Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

502) Significant other confused by gas gage and parked the car last night.


503) Gas? Gas? We have to put gas in this thing?


504) Gosh, Wyoming has a lot of long, empty roads!


505) I won the BET! . . . Uh Oh!


Bob Wilson

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

Thank You, Bob, That was very helpful!... Basically my Prius operating normally.
Don, Phoenix, Maryland.

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

My all time favorite:

506) We're getting low on gas. I'll speed up to make the next exit before we run out. :eek:

Bob Wilson

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

You most definately DON'T want to run it in 'B' mode for a week. Yet another dealer that knows nothing about the car and should refer you to someone who does. Besides doing nothing positive, it will:

• Drive your mileage into the ground because the car will slow down a LOT faster when you take your foot off the accelerator forcing you to use MORE gas getting to the red light.
• Use the engine to maintain speed on slopes where it would normally coast<
• Keep you from using the cruise control. The car will not engage the cruise control in B mode.

The only reason it won't recharge the battery is if you are on a steep hill that requires all the ICE plus electric to maintain speed or try really hard to race red light to red light. If the battery SOC goes below some level, the computer will just stop using the battery until you let up on the load request and it has extra amps to send to the battery. I understand this can happen in places like Angel Pass on I 70 in Colorodo, that's a LONG steep climb. Haven't done it in a Prius myself.



This is definately a case of "just drive it". The computers will run the engine differently when the SOC is low to get it back up to 'acceptable'. If normal driving doesn't keep the battery out of 'two bars or less' almost all the time, you should have the car checked (by a different dealer).

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

Does anyone know at what fuel level the "fuel bladder" ceases to fully enclose the gas, and is forced to allow some vaporization to occur? Half a tank? And how bad for efficiency is that exactly?

Yep, everything but the American version has it. I actually read a very sad interview with a Toyota marketing rep saying that Toyota was not going to offer that button or a plug-in option on the Prius because they're already having a hard enough time dispelling the idea that it's a weak, low-range electric car. So, there's your answer... marketing... or American bias against electric cars anyway.

That article (of course I can't find it right now) also noted one valid technical reason: It's kind of a bad idea. The Prius uses NiMH batteries which want to hover at a high "State of Charge" consistently. The Prius computer maintains that well, so kicking in EV mode will for most users just entertain curiosity of "How far can I run this down?"... which is what this thread is about, they kicked in EV mode by burning all fuel from the system ;o) Not disastrous, but bad for battery life generally.

That said that article was from at least a year ago - I don't think Toyota can complain in the least about marketing the Prius at this point. And as early as July of this year Toyota has tip-toed into the plug-in market, saying they're building a plug-in hybrid... with no name or timeline attached.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0720/p02s01-ussc.html

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

My understanding is it was not Toyota's decision.
Prius is registered as a hybrid vehicle and EPA does not allow the EV switch (change it to electric vehicle) to do the emission testing.

Ken@Japan

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

Well that's pretty stupid, although with our government agencies, believable. I suppose the people doing annual emissions testing couldn't be trusted not to engage EV during the test. Yep, guilty until proven innocent, that's our motto. Of course they DO have to know how to keep the ICE running during testing. I guess we can trust that they won't just shove the probe up the tail pipe and come back in 10 minutes or whatever with the ICE having shut down 9 minutes earlier.

Anyone who would intentionally engage EV for the test would also happily slap an inspection sticker on a car that rolled in engine off, trans in N, since the exhaust system was shot.

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

I don't have a factual answer but I would guess "almost 0 gallons left". How much air is left in a balloon if you let it deflate? Other than having 2 openings, one to put gas in, another to get it out, there shouldn't be anything keeping the bladder from fully collapsing.
Which we know is "2 bars" same as if the car had put itself in electric. :)
A dandy idea it is too. The big problem with earlier EVs was range. A person could buy a plug-in hybrid, NEVER plug it in and it would still drive like a standard hybrid. Of course the thing *I* do not know is: What happens when you have driven through your plug-in electricity. Does the ICE run a lot more to fully recharge the pack? Does it instead treat the plug-in pack as a separate unit, or only intentionally charge it to the level (i.e. number of Amp hours) as it would if it were not a plug-in (other than 'free regen' down a mountain road, why limit that?) and let the driver do the rest via plug-in? To do otherwise would just shove your post plug-in driving MPG into the dumpster.

I'm sure someone who drives mostly interstate would have a different opinion, but I would be pretty excited about a plug-in that could go say 25 miles at a top speed of 55, more miles at lower speeds. If you want to go over 55, enter standard hybrid mode, drive your 500 miles until you need gas, just like now.

Anyone who has an EV switch in their Prius can tell you that the electric motor has plenty of power for general 'around town' driving. It is limited by the battery capacity.

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

Well, the fuel bladder is meant to prevent fuel vaporization within the tank itself, right? Any fuel tank is self-contained so its within the tank that they're targetting. I guess I'd be surprised if it were fully collapsible but maybe that's possible. Does it use some sort of injector to encourage gas to re-expand the bladder when you fill up then? I could see a fully collapsible container causing trouble if all that's filling it is a little bit of gravity. Especially if it were both that flexible yet immune to punctures. And how does that vaporization improve efficiency?

As for the EV-only range, I'd love for my Prius as is to be a plug-in - I drive mostly highway miles but I'd still get a lot of extra efficiency out of it. If Toyota's smart though, their first Plug-In Hybrid will have a higher electric-only speed range; that is, the battery banks will be arrayed to offer the required voltage, and the gearing will be arranged (perhaps a belt-driven CVT) to turn what electric motors are good at (force) into what they're terrible at (speed).

Re: Ran out of gas, drove 3 miles to gas station &other stories you can't do w/o a hy
 

ACK!!! NEVER! No belt driven CVT! HSD is one of the premier Toyota hybrid features that makes it superior to other hybrids and LESS complicated with LESS chance for failure. The Prius electric motor is rated at 67 HP (50 kW) but the traction battery only puts out 28 HP (21 kW). The electric motor is fully capable of most city and 'country road' driving, shy of climbing hills at speed, if the battery power is there.

It would be interesting to see graphs of increasing battery and electric motor size (output), plus decreased ICE size to the point where the ICE primarily generates electricity used by the electric motor with the excess stored (as it does today) and is the 'boost' for the electric motor when needed. Moving more from the current Honda design (relatively bigger ICE, smaller electric), through the current Toyota design (75% ICE, 25% electric) toward the diesel locomotive design (ICE providing electricity to the all electric drive).

I'm sure the current design is "much like a 'regular' car" so people wouldn't reject it out of hand. I think that is why Toyota initially rejected the 'plug-in' concept. People WILL equate a plug-in hybrid with the EVs that had very limited range even though they had respectable performance city and interstate. Enough of that has happened anyway. All the mis-information about how the Prius must be under powered, you have to plug it in, the batteries will need to be replaced in 8 years and cost $8K, etc.

If we can get over that, I think a primarily EV, ICE backup and possibly plug-in is the next logical step. I think it is interesting that people say "hybrids are a waste of time, hydrogen fuel cells are the future" or at best, "hybrids are just a resting spot until hydrogen fuel cell vehicles arrive". If J.Q. Public is frightened of a gas-electric hybrid as being "too new", "untested", "too computer dependant", "different" what they heck with they think when those hydrogen vehicles show up?