Invited someone to Priuschat

I got the following e-mail via my website and responded as follows:
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Hi Ed,

Welcome to the Prius club. I recommend you join us at:

Toyota Prius Online Community with News, Forums, & Research - PriusChat

There is a whole group of Prius fans there that can answer every question you have.

Each little car icon is equal to 50Wh of energy and is equivalent to the amount of electricity required to light up a 50 Watt light bulb for one hour. The more cars are shown, the more energy your Prius has managed to regenerate. Regenerating energy does not wear your brakes. In fact the regenerating system makes your brakes last even longer. Have you ever tried pushing two equal poles of a magnet together? Takes quite a bit of force, doesn't it? Regen is similar in that the car is slowed down by the magnetic field in the motor which is created when the motor is used as a generator.

Enjoy your new car.

Regards

Albé

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Oops, forgot the B question...

Sometimes the regen system cannot slow the car down enough and you HAVE to engage the brakes, especially on a looong downhill. In a normal car you select a lower gear to run against engine compression and save your brakes. In the Prius you select B. It forces the Prius to slow itself down using engine compression. The energy is wasted as heat....

PS, don't overdo the B. Use it only when you need it. You'll save more fuel that way.
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Miller Signal Devices wrote:

Hello

My name is ED, I live in a small town near Los Angeles, California. I just bought a 2009 Prius and I love the car.
I have some question for you I hope you have the time to answer them. First on the Consumption screen it puts
a small car or half a car on the screen in the time bars. I would like to know what it means. Also the top
left hand corner of the screen has the wording CONSUMPTION = 50Wh Regenerated which is I think part of the first
question.

Next when the cars starts to slow down or I step on the brake power is generated from the front wheels to the
electric motor to the battery on the screen. Is this coming from my brakes and I am warring them down or not?

One more, when I move the shift lever to B is this coming from my brakes also.

Thank you for reading this I hope you can send me and answer by e-mail. I LOVE MY CAR, and I have had
many new cars from Lexus to VW. This is the best.

ED MILLER

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