EV range went from 13 to 10 miles in 1 year

The FAQ thread explained this very well. It is not a measure of the capacity of the battery. It is an estimate range based on your driving behavior.

 

My "EV Range" displayed this morning, with a full charge, was 10.3 miles. I reset trip A before I left. I ended up going about 12 miles before running out of EV. The number isn't real.

 

"13" is the factory software default. It must calibrate to your own particular driving before it is able to provide an accurate estimate. And even then, that value doesn't necessarily match what you actually get.

In other words, most owner's will see an estimate drop without seeing any capacity drop.

For me, my morning commute taking the back way will serve as the measure. I can drive EV until depleted. It changes quite a bit based on temperature... 9 miles with the temp at -2°F and 17 miles under ideal summer conditions. But taking account time of year is easy enough... and the estimate certainly doesn't reflect those distances.

What measurements do you have available? Some specific route? Is there a MPG trend?

 

^^ This! I've seen my full charge read 10.1, drove 10.5 miles to work, EV display stilled showed 1.8 EV left.

 

Good news and makes sense. I've had more than a few .1 EV range left on my 9.8 mile one way commute, upon arrival. Most trips, I start out with 10.0 EV range. As long as I can keep the ICE off in cooler temps, I'm almost guaranteed all EV mode. With six weeks experience driving my PIP, I've adapted well, but by no means would I claim to be a Prius max mileage expert.

 

Sorry to be the wet blanket here, but, driving habits aside, Li-Ion batteries will diminish in performance over time. I shudder to think how many miles we'll all be getting 5 or 10 years from now. Toyota explicitly warns us of this in the PiP's owner's manual - but doesn't go into any specifics. I'd love to hear speculations from those who are more technologically savvy....

 

Here is something for you.

http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/energystorage/pdfs/53470.pdf

 

Thanks, John. Very interesting. If I read through all that correctly, it looks as though the battery should retain (on average) about 80% of its capacity in year 10. If that's correct, I could live with that.

(I remain hopeful that with technological advances, an even more powerful replacement would be affordable by then.)

 

My girlfriend drives the PiP every day to work, her daily EV range is usually 11.2-11.6 miles. When she's out of town and I'm driving it, the daily EV range is 12.2-12.6 miles.

Driving habits have a lot to do with the EV range since it is an estimation.

 

When I started out this morning with full charge, my EV estimated range showed 13.9 before setting off. The whole trip was EV. The ending summary showed that I had travelled 12.1 miles - and I still had 5.0 remaining!

 

Did you start off from a mountain top?

 

Now I am confused. In six weeks, I've had many, all EV commutes to and from work. My commute is 9.8 miles one way, and I normally arrive with less than .4 EV left. Friday evening, I left work with 9.8 EV range after a full charge, conditions and speed normal (no heat or heated seats used). I noticed my remaining EV was a little lower than normal at checkpoints along my route. I made an extra effort to regen some juice. As the EV dropped below 1.0, I was within a mile of home, (as stated in related post above above) I felt confident as I reached .1, there would be a little battery power left. Not true, as soon as .1 was gone, the ICE immediately cut on. At that point, I was running less that 25MPH. I know there are many variables involved, but with a concentrated effort, I'm was surprised. The last 1/2 mile to home is downhill or flat. I tried to regen in EV, then switching to HV mode and back to EV, I couldn't switch back due to low battery. No big deal, just trying to figure everything out. Never been a gamer, but I like the challenge of trying to manage EV mode to the max. Friday evening, I crashed and burned on final approach.

 

I had that exact same experience last week-
I hit my street with .1EV miles left- figured "no problem, I'll keep it under 42mph and coast the other .3miles on HV battery", but as in your case- as soon as the EV miles ran out- the ICE started up even though I was coasting on my flat/level road under 30mph with the HSD barely at 25%. I had almost 90% HV battery left at that point too., so it should have stayed in HV mode without the ICE starting up.
At this point (I've owned the PIP almost five months now) I just shake my head when it does stuff like this...

 

interesting, my ice always fires as soon as i run out of ev, whether i'm coasting or not.

 

sweet! you must be somewhere toasty.

 

I doubt that there will ever be an economical battery upgrade for the PIP, so it is doubtful that Toyota would ever officially offer one. First off, battery technology, maybe, is improving a few percent a year -- let's say 3-5%. If you have a car with 100K miles on it would it make sense to go from a 4.4 kwhr battery that only gets 80% of that (3.5 kwhr) to one that gets 100% of a 6 or 7 kwhr battery -- if it cost $5000 plus labor? It is marginal that the current PIP will save the ~$5000 margin over a conventional Prius (without rebates)...certainly if you upgrade with no rebates after 100K miles you won't win on the initial lifetime (shortened) or the second battery.

And if there is (hopefully) some battery breakthrough, I'm fairly confident it wouldn't work in the current PIP. Probably it will require different cooling, different voltages or something. Second, as a marketing strategy Toyota would prefer to sell you a new car rather than a new battery...your old car stills works fine as far as they are concerned and you aren't doing anything to harm the environment by upgrading...someone else will buy it used and probably be replacing a 16 yr old junker than is getting 25 mpg.

In 100+ years of car sales has a company EVER sold a drive train upgrade?

Mike

 

Mike,

I would assume that the original 4.4 kWh battery, with 70%+ capacity still available, has a substantial residual value in a secondary application. There are a few startups planning to use these packs in applications like buffering wind farms onto the grid, DC quick charging stations for electric vehicles, and even more golf carts.

I don't really expect Toyota to lead the way in these upgrades, unless they develop the business for a secondary application.

 

Perhaps the goal is to war the ICE under low load conditions. This assumes that the program will uses the remaining charge to assist acceleration.
My range dropped from 13.4 down to a low of 8.7. I leave at the top of a steep hill. I can travel 2 miles down hill and use .4 to .8 of my EV. Going up hill I can use 7+ during the uphill return trip.

The EV range is based on my driving habit and my driving environment (winter & hills). Last three days were n the 50+ F range. EV is up to 9.1