Quote:
Originally Posted by broski499
My drives are usually around 20 minutes so yeah the warm up is definitely hitting. My drive to work is almost entirely downhill, but my drive home as you might imagine is uphill. I try and take the drive home that is more gradual incline vs the steeper options. My daily commute is entirely city driving. I'm in Southern Orange County, Laguna Hills. So yeah the hills kill me.
|
Do you have any instrumentation besides what it comes with? It helps a lot to be able to see exactly what the car is doing. My personal favorite for the Prius would have to be the Android app Hybrid Assistant (I posted about it
here). If you haven't, read up on the specifics of how the car thinks. The stages of hybrid operation (
link) are important to know in order to maximize what the Prius is doing, especially on shorter, city trips.
A mod that could end up helping quite a bit is the EV mode button. It's not too difficult to add. The way it can really help isn't to try driving around on just battery power, but to use it as an ICE kill-switch and then coast. This is very handy if the engine isn't quite warmed up enough/hasn't advanced to the full hybrid stage to turn off on its own. On my short commute starting with a cold ICE, I can end up having the ICE run almost any time I'm moving. With the EV button, I can kill it when coasting, allowing me to do up to half the distance with the ICE off. There are limitations, though, like it can only be engaged under ~35MPH and you have to have at least 3-4 bars of battery.