I know the EV mode turns off when you hit past 62mph. but on occasion and also majority of the time when i'm going faster than 62mph in ev mode, the 'ev' indicator goes away on the bar, but you only see the outline 'shadow' of the ev mode car. while driving like this, i notice my ev battery drops pretty considerably since i'm going at a fast rate of speed. now my question is, why is that happening, when the 'ev' mode is supposed to turn off and the car should be in hv, or i guess normal mode? hope that makes sense?
This is the so called "EV Boost" behavior. The battery is still providing most of the power, but the ICE is on at low power. This is due to mechanical constraints in the "Power Split Device", which replaces the transmission found in other cars.
if you're in ev mode, it will use battery power as much as safely possible. if you don't want to use the battery, manually switch to hv mode.
The reason the ICE has to run above 62 mph is that MG2 can't spin any faster. The split device combines (synergizes)the speed of MG2 and the ICE to increase drive-shaft speed. To the extent that the traction battery can be used to maintain the MG2 speed, it will do so. Once the battery drains, MG2 gets driven by electric power generated from the ICE via MG1.
Thank you for clarifying this for me. Makes sense. I don't normally drive it this way. I generally always switch it to hv mode when I'm on the highway. But sometimes I just want to make sure I drain the battery before I get home. Some days I have more battery for the ev than usual. No point in having ev battery left over when I could gas free on the way home. iPad ?
I keep my car in EV mode for my commute and with the ride being longer than the amount of EV juice in the battery, it does a great job blending gas and electricity. The end of trip screen has shown anywhere from 80 to 339 mpg. I can't complain.
