Normal CVT behavior?

When you are in reverse it is always driven by the electric motor, never the gas engine, my gas engine usually start up halfway up my driveway. When I put it into drive it usually smoothly pulls forward on electric. My first turn is up a hill and about a third of the way up the hill the gas engine takes over, usually with a little jerk, perfectly normal. Sounds like yours is doing the same thing?

 

Your on just battery at that point and then the engine starts when you start to speed up. Start looking at the Energy Meter on the MFD which tells you what your running on either hybrid battery or engine. Its very clear.

And being familiar with and understanding the Energy and the Consumption screens are the first step in learning how to achieve max gas mileage.

 

The best way to drive a Prius when warm ICE is to stay in EV mode up to about 30 mph before kicking the ICE on. This way the electric motor does the hard work saving gas? H

 

Which is hard to do if there are cars behind you and you don't want to create alot of road rage as you pull away from
the light at a snails pace. By the way EV doesn't save you much gas if any at all. The engine still has to run to charge the battery back up. It does have its place though to burn off the battery when its in the green.

 

I have no problem with doing it, and it is not really that slow. I don't worry about the other cars behind as they can pass! I worry about what I pay for gas. EV does save lots if used in the way I mentioned, but it helps if you can time stop lights better! H.

 

Is this something new you've noticed, or has the car behaved this way since the beginning?

By the way, the power split device in the HSD is not really a CVT. Even so, I don't follow why you are tying the behavior to a CVT. What about the situation has you linking the issue to the transmission? Does it feel like it would if the clutch plate were slipping on a car with a different transmission?

 

Yes I agree max fuel economy is achieved when the HV battery is used the least, so as to minimize conversion loss.

Well AFAIK this method/technique has never been mentioned/reported by other reputable Prius hypermilers. Do you have data to show that this technique works better than the conventional pulse-and-glide technique?

 

In my experience, D is instantly available.

 

2009Prius:
One of the best in the US uses this method always when starting from a start. He also teaches it.His name is Wayne. H

 

There is no delay or any lock-out when changing from reverse to drive. I've changed the indicator while the car is still moving. The computer will figure out how to manage my request.

It could be that you are dealing mainly with the fact the pedal response is rather attenuated. The car is designed to maximize fuel economy, so it will not press the ICE into full-out use unless you really mash the pedal to the floor. Even so, the response will have as much to do with the state 0f charge of the battery as about anything else.

The other part of this is that the computer is waiting on some input from you. If you are waiting for two seconds on a response from the ICE, the computer is waiting on you to tell it what you want and how quickly you want it. The design is intended to mimic an automatic transmission, so there will be a slight tendency toward propulsion without pressing your foot on the accelerator, just as there is a slight decrease in speed and deceleration when you take your foot off of the accelerator. However, simply putting the car into "drive" mode does not mean the same as connecting it up to the hp equivalency of the ICE. The latter would be the setup in cars with automatic transmissions linking ICEs and the driveshaft.

 

No reason to panic! You'll be fine.

Have you become accustomed to the fact the car starts in battery/EV mode before the ICE turns on? There is a what appears to be a slight delay in the start of the gas engine, but that is because the initial response is from the electric motors.

Have you tried starting out by just gunning it? Does the response change?

 

Interesting. I don't want to make any rash judgments, but it is possible the rear drums are sticking a bit. Have you ever used the parking/emergency brake?

Some people have noticed this only because of a drop in fuel economy. Do you have any idea what kind of mileage you are getting at present?

 

It should "creep" immediately when put in D. My 07 creeps real good. Toyota software does that to mimic a regular car so people would not complain its just sitting there. But apparently yours is just sitting there. Not normal.
Probably a brake hanging up. Go find an area with a slight hill. Stop on it and put it in neutral and see if it rolls OK.

 

Well I have visited his web site quite a few times and attended one of his seminars in person. I don't remember reading or hearing about such method. Maybe I am getting old and start to forget things.