Hello! Newbie here and I'm looking for some pointers. Just reached 1k kms and we're fairly happy with our prius and we've been consistently hitting high 80s and low 90s in our driving point score until we use the fan. It's dropping our points to the low 70s and 60s. How does the point score for the AC work? We live in Canada and it's super cold out now. Is this unavoidable?
It’s basically energy use. I mean safety first so if you need to use the defroster, use it. A few tips include Use Eco Heat/Cool Ensure S-Flow is set to Driver Priority if you’re the only person in the car Lower the temperature and use heated seats to keep you warm.
As Tideland Prius said it is energy used. What that boils down to is this: each and every time a switch is switched on, whether it is a fan, a light, wipers, even placing switches such as the headlights or wipers in Auto, etc. electrical energy is going to be used. While most of the time it is an extremely small amount, it adds up and affects your score and mileage. Even setting your interior temperature just a few degrees higher (in winter) is going to use more energy. Once you begin to think along these lines and you minimize the energy use as much as practical and sensibly (ie safely) you will maximize your efficiency and scoring.
Well it's unavoidable.....cold requires more energy for heating, and moving those winter tires in the cold climate and snow surfaces. This also hits every kind of vehicule in winter....your prius is just reporting you that ,and makes you more aware of the energy demands than an ordinary car. by the way check your tire pressure when it's cold ....under inflated tires uses more energy
Jack up your tire pressure & block your grill in the winter time if you're worried about how "well" you are doing. Otherwise just drive it! .
..Otherwise just drive it ! yes indeed this is very true but i would be careful about blocking your grill in winter time since the OP has a prius technology awe 2022 and the electric motor can produce 53KW max....this must be properly cooled . Personnaly I have a Prime and in EV mode the fans on the radiator are on to provide cooling even in sub zero temperature.
You have to be careful with the active shutters on 4th gen. They may also negate the need to grill block. Also, you should figure out where the inverter radiator is, high or low, and to play it safe avoid any grill block of that area. Further, if you're doing something like a ski hill climb, maybe pull off all the grill block.
Just for grins 3 years ago, & for test purposes we left our 80% Grill block foam installed all the way into August to moniter both inverter & HV pack temps - flat ground no longer than 30 minute drives 50/50 city/hwy speeds. Outside temps were never more than 90°f and the car did fine. That's by no means a recommendation, but it was surprising how little air it took to adequately maintain temperatures according to our PID's/TORQUE/OBD II read outs .... & of course the HV cooling air isn't fed through the grill anyway. YMMV. On the other end of the spectrum this WINTER (a week ago) I took readings on our plug-in minivan to check HV & inverter temps in sub 0 temps. Brrrrr! The (grill blocked) Inverter coolent stayed just above 100° & the HV coolant (garage pre-warmed) was able to maintain 80°. The charge capacity really took it in the shorts putting out about 8kW to keep the temperature drive system warm despite grill blocking. The ICE kicked in (20 minutes later) to help with warmth once the defroster needed to get turned on - a different set of parameters ending the experiment. Winter and efficiency .... an oxymoron. .
Yes - that's always best practices. It's like running your car out of gas just to see how far it will go. You hope there won't be any consequences. Like Clint Eastwood's character once said, ".... ask yourself - do i feel lucky? .
It took the Prime I drive 4-7 days of sensor calibration before any noticeable difference from grille blocking, while ambient temps were below freezing. Always a good idea to monitor coolant temps when stuffing the grille openings. I'm also noticing the coolant temp in the heater box can drop the overall coolant temp 5 degrees F, even as the engine is actively warming the other parts of the system. And, even after the initial warmup cycle is finished, weird temp readings will show up if the heat+a/c is manually switched off and on during the drive cycle from between 5 to 10 miles of the longer warmup cycle. There are a lot of thermometers in the Prime, for sure, I wouldn't even venture to guess how many. maybe troll bate knows.
