EV mode at every stop

Absolutely. As you note, one can keep the car in EV mode without the using EV button but that typically requires very light loads, greater than one sees in standing starts. I think EV Mode is made for standing starts where you want to apply more than the normal acceleration without triggering the engine. The high torque required from standing start is perfect application for the electric motor. Using the EV mode at standing starts seems to have a big positive impact on mileage. If they offer the PIP with a solar sun roof in 2013, I might trade up to it. I think I'd be pushing 60+ mpg without plugging in with the PIP's bigger capacity battery and higher mph EV mode. I could plug in at work for 10 hour charge. Can't plug in at home for since I park on the street.

 

Perhaps you discovered this with your testing for this thread after posting here, but a likely explanation is the EV speed limit of 45 mph; once you hit 46 mph, it won't shut the engine off until you go back down to 42 mph.

Makes P&G hard on roads with a 45 mph speed limit if you follow the law.
Otherwise, it makes P&G hard on roads with a 35 mph speed limit.

 

Yes, they could have done this, but they didn't.

The best evidence that the choice of top EV speed was not dictated by efficiency is that it varies by country and by Prius generation. From this thread, it seems that the Gen 2's top EV speed was 28 mph in Australia, 29 mph in the UK, 31 mph in Europe, 34 mph in Japan (or in the US, if you add the EV mod). In the Gen 3, the US speed is only 25 mph, while the UK, Australia, and Europe get up to 31 mph.

The EV speed limitation is set by marketing in the respective regions, not the Japanese engineers.

 

I was getting weird results when going to 45mph last week but i was also switching to neutral to go into glides. Yesterday i decided to try using the 45mph limit back to back with a self imposed 41mph limit but without using neutral. The consumption screen looked the same for both methods this time. However, since both methods produce over 100mpg i could not tell which is more efficient. I will set up my scangauge to try and determine which is more efficient at some point in the future. Fwiw i used the same acceleration rate for both methods. I kept Rpm at between 1480 and 1600 which corresponds to 1/2 to 3/4 of the Hsi indicator and about 27-34iMPG.

 

I agree 100%, EV button is for marketing purpose. I use it to move the car for very short distance and don't want to start ICE warming cycle.

As far as I see it, ICE can also run under good efficiency at low speed it just means that you are accelerating because you are pushing pedal above EV threshold (>10 kW). If you accelerate very slowly (because of traffic) it's more efficient with el. motor (not forcing EV mode), car does that automatically and this threshold was calculated by Toyota engineer. Pushing EV button is forcing el. motor to run in the range where ICE directly is more efficient.

 

No evidence of that. First of all, there's no marketing of the EV mode button. Second, what determines the function is EV mode is the engineering of the car and the settings. If there are small regional differences in the setting likely based on driving differences as the car can is governed by it's capability and the differences vanishingly small such as the anecdotal 18 mph cutoff of some folks here vs. Toyota's 25 mph. And it seems the evidence for any difference is anecdotal, more what people happen to notice the speed to be when the engine kicks off as we see from people saying US "set" cutoff is 25 or 28 mph, interesting the same difference of 28 to 31 mph claimed in the regional differences.

 

Since some of us remember the television commercial specifically promoting it, there really isn't much more to say.

The EV button provides a taste of the future, providing undeniable proof the traction motor is capable of more than what it is currently offers. PHV is the obvious next-level demonstration of that.

 

EV cutoff is also SOC dependent. And in Europe maybe speedometer lies more than in US, I know that going 54 kph according to MFD, GPS or torque app (sensor from the car) will show only 50 kph (at 110 kph reality is 100 kph). ODO and TRIP shows accurately, average speed is also accurate.

 

I think Toyota doesn't do this because most Prius drivers would not brake in a way to maximize the regen (when it's called for) such that the captured energy exceeds that expended on EV mode acceleration. Every other "normal" driver I've seen driving a Prius brakes (and accelerates) in sudden pedal pushes such that the friction braking is used. I think we would also have to ask why Toyota incorporates "fake drag" regen when that also impacts mpg negatively.

