John,
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by johnpoxon
. ..
Just a question to anyone who has any feelings on any of the refinement issues with regards to the Toyota Prius you own, or have driven? What would you specify as both the positive and negative points Toyota have managed to achieve with the Toyota Prius? Who knows with your help, we may be able to improve something that is already a fine piece of manufacturing.
|
Number one on my list is an energy neutral glide. When I take my foot off of the accellerator, I would like my Prius to take an energy-neutral glide. If I want to go slower, I'll use the brake. But as soon as I take my foot off, the car goes back to energy neutral, coasting without regeneration.
Number two is an indication of when my braking is transitioning from regenerative to mechanical. This would allow me to maximize my energy recovery. For example, "hard brake" to let me know I'm using the mechanical brake.
Number three on my list is a "load sensitive" cruise control, option. I would like to set my cruise control for a given "maximum" speed but allow the car to bleed off up to 5
MPH when going up a hill. Once the load goes down, the vehicle would accellerate back to the maximum cruise speed using an energy efficient ICE speed.
Number four on my list is an "air speed high" indicator that would let me know how close "to the wall" I've come. There are non-linear MPG impacts at speeds above 65
MPH. Depending upon wind direction and velocity, this point moves both ways. I would like an indication of when I can travel faster or need to travel slower to get optimum MPG.
It would be perfectly fine by me if there were a switch, button or other control that would enable or disable these four modes, called "hypermiler", to be enabled by the driver.
Bob Wilson