups list specs for the Classic model. With the case of MG1, the RPM increased from 6500 to 10000. With MG2, the increase was from 5600 to 13500. Then of course, there's the Iconic model, which MG2 increased to 6700. We saw power rating go from 15 to 30 to 42 for MG1 and 44 to 67 to 80 for MG2. Another big change was the PSD itself. The power-carrier count changed from 4 to 5, with corresponding teeth changes. There also the replacement of the reduction-gear with a second PSD. Let's not forget about the voltage from the converter starting at 273.6 then upping to 500 then 650. The battery obviously changed too. So did the engine.

That's just starting with the Classic model. Looking back to the Original, there's a number of other factors of influence. Heck, I could point out tire width & diameter differences as well.

 

Seems like there are a couple things you could do that would get you a little better efficiency. I would start up the HV long enough before the on-ramp that you are able to use the ICE for acceleration when you get to the on-ramp. Also, don't let the ICE add back on the EV miles that were taken off, switch over to EV mode to reset it.

 

markabele, that needs further explanation please. What do you have in mind by way of time sequencing? As we all know, while the engine is warming up, EV miles are continuously used but will be mostly replaced once the engine has finished warming up. Exactly when are you recommending a switch to EV to "reset it?"

 

Probably the best thing to do would be to start the ICE about 1-1.5 minutes before you hit the on-ramp. When you hit the HV button to start the ICE go ahead and just hit it again to go back into EV. That way you don't have to replace any miles that you have used.