I experienced a first for me... after going down a big hill, the battery was full green all the way to the top..... and I was now in the flat lands and I found I could run on ev only going 53 mph... Apparently when the battery is that charged, it will let you run ev mode without the ICE running at all until the battery gets in the blue.. then it goes back to normal and won't let you do it unless your under 42mph. anyone else notice this?.. if this just a new 06 thing or has it always been? Note, none of this done by activating an ev mod switch...just the normal factory behavior.
I've been able to cruise around in the 45 to 50 in normal traffic after doing a good breaking session... if you're in blue, you can get green when stopping from about 50mph. if you don't get caught off guard, you can keep your battery in the green and achieve about 75 mpg for the trip. it's fun.. but i have a lead foot.. hehe. doesn't always happen
Economy is awesome at highway speeds when the battery is in the green. I was getting 3.5L/100km (67MPG) for about 40 km on the freeway with an average speed of 105km/h (65mph) . There were hills, but it was still doing great on the hills.
Yeah I had 8 bars one cold evening after class and managed to do the 4km highway out of the university in EV mode at 80km/h
How did you know that you're on EV only mode? If you say seeing the MFD screen, the MFD lies. Ken@Japan
Can you be more precise? I too noticed that I was in EV mode way above the famous 42 mph (70 km/h due to European cumpulsory margin) [108 km/h down the St. Gottard] that is, just yellow arrows, 0.0 l*100 Km (metric is better than MPG in this case). But the engine was turning, slowly (900 rpm) but turning along.
If you say it's EV mode but ICE is spinning, I'm fine. However, I don't want to say it an EV mode. We need some energey to spin the engine. Ken@Japan
It maybe was lying.. but it showed the ICE as not being on.. but maybe it was free spinning... but still I normally can't do that at those speeds.
The MFD shows the ICE running when the ICE supplys power. Sometimes, we can't see the ICE spinning when the ICE is on warming up and the vehicle is above 42mph, the MFD lies. There is no such FREE spinning. We need a certain energy to spin the ICE. Ken@Japan
The original post suggested that it's possible to cruise along at speeds over 42 mph with the screen showing no ICE activity and 99 mpgs. I do this every day, at speeds over 60 mph, after descending a long, steep hill.
Right.... 99mpg is all that matters.. the question to Ken is, If its lying, is it lying about the engine freespinning, or is the 99.9mpg a lie too? If its just the freespinning... its no big deal.
The 99.9(more than 99.9 or infinity) mpg is correct. Sometimes, it is about 75 km/L(about 175MPG) or no fuel consuming. What I would like to say is we need to consume some battery power to spin the ICE when the vehicle is coasting above 42mph even if no fuel injection. Ken@Japan
Windstrings: What you saw is what some folks call "superstealth" mode. Personally I dislike the term. Above 42 mph the ICE must spin, due to the geometry of the PSD and the rpm limitations of MG1. And it does require some (very) small amount of energy (probably gasoline, I think) to turn it because the engine cannot spin freely. But in this mode the gas burned is negligible and the car is essentially running in electric, as you (correctly) presumed. It does not happen often, but it has been seen and documented. You saw it longer than normal due to the high SOC, but I've seen it for a brief moment now and then on the highway.
Some folks have an aftermarket device that plugs into the CAN bus and provides information about a bunch of stuff we don't get to see on our stock Priuses.
wtg windy...not uncommon at all. but you were just "barely" full green on the battery, because if you werent, the ICE would run to bleed off excessive power no...not lying. just the limitation of the display. if you had CANVIEW you would know that reading in the 100 to 200 mph range is common
yes we do need some energy, but that energy is not provided by the car. its kinetic energy and unless on a steep hill, it will immediately begin to lose velocity unless the car starts to contribute. so tru, not EV mode... i call this "soap box derby" mode. actually i dont call it anything. (would never cheapen my Prius) i just let my passengers thoughts run wild on the subject
I see the CANVIEW is also telling a lie. My SuperMID T-1 tells me the truth. Ken@Japan http://priusdiy.fc2web.com/
OK. Assume you are telling us the technical truth. One... You are wasting the kinetic energy to spin the ICE, it's not free-spinning. Two... The PSD or power split device is a torque spliter. Your MG2 is spun by the kinetic energy torque and we need some torque to spin the ICE. We have to apply some torque to MG1 to spin the ICE which consumes some battery energy to MG1. Ken@Japan