What happens to me when the engine is cold.

In your case it is clear cut. The best practice for you is to start the Prius and drive, but try not to load the ICE for the first minute or so. You can feel when you are pushing to hard: the ICE speeds up and sounds unhappy.

Tom

 

Craig, I have not noticed any hesitation in getting up to residential speed from my driveway.

 

I know exactly what you mean - foot is pushing hard enough to get what would normally be very aggressive accelleration (if ICE was warm), but getting a gradual crawl instead. The electric motor just doesn't have a whole lot of get up & go...

I think I'm going to go with the impatient approach and just stomp it - a few seconds later, the ICE seems warm enough to cooperate just fine.

 

If you want speed early, just put the pedal to the metal. Obviously, the OP did not care about engine wear if he is thinking about power so soon. And engines are tough nowadays. I am not blaming him. He could be living on a busy street where accelerating fast is safer.

Just push real hard. Harder than normal.

I don't know of anyone who has worn out an engine.

Problem solved?

 

Sort of... I agree that engines are pretty tough and I'm not that worried about running the ICE at (moderately) higher revs when cold - it will warm up faster that way, and unless you're red-lining it, I don't think it's a big deal.

But it is seriously annoying to have a car respond completely differently for the first couple of minutes than it does the rest of the time. After pushing the pedal hard and engaging the ICE, you have to back off a lot or the engine will start to surge in a big way.

 

I agree with you. The car should be smart enough to deal with all the warming up the catalytic converter thing in the background without changing the driving experience. In fact, when the engine is sluggish, the car should increase the pedal effect (or whatever you want to call it) so that the user will have the same experience as if the car was already warmed up.

 

Unfortunately, until the ICE is warm, the opposite is true - the engine is less responsive to pedal input. The hybrid system tries to rely exclusively on the electric motors until the ICE is warmed up, so if you really want power from the system you have to push the pedal a lot harder than normal. If you insist, the ICE will kick in. Then there is a transition period of a few seconds where the throttle response changes back to normal, so you may have to back off the pedal to avoid a big surge.

 

This could be done, but it would be contrary to the entire design philosophy of the Prius. The top priorities for the Prius, in order, are: 1) Low emissions, and 2) Good fuel economy.

The Prius designers allow us to have full power with a cold engine, but you really have to ask for it. Full power with a cold engine is bad for emissions and mileage, so the Prius is reluctant in this respect. If you don't care for this particular aspect of the Prius, you might want to ask yourself whether you bought the wrong car. There are many other excellent cars that put performance above emissions and mileage.

Tom

 

A couple minutes of below-optimum mileage and emissions isn't a big deal unless you're only going to be driving for a couple minutes at a time.

Again, (as with so many things on the Prius like the backup beep), I wish they would let us choose rather than dumbing it down to "one size fits everyone - because we only give you one size".

 

Interesting.
Is this any worse than a normal ICE vehicle ?

 

None of your other cars have the mileage or emissions of your Prius. On a non-hybrid there is no other option than to use the ICE when it is cold. The Prius has the option of relying mostly on battery power at the start, which unloads the ICE. It's an apples to oranges comparison.

Tom

 

The difference is that the Prius computer controls the power differently depending which "mode" it is in (and a cold engine is a special mode) - most traditional cars have just one setting for throttle response, regardless of any other factors.

The Prius computer is very protective of the ICE in the first few minutes while it is warming up - most likely for emissions reasons rather than anything else. But even after you "tell" it you want ICE power, there is a 3-4 second transition out of this mode (probably to smooth it out a bit - similar to what happens if you switch from ECO to PWR while accelerating).

IMO, if you choose PWR mode, the Prius computer should honor that choice and give you power mode. A comment in the manual explaining that emissions will be affected would be more than adequate since PWR is not the default mode.

 

In Munich these days is about -5 to +2-3C (around 30F that is). Recently the ICE turn on immediately after I turn on, that is after 1-2 secs and not 15 secs. There is a different timing depending on the temperature - I know this because when I get the car in the evening from the company's underground car lot where it is a bit warmer, the ICE will not start immediately. I don't know why the last few days it starts "immediately". I haven't checked whether the battery is at min. or not when it happens - will look tomorrow morning.
Back to the original questions - 1) is perfectly normal. I get within the first min a consumption of 15L/km (15mpg) or more depending on how quickly I started moving the car. It does improve quickly though, outside temperature permitting. To avoid ICE running more than necessary to warm up, I always use ECO - will turn back to normal when temperatures are going to be milder.
Regarding point 2 - I had a diesel Polo and it was sluggish as well when cold. All cars are! The difference with the Prius is that it can compensate the ICE with the electric engine and actually you can clearly hear a different engine noise if you try to accelerate more when the engine is not warmed up yet - you feel clearly that less battery is used and the engine not only revs up, but also has a different noise. This does not happen when it is warm. The progression of noise and transition to ICE only is different.
I would say that it is all perfectly normal.