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The non PHEV Prius isn't really intended to be driven on EV for any real length of time. If you do the EV switch mod you can drive up to about 1 mile on EV as long as you're extremely gentle an stay below about 25. Remember EV mode isn't always efficient as that energy came from the ICE. Using an ICE to make electricity to charge batteries to power an electric motor is very inefficient, compared to that ICE just driving the wheels directly.
I try to stay out of using the battery for that reason.
The programming is designed to try and keep the battery in the 'blue', that way if you come to a steep hill there's room for the regen braking energy. When it's green it will tend to use more EV power to get it back to blue. It's quite difficult to keep the battery in the green.
Nearly 50mpg is great in the hands of non hyper-milers.
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