The way Ron thinks about these hybrids and his knowledge of mechanics, gears, friction and losses, physical and electrical. Who knows he may come up with the first near perpetual motion car.

 

No hope of that. Too many inventors have tried and failed of course. To really understand the Hybrid and how it improves fuel efficiency I think you have to look at the losses side of the equation, and when you understand them, then try to minimize those losses. There always will be some. The basic loses are the same for hybrids and non hybrids, with a few exceptions. If we leave out the obvious that apply to both, such as wind loss, we are left with:

1. Braking loss - The more you can regenerate and the less you brake with your disk brakes, the more losses you will avoid. Experiment with braking techniques, and avoid the B Mode, as it wastes braking energy through the engine braking. The temperature of your disk brakes (feel them carefully) after driving, is a good indicator of use of the disk brakes. This part is fairly simple.

2. Engine Efficiency - Engines have points where they like to run to produce maximum efficiency. This is determined by RPM and throttle opening (load). The TCH with the unique power split transmission has the ability to adjust the operating point of the ICE, somewhat independent of road speed. For example generator can load up the ICE more than what is needed to drive the car, and store the excess in the battery. The objective is to run the ICE at or as near as possible to maximum efficiency whenever it is spinning to avoid unnecessary losses. Probably the very worst operating condition is having it spin while you feed no fuel to the engine. In this mode all the friction in the engine (and yes I know they have features to minimize it), is totally wasted as engine heat.

I guess my point is that maximizing fuel efficiency is about more than maximizing time in EV mode. To truly maximize fuel efficiency you need to focus on minimizing losses. The driver can control the braking losses quite well. However it is a lot more difficult to second guess the hybrid synergy drive computer to maximize engine efficiency and hence minimize losses. The reason is that you don't have a good indication of ICE efficiency, and there are losses in generating and reusing electrical energy. The computer is always trying to determine if it is more efficient to load the ICE more and make electricity, or if it should just drive the wheels. Or, if it should use up some of the battery power instead of loading the ICE more. Forcing the system to generate more electrical power than it wants to, and run more in EV mode may be counter productive, and could actually increase overall losses.

 

About the only fact I know about the '12 TCH is by driving at 50 mph with cruise and the traction battery is charged, you should get 50 mpg. This would be on a level highway with no or very little wind.

I couldn't get the 50 mpg like this till I had around 2500 miles on my XLE TCH. The usual helps, 38 to 40 psi cold in the tires including using a top tier gas.

I never thought of it till recently, by using a 'top tier gas' would also help to keep the spark plugs clean to help them last to their maximum life. The Toy maintenance book shows to replace them at 120,000 miles or 144 months.

 

See my new video on top of page 1

 

It looks to me like everything it working ok except the EV light don't agree when the MID window shows only the battery to tyre arrow, or EV propelling the car. I also noticed your green led Liter indicator (rightmost meter) shows maximum when the MID windows shows EV even though the EV light is off your still getting max mpg.

This don't seem to be affecting your gas mileage. As I said earlier I had a similar experience one night while driving on a long city street at 25 mph with cruise. The MID showed I was completely in EV but the EV light was not lit indicating the engine was still running. I use a scan gauge and the engine showed to be at 930 rpm. I looked at the instant mpg indicator and it was at 60 mpg for the trip though that level mile long street.

Next time this occurs with your TCH look at our instant mpg indicator and see if it's at max anytime the battery arrow it pointed at the tyre with no arrow from the engine.

That's a very good video you took of the trouble your seeing.