Prius Doesn't Coast Very Far When You Let Off On The Gas

Correct. There's no issue here, beyond the ones that apply to any car - increased use of brake pads, potential lack of control. Only potential HSD-specific issue is the rev limit on MG1, but it deals with that.

Some discussion on the same subject in a thread started yesterday:

Fastest safe speed for Neutral? | PriusChat

Oh, and it won't charge the HV battery while you're in neutral, so eventually the system will shut down due to low battery - after nagging you to go into P or D for ages.

 

^^^ Makes sense. Thanks for weighing in!

 

I wouldn't know. I never use AUTO EV/HV mode.

 

This may have already been posted but I find that tapping the cruise control -- button when you slow down while watching the power flow to prevent either power from being applied or regeneration from occuring, you can get a feel for "neutral" coasting. At least that is as close as you can get in my opinion and it helps MPG greatly. A form of pulse and glide.

 

At 28 MPH average speed I managed 167 MPG on a deserted local road in my 2015 Mirage manual. It's not rocket science. The secret is how good you can get it at speeds that are acceptable in today's traffic. A simple program with a few servos can do it in any small manual transmission car. Engine ran 36 seconds in 3.3 miles at 28 MPH average speed.

 

BY FAR the best tip I've read & applied with tremendous benefit in MPGs. I didn't pick up this point until I had somewhere between 1-200 miles on the vehicle and total MPG's averaging about 41-42 if I recall correctly. Never the less, for the totality of the first tank, I averaged 59.8 MPG thanks to ^^^THIS^^^ advice (so even better considering nearly 1/3rd of the mileage was low 40s).

My previous Prius, an inherited Prius C, was great for going in neutral to juice mileage, so I sort of assumed the same would work on the Gen5 Prius. It was ok but nothing like this 'coast' as ChapmanF describes above. Game Changer. Thanks for putting it so simply, @ChapmanF!

 

I have an OBD2 app on my phone. I use the dashboard which shows a few amps of charge when you let off the accelerator. It increases considerably when you apply the brakes.

It only stands to reason that your car will no longer experience regen drag when your battery is completely full. I don't know if you are able to test this, but it's likely to happen.

 

It won't be 'regen' drag exactly. As the battery reaches full charge, the car maintains a similar level of forward resistance by transitioning to engine braking.