|
I've been busy with my business, sales are up like 2-3 times what I'm used to so not a whole lot of free time. Growing pains I guess you could say, it's all good stuff and it comes in waves, just the wave's haven't spaced far enough apart for me to catch up lol.
EV mode will be interesting to play with, couple areas I can see possible benefits
Cold start, I have 1/4 mile to drive 10-20mph, battery can easily handly it and it seems to not use the engine at all but it's there idling trying to warm up.
In cruise I should be able to switch to EV mode below the max threshold and run off the battery until it forces the engine back on. When the engine on charging it's showing around 45-50mpg, it's loading the engine more so I suspect it's pushing it into the better efficiency range for load and rpm so there might be a slight gain but testing would be needed. The other factor is the slight up hills I deal with kicks it out of EV mode, so of my understanding, using the EV mode button will allow me more pedal/electric output use so it should start/stop the engine less often. This is when I drive 40mph or less. I'm thinking larger tires for winter will be real interesting to compare things since I'd like to push the max speed for EV to around 45mph.
If you look at the chart for speed vs mpg, the range it can use EV mode the MPG jumps up quite a lot, so in steady speed driving, it's completely fine to be in EV mode as long as the recharge cycle of it is done at low speeds. Higher speeds it might eat up more fuel than it gave for a benefit. Cold vs warm engine is another factor, so lots of variables to play around with for different situations.
I want to poke around the 12v system a bit and see what draws the most power. It has an aftermarket radio that I basically always have off, so don't really need memory power for that. Clock is nice, and the main engine computer's memory. Anything else I'm not super worried about when the car is "off" and at my house.
Anyway, got a trip to go on, helping my dad get a Mill machine. Going to have access to a metal shop eventually =).
|