While driving home tonight I went about a mile at 25-30 mph with a couple stops at lights without the gas engine running. Made me wonder what the longest a FEH can go on battery power alone....

 

I have a 6 mile drive from the turnpike to my home and have done the entire ride in EV. Only happens at night when the traffic lights are in low-traffic mode - (from 8pm to 6am the lights switch from green, yellow, red to flashing yellow) and there's no traffic around to make me feel like I'm going too slow. During the day I get 2 to 3 mile stretches. Such fun.

 

I don't think I ever went 6 miles or anything close to that, maybe 2 miles or so before the engine kicked on by itself. On a positve note, I was able to get my FEH going almost 35mph before the engine came on yesterday. Of coure, by acclerating very slowly...

 

I've checked my EV mode distance many times as I drive roads with few stops and 30-35MPH limits. I checked it again twice today and got 1.4 and 1.6 miles on a full battery. Both times I was going a little over 32 MPH and tapped the brake to stop the ICE and then set cruise at 30 MPH in EV. Today here in South Florida it was over 90 degrees but my same test in 70 degrees was the same, about 1 1/2 miles.

I'm sure a slower speed and without the cruise where you let off and coast some, you could get more distance. If I had let off the gas (cruise) and coasted to a stop, I might get 2-2 1/2 miles out of it. I find my battery is recharged in about 2-3 miles from the ICE.

I increased my tire presure to 42psi in the rear and 41psi in the front and found today I could stay at 35 MPH longer in EV. It didn't help EV distance at all.

 

I went and remeasured the distance and it's actually 5 miles (5.2) not 6 -- sorry for the brag. I guess I usually think of the off ramp as the other mile, but as I thought about it today, I'm still in gas mode on the ramp.

As for how I do it, it's at the end of a 100 mile drive, first 10+/- local roads, next 80+ major highway and final portion local roads. The road is posted at 30 mph and starts off with a downhill coast, then stays flat and level. I don't use cruise, just touch the gas ever so lightly. So long as I don't have to brake or slow down, I'm able to stay in EV.

It's taken me a few months to learn how to do that trip this way, and it doesn't work during the daytime as there's other vehicles and traffic lights that interrupt the drive. But on a nice quiet night with no one else out, hubby and I come "stealthing" back in to town without the sheriff hearing us

 

Many of you run into me on other websites and know I can stay in EV for almost forever given the right terrain (low up and down hilly) but it is really not the most efficient place to be. The best thing to do is use EV like a slingshot to get your momentum up as high as possible before ICE kicks in.

 

Coming home from the theatre (Went to see Batman Begins) this week, heavy stop and go rush hour traffic, I managed to make nearly the entire drive in EV mode. (12 miles) During a particularly congested area of about 7 miles, at a stop I switched to L gear, and allows the coasting to slow me down and recharge the battery continuously rather than tap the brakes, and never got above 25 mph when I was going. When traffic opened up, at the next light, I switched back to D, and continued on home.

Boy did my MPG shoot up.

The fasted I ever got to was 40 mph in EV mode, through rather conservative acceleration with a rather charged battery.

 

Congrats! You are well on your way to earning your Hyper Mile Badge. Keep experimenting.

 

Knowing how far you can go in EV mode can be a useful thing. One technique for improving fuel economy is to run as long as possible in EV mode at end of drive, since the battery will get recharged when starting up again with the forced warm-up period.

I can go about 1.2 miles in constant EV mode (no coasting) on level ground at ~25MPH before ICE starts to recharge battery. Imagine this will improve after break-in period when the system achieves maximum efficiency, then may drop down towards end of battery life.

 

I regularly drive from the lab building at U of M-D to my friends house (7 miles). The speed limit never gets above 30 so I can go almost the whole way in EV mode. I have to wait until the ICE turns off after warm-up, but I would say that I go approx 5 miles of the trip in EV only.