I'm curious about how far you can drive in the electric mode with no hills.

Where I live it is hard to find very flat areas that go for any distance. It appears to me from my limited testing that you can drive about 2 miles in the all electric mode.

For those of you who live where it is flat, how far have you been able to travel without using the ICE?

 

I drove on a flat road in electric for 4 miles. I think the secret was the speed limit dropped from 40 to 35 to 25 along the route (was I cheating?) When the speed limit went back up and I sped up, the ICE came on.

 

When my '04 Prius burped and the ICE would not start I got about 3 miles and the battery showed about 20% so I'm guessing 4 miles. I would think my '07 TCH would be similar. It's definitely low single digit miles.

 

It really varies a lot with the SOC when you start going in EV mode, the speed you maintain, and obviously if you are gaining or loosing altitude along the way.

That said, going home, I if I hit a light at the bottom of a small hill green, I can go 1 1/2 miles on EV mode doing 35 - 40 mpg, going up a very slight grade, before turning on to my street and parking. SOC usually drops to 3 or 4 bars by the time I park.

I-15 North climbs a small hill after Ted Williams Parkway in Poway. I often hit 5 to 30mph slow and go traffic in this area, and easily go 4 miles in EV gaining SOC as the freeway gently goes down a few hills.

 

Regardless of the EV range, I greatly enjoy getting gas in my TCH at the station at the top of the hill and then driving away in electric mode for about 1/2 mile. For that distance, the display will say I'm getting 99.9 MPG for the tank. Man, I'm good.

 

Hi nash,

How do you manage increase your speed from 5 to 30 mph in slow and go trafic?

For me if engine warm enough, I can increase speed from 5 to 15 mph most in all electric mode.

I also have another question.

When ICE starts after all EV mode, I usually accelerate quickly to little more than desired speed and give up gas for fraction of second and than try to go in all EV mode. (yes, usualy Pulse and Glide technique) Is this is the only way to keep on returning to all EV mode and shut ICE off or there is a better way?

Thanks

 

Gently! I find I can accelerate up to 40mph in EV (electric vehicle mode) if I take my time. I've learned how far I can press the "go" pedal without causing the ICE to start. If I need to pick up a little speed, I'll just set the pedal for "gentle" acceleration and over a minute or two I pick up speed. The key is traffic must be slow enough that letting the distance between you and the next car grow 10 or 15 car lengths temporarily doesn't bother you. I often will start to pick up some speed (25mph or so) and the cars ahead of me slow back down, closing the gap. With some patience I can avoid using my brakes and stay in EV mode quite a long time. When I can make it to a downhill slope in EV mode, I can recharge the battery by feathering the brakes as I coast down hill in traffic. It's a bit of a challenge, but fun! I often find I will get a few cars/trucks behind me that seem to appreciate a somewhat constant speed and not jabbing my brakes everytime the car in front of me slows 0.5 mph.

Yes pulse and glide; even if you are not using EV mode, really helps your mileage. It took me a long time to figure out what makes the TCH drop into EV mode. Here is my take on it from 18K miles of driving:

1. The ICE must be warm - temp gauge reading about 1/3 scale or slightly higher, traction battery SOC should be over 2 bars.
2. ECO mode helps "encourage" the use of EV mode by making heat/AC climate control a secondary objective. (note Defrost, Min/Max settings disable ECO)

Once the ICE is warmed up, there are two modes of EV operation:

• a) Coasting at speeds between 36 and 42mph for a few seconds will most times put the TCH in EV mode. However, once the ICE restarts, it will stay running until either a) reoccurs or b) happens.
• b) If you stop with the ICE running and warmed up for 7 - 10 seconds, the ICE will stop, AND the TCH sets "hybrid" mode. From this point on, if you start coasting at any speed under 40mph, the TCH enters EV mode quickly (2-3 seconds)

Hope this helps!

 

You can accelerate in EV from stop all the way up to max EV speed of around 42mph / 65kph. Having a warm engine and a light touch if, of course, important, but I've found that air temperature is equally important. The TCH is much more reluctant to go EV when it knows the air is cool. I don't know how warm your spring has been in Regina, but once you start getting some nice 20C plus days you will find it much easier to get into EV. At 25C and higher I can even get EV to work with a cold engine (maybe 1 minute of running first). Enjoy it all you can this summer, because EV is rare in winter.

I've found this to be the best way to force EV mode as much as possible. The sweet spot is about 60-62kph. Trying to do it in the 40 to 50kph range and, just as often as not, the car will return to idle instead of going into EV mode.

 

Thanks Droid13.

You are right, around 40 to 50 KMH, I have seen ICE on. When in idle mode, it is still using gas.

Are you from Canada?

Temp hers in Regina is around 5 degree C in the morning and day time is around 15 to 20. Today morning it was 1 C and is expected to go around 24 C for high.

I am on first tank and I have around 650 KMS on Odo meter and tank is just over 1/4 mark. Display says I should get around 200 KMS more.

If you are in Canada, what mpg you get in winter and summer?

At the end of my first tank, I am going to start a new post describing all the conditions including temp, driving distance, driving speed, number of turns, number of stop signs and lights, road conditions etc and also include all the stats you get in display. Ideally I wouold like all Canadian owners of TCH to respond to this post describing their situation and fuel efficiency.

 

You can see user location information on the right side of each forum post header (look across right from the user's forum alias name). And yup, I'm just to the east of Toronto right on Lake Ontario. You can set your own location and other info by clicking the small "UserCP" link near the top of the page.

Last summer I typically got tank averages around 6.1 to 6.4, occasionally getting a few good ones in the 5.8 to 6.0 range. Almost all trips got into the 3rd bar scale "Excellent" range, often 3 full bars. Winter temps increased by fuel consumption by 25% up to the high 7s or low 8s for tank averages.

Weather here is similar to you, cool single digit C temps in the morning, nice in the afternoons and is getting better every day. On Saturday I had my first long drive where I could keep the tank average below 6.0 for the first time since last summer.