 

So perhaps what Toyota needs is a "hypermiler" button, with various software changes to maximize potential for those that use advanced techniques. Granted, some of these are not really advancing the limits of road safety, so it might be hard to document in the manual;-)

It's not unlike ABS, in a way. There was and is outcry from experts who claim they can threshold brake and maintain control of their vehicle much better than modern antilock systems. Perhaps true, but likely only a very small percentage of all drivers. Maybe some very small percentage of Prius owners can frequently use the EV override button to their routine advantage? The other question is, how many people actually end up doing worse without ABS or by using the EV button in conditions where it may not be advantageous.

 

Ah memories...I shall enjoy them. Can't answer for what you remember but saying EV mode is a big marketing sales point seems contradicted by the current Prius marketing brochure which mentions EV mode after Entunes and as just one of three mode buttons in a small one paragraph note in the 20 page brochure. Not exactly a big sales feature.

Which in turn, calls into question the idea that the marketing department is telling the engineering department what speed to kick out the EV mode. Common sense says it will be the max Toyota feels works for the vehicle design.

Absolutely. I will trade for a PIP this year if the PIP offers the solar sun roof in order to get a higher quality full EV mode even if I can only plug in a work during the day because I like and use the EV mode to boost my mileage. But that is not the same as saying the marketing department determines the working parameters, those are set by the vehicles inherent engineered capabilities.

 

I should have known your financial sense matched your other savory characteristics.

 

What is the connection between solar sun roof and higher quality full EV mode?

 

Two commas.

 

It doesn't have to be a big sales feature to be set by marketing. Nor does it even have to be advertised, or even mentioned. I can tell you there are a lot of salespeople out there that push the EV and/or PWR buttons for potential customers while out on a test drive though, which is a hint that it's a much bigger sales feature than you give it credit for.

I'm an engineer, working on computer chips. Sometimes, I have the misfortune of having to work with marketing. (Sorry marketing folks, us engineers just don't like you.) We tell marketing that we can sell 90% of the computer chips we manufacture if we run them at 597 MHz, or 80% of them if we run them at 603 MHz. Marketing goes to legal and learns that they can't advertise "600 MHz" if it's only 597 MHz, and they figure that 600 sounds enough better than 597 that it's worth throwing away the 10% of what we manufacture that would work at 597 MHz, but not at 603 MHz. They also prefer nice round numbers (which the chip can't run at), so they only advertise 600 MHz, even though it's really 603 MHz. And that 3 MHz difference is the same as the first 3 MHz that they absolutely had to have. And since it's a very low-end chip, they don't even really advertise the clock speed anyway - it's highlighted about as much as the EV button in Toyota literature. This sort of thing happens all the time: Marketing decides what is needed to have a viable product, or what sounds nice, or what matches up against the competition just right, and tells Engineering what to do.

Anyway, looks like I'm fresh out of troll food now, so that's it for me.

 

I use the technique often. I think it helps mpg. Trouble is I don't always have the juice.

 

Have you ever thought the two might go hand in hand?

 

And it is not per Toyota sales literature. So someone saying the marketing department is controlling the EV Mode for marketing reasons was silly on several levels. That was the claim. Now debunked.

Back to topic of using EV Mode at every stop. It is a nice mpg booster and works for a lot of Prius drivers who are not extreme hypermilers getting ridden off the road for rude and dangerous driving or enduring extreme discomfort of driving in 100 deg vehicles. For considerate people who like to drive safely, have AC and still get better than average mileage, using the EV mode at stops is a great way to get 54-56 mpg while living the good life.

 

I cant help laughing at the above post. I can get those numbers without ever touching the EV button, driving 70mph AND have the AC on. What a joke. You need to wake up and face the fact that you are basing your opinion on nothing more than a notion. I'm still waiting for something even resembling data from you.

 

Dude! But you are an extreme hyper miler. You spend pages on techniques for driving in 100 deg car with windows open just so and how many gallons of electrolyte replacement fluids and where to get emergency IV treatments for dehydration.

I put windows up and AC on driving on the freeway on a sunny 70 deg day, as do most normal drivers.

Extreme hypermiling is fine, a great hobby that saves on oil and pollution, but for normal drivers, using the EV mode button is a way to get nice mileage, 54-56 mpg while driving normally.