EV mode at every stop

Putting car in EV and ECO mode and pulling away from a light on all EV is reasonable acceleration. Try it. See how fast you can go. It's poor man's EV and I'm glad Prius put in that button. Getting the car going from stop to 25mph is takes the most energy in daily driving so it will give a big boost to fuel mileage, as the pure EV does.

 

I will give that a shot. I always assumed that EV mode expires when you cross the center line like the automatic EV function.
I am coming from a manual transmission. My right hand needs something to do.

 

How much of a boost does it give compared to Wayne's lower EV->gas threshold speed?

 

More likely it is stress on the battery, and lack of mpg increase. MG2 gets much of that stress whether you take off in EV mode or gas mode.

 

Fuzzy, I am thinking there is a reason Wayne doesn't go all the way to 25mph. It could be that by 15mph ICE power is more efficient and/or battery power is too expensive beyond that point when used for shear acceleration. I couldn't get an answer for it on the other forum so I may just send Wayne a FB message. If I get an answer I will report back.

My thought is you expend more energy going up to 25mph than you can recover during your next braking cycle. FWIW I have been using this technique a bit and it seems more efficient but I cannot claim any real gains yet. I did pull off a 71.5mpg trip over 48miles today using this technique at most of my stops. Driving at 50-60mph on the rural roads and highways helped a lot too.

It's kind of amazing what these cars can do when driven carefully and on flat land.

 

I'm thinking in the very same direction as you. Wayne has a better feel for this than the great majority of we normal mortals.

I'm also amazed at what it can do even on hills. This one was a round trip, a mere month into hybrid ownership. Zero net climb, but 3000+ feet gross climb and even some downhill engine braking. But only a handful of stops:

Since then, a few round trip commutes half that distance with more stops, a couple thousand feet gross climb, and a ten hour engine cooling stop in the middle, have reached 76 mpg. Unfortunately, no pics.

 

:bow

 

If you did yours at 50 mph, you don't need to bow. Mine as slower.

 

I did 50mph on the rural roads and 60mph on the highway which was maybe 50% of each. Don't mind my time. I stopped at a couple places in town and didn't turn the car off while I ran inside to grab parts and a bottle of water. Regardless, your numbers are impressive. How many Prius owners can claim the same? How many ANY car owners can claim the same? Oh yeah, there are still a few Insight I's running around.

 

It will usually go all the way up just don't let it get to red area or it kicks on the engine. Its not jack rabbit start but it is reasonable, no one should be lock and loading in back of you.

 

Not likely or they wouldn't put the button there at all.

Not likely as that is the same principle as the EV Prius just 1 mile battery range vs. 11 mile.

Most likely is they wanted to give drivers a choice on operations. They default to REGULAR and ECO mode. ECO is the only "sticky" mode of the three buttons, EV, ECO and PWR, such that if you put it in ECO, the car stays there during car on/off cycles. PWR and EV, the two extremes both require user intervention, a default to off when during car on/off cycles.

As little EVa would say.

 

One of the things he recommends is putting the car in neutral to save gas while coasting/gliding whatever. You'll never see me doing that with my Prius no matter what it costs me in mpg.

Hey Wayne "Don't get caught coasting with your car in neutral in Pa. it's illegal as you " don't have your car under control."

If you have an accident make sure you put the car back in drive when the cops get there.

He's so twitchy I couldn't stand having him in the seat next to me. He seems very adept at getting the most mpg but better yet at pissing off the people behind him.

 

I wonder if that would be recorded somewhere in the car, its state when crash occurred.

One of the nice things about EV starts is it is reasonable acceleration and doesn't piss off drivers in back of you. I wonder how different EV/ECO starts are in the regular Prius vs. the PIP? I'm guessing if you try to accelerate hard enough in the PIP it triggers engine assist.

 

Toyota was able to recover all sorts of black box data off the white hair old dude (James Sikes?)'s car when his gen II supposedly ran away and had to be chased down by CHiP.

 

Wayne does not recommend putting the car in neutral as a technique. He clearly states he is using neutral now but the driver will soon be using their right foot to simulate what he is currently doing with a shift into neutral. With so much to teach in such a short amount of time there is now way to teach gliding techniques effectively any other way.

 

He isn't actually recommending this. It is just a simple method of gliding for demonstration purposes; he says you should do this with your right foot. You never have to put your Prius in neutral.

The Prius doesn't have any way of disconnecting the engine and transmission from the wheels. It is ALWAYS 'under control'.

 

I assume Wayne's 16 mph threshold is empirical, but he has enough experience and data to get good results. From a theoretical standpoint, what happens is the interaction of two efficiency curves. EV pays a heavy price in electrical and chemical conversion losses, while the ICE is forced to heavily use the series hybrid electrical path at low speeds. If you plot these two efficiency curves and look for the best transition speed, you are going to get something very close to what Wayne recommends.

Tom

 

Much more. You can even push it into the red zone accelerating away from a light in EV/ECO mode.