The biggest risk I take... I occasionally do 40mph e-mode runs (TCH glide ?) in 45mph zones if the traffic is light enough... Sometimes just doing these in 40mph zones when traffic is busy is risky

 

I never thought I'd prefer a 35 mph zone over a 45 mph zone.

 

I must say I hae been pleasantly surprised at how easily and far this car does glide (or coast). I have never had a vehicle do this so much. I am sure it's designed specifically to do so, and I am very happy with it. I have gotten 33.4 mpg with my first two fillups. I just passed 600 miles total this morning. My regular commute is a bad one for good mpg--less than 5 miles each way and countless stop lights (I lose count at 15). Weekend trips are helping.
JoAnn
Overeager in Maryland

 

The amazing gliding ability of the Camry works well in conjunction with the cruise control. I've started routinely using the "cancel" (to glide) and "resume" features to adjust my speed, and am getting better mileage for it. I'm amazed, even as a long-time hybrid owner, how much I still over-use the @#$% gas pedal.

 

As most of you know, the TCH gets excellent FE for the size car it is. I’ve noticed that a lot of you are trying to get the best FE as possible. There are a few factors that affect this effort; terrain, temperature, wind direction, rain, tire pressure, and road surface type to mention a few. Most of these factors are self explanatory as you all ready know.



A lot of you, in this forum, are practicing what is commonly called, “pulse and glide”, to help you achieve FE. I applaud you in your efforts but to me this is a lot of work. If Toyota has designed their curies control correctly on level terrain it should come very close to achieving your goal without this extra effort, however, you the driver, can do better in hilly country by letting the car lose speed as you ascend the incline, while cruise would maintain speed using unnecessary energy. After topping the hill the car will recover some speed as it descends the hill as well as recapturing some energy. After all of this has been said, remember, energy is neither created nor destroyed. The energy that the car uses to achieve speed is lost due to braking, air drag, weather conditions, gravity, friction within the drive train, and as well as rolling friction, (this amount is determined by road surface type and tire pressure).



So good luck, I hope you achieve your goals.

 

You can choose to redefine 'glide' as it pertains to Toyota hybrids, though I would advise against it. As I continually tell my older daughter, changing the meaning of words known to others is not helpful. It just confuses people when they THINK they are talking about the same thing you are talking about.

If you say you are 'gliding' and by that you mean running with electric power to the wheels but no ICE power, we are NOT talking about the same thing. I have seen references to emode here, meaning Electric only. The Prius crowd would refer to that as EV mode (sometimes 'stealth'. Separate from the EV Mod, which allows you to force the car into EV mode) and the names are close enough to be understood.

Glide means no power or drag from either the ICE or electric motor. It is different from coasting (foot off the accelerator and the brake) since when you coast, you are slowing down faster AND the electric motor is charging the battery.

There are a few places where I can glide (Prius glide, NO power) at the same speed I would be going in either ICE or EV. It happens that the slope of the road is just enough to overcome rolling resistance and whatever wind drag there might be at 30 MPH. Where it is steeper, I can glide AND increase speed, using gravity, not gas OR electric, to finish getting up to speed But, I NEVER slow traffic down by gliding up to speed at a less than normal rate if there is no one in front of me, but there are people behind.

The other place where glide is helpful is slowing down less quickly coming up to a line of stopped or slower cars. You could get closer, then coast, which will charge the battery, but you are using some power to get there.

And, of course, no one HAS to glide. I don't pulse and glide - the 'go faster, slow down to some speed then power back up to the high mark; rinse, repeat' P&G. I get up to speed, glide (if I can) , EV (if I can, in some rare places I force it for a short time) or just let the car do what it needs to to maintain speed. I also find the CC to be a good choice in many places.

Having never driven a TCH, I can't say if 'glide' is equally 'easy' to enter and maintain in a Prius and a TCH. It might, in fact, be more difficult in a TCH. As noted in earlier posts, holding glide CAN be very difficult and at those times it just isn't worth the effort. If you can get glide but not hold it, the car will likely put itself in EV anyway so you aren't using gas.

 

David Price:



I have found the cruise to be very effecient HOWEVER if the spped drops off it will kick in with a vengence at times to pick up speed. I will use the cruis on a trip and let it do this BUT if I know there is no one behind me and I am close to the top of the crest I will kick off my cruise until I top the hill and allow the car to slow. Driving from Central WV to Charleston I do this several times in order to get the 40.5 average (42.5) best on that leg of the trip.

How is your milage in the Charleston area? I find that I can average 43+ in the Hurrican / Dunbar / Charleston area

 

You can choose to redefine 'glide' as it pertains to Toyota hybrids, though I would advise against it.
Glide means no power or drag from either the ICE or electric motor. It is different from coasting (foot off the accelerator and the brake) since when you coast, you are slowing down faster AND the electric motor is charging the battery.

Only problem with your suggestion is the TCH can't really glide by your (Prius) definition. At best it can only do it for a second or so and that's not beneficial. The TCH goes into regen almost immediately after lifting your foot.

I'm not sure what to call it (I've referred to it as "assisted glide"). I guess as we TCH'ers eventually out number the Prius owners we'll simply tell you hey, it's our term now and when we glide it means it is assisted with electric (with or without ICE @ idle).

There is nothing wrong with sharing the term that I can see as long as it means something different for specific applications (that's the way the American version of English works).

Perhaps you have a suggestion for what to call this TCH operation and we can gert the others to see if the phrase can catch on? Maybe just a " TCH Glide"?

 

I had the opportunity to drive some fairly hilly terrain this last weekend (not quite as hilly as WV though). I pretty much abandoned the CC altogether. Uses too much gas going uphill and too gentle going down on the other side. I instead tried to adopt a method of trying to hold the FE gauge in a fixed position in the 45-55mpg range going downhill gaining speed and then try to maintain that FE going uphill as the speed bled off (up to a point).

The thought occurred to me while I was fiddling with the CC at first. I began to wonder if when in CC going downhill, if the TCH automatically applied more regen braking to prevent the car from exceeding it's set speed. I was going to experiment with this, but thought of it too late and ran out of steep enough hills on the way home. Any thoughts on this?

I also noticed that after a good downhill regen giving the battery a max SoC, the TCH becomes extremely generous with battery assist. Pretty much anything I did except coasting became battery assisted until the SoC dropped back 1 bar. I found I could drive level roads at 55/60mph for up to 1/2 mile or so with an indicated 70-90mpg with power from both ICE and Battery after coming off a good decent (converted, the metric FE gauge extends beyond 60mpg because it works in reverse).

 

I think this is exactly what it does. I have the non-NAV version and on my ECO display I know that the ICE is off (still spinning, but not driving the wheels) and the batteries are being recharged. It seems very good at holding the speed downhill, so I'm also assuming that it uses as much regen as necessary to maintain the speed.

I've found that anytime my SOC is very high (within 1 bar of max) the car will ride quite a bit with electric assist, pegging the mpg gauge at 60. We don't have any hills here, so I mainly fiind it happens after I've done a lot of coasting.