Regarding the warm-up stages: for max efficiency, you obviously want to get the car to the point where it will shut off the engine as soon as possible when it's not needed (eg. when coasting, when stopped, low speed manouevers, etc). You can learn how to coax the car through those stages.
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Project ForkenSwift actually has a Prius connection: I test drove the 1st generation Prius when it first came out, before the ForkenSwift was even a glimmer in my eye. Needless to say, I got a big kick out of EV mode. EV grin big time.
More than a few Prius owners have said the car is a gateway drug.
