Prius gurus: I met a guy last night who edits a magazine about Toyota Four Wheel drive vehicles. He's an avid Toyota fan and admires the Prius. According to this guy, a Prius driver can get 30% more power (torque??) from the engine (I assume the ICE) by doing some sort of maneuver with the gear shifter. As we were part of a dinner party involving the Japanese Consul General, I wasn't able to pursue this guy's claim for details. Anyone out there heard about this? I thought the claim was ridiculous. p.s. the Consul General was hosting two Japanese citizens, along with an Japanese American, who are about to embark from Seattle on a round the world trip in a diesel powered Land Cruiser equipped with a custom designed bio-diesel processor built into the cargo area. The vehicle is totally cool. The trip will begin from my partner's biodiesel coop station here in Seattle, with ceremonies hosted by the Consul General, and which will include Taiko drummers and lots of press. More later if anyone is interested. Bob
Never heard any such thing and would be very very skeptical...if such a thing existed one of our Japanese compatriots would have found it by now.
"some sort of manuever with the gear shifter"... are you sure he was talking about the Prius? Maybe he was hitting on you. Lol.
I don't know about the gear shifter, but I do believe there are tricks to getting quicker acceleration response. I haven't really tried them as I generally drive the prius pretty sedately, but it makes sense that if you can plan ahead and get the PSD and motors spinning the way you want the car will react more quickly to your request for power. One thing I have tried a few times is using the "press both gas and brake in drive to charge the battery" as a way to make sure I have both high battery SOC and the ICE pre-started for a perceived improvement in acceleration from 0. Haven't done any testing to verify that though. If you figure out what he was talking about let us know. I do get an excuse to flog the Prius every once and a while Rob
I believe he's just spreading rumor and messing with you. The power and spec of HSD in Prius is already well published, so where's this extra 30% more power coming from and why? (If this gear shift maneuver myth is true).
manipulating your mind Since the "shifter" is just a switch and the power-split device is completely computer controlled, unless there's some easter egg to code into the computer from the drive selector switch, his assertion is bogus.
You have to attach a chain to the shifter knob, run it out the driver's window, and attach it to the back of a Dodge Viper. That manipulation has been shown to significantly improve acceleration, but damage to the shifter has been reported in some cases. More study is needed. Tom
This sounds suspiciously like someone put the car into "B" mode, heard the engine rev up, and concluded that it was giving "more power." However, given the credentials that this person supposedly has, perhaps I should give him a bit more credit.
I used the stay-in-B, pre-running with feet on both brake and accel trick for launching in the very infrequent and laughable autocross attempts I've done. It does launch quite smartly when the brake is released, "B" keeps the ICE running and gives it more of that "fall on its face" feeling when the go-pedal is released, but it has no effect on overall power capability of the car. And of course it's all wasteful as hell, which is why I don't really favor it as a pastime.. . _H*
