I'm driving a 2018 Prius Prime (plug-in). What do you want to know about it?

[MetroMPG]

Since the first full charge I did last weekend, I've just been "opportunity charging" the car, meaning plugging it in for an hour or 2 as needed through the week.

But my time with the car is drawing to a close, to I topped it up completely yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to note the EV "range remaining" gauge now says:




46.6 km = 29 miles. Interesting, considering the EPA rating on electric range is 40 km / 25 miles.

So it appears the car is applying my recent energy economy results to the estimate... and it's also assuming the same person will be driving the car in the same manner on this charge!

I wonder if it would eventually adjust to show 63 km / 39 miles remaining if I consistently went as far as I did on the first charge.

I assume it does the same thing with the gasoline range remaining.

Also noteworthy: in the ~150 km or so I've driven the car, the lifetime fuel economy has improved from 4.4 to 4.1 L/100 km = 53.5 to 57 mpg US.

[MetroMPG]

Before driving this car, my benchmark for Most Fuel Economy Gauges went to the 1st gen Insight, which had five (5).

Weaksauce!

The Prius Prime must be trying for MPG information overload, because I counted more than a dozen (12) economy-related gauges/screens.


Cornucopia includes ...





Above: The usual Trip A and Trip B gauges. The owners haven't reset their A gauge since getting the car, so that's its "lifetime" MPG so far. I reset Trip B when I picked up the car and it shows 999 MPG because it's all in EV mode.


There's also a "latest trip" display that automatically resets every time you drive the car and gives you a report card at the end of the drive, along with suggestions to improve your eco-driving abilities:





Above: it evaluates your accel/cruise/decel smoothness.




Above: In order to encourage smooth, gradual power application, the car has THREE (3!) "instant" energy use displays, including the one shown in the HUD view (the curved bargraph above the 38.9 km EV range-o-meter. Redundant is redundant!





Above: if you like your instant gauge a bit more numeric than a curvy bar-graphy thing, there's this optionally-viewable gauge to the right of the speedometer. Showing miles/kWh because I'm in EV mode, it would instead show MPG when in hybrid mode.





All Prius owners will recognize the classic "power flow" graphic, which can be useful to show whether you're gliding, or applying slight power/regen.


Or you can just bop the transmission lever into N when you really want to coast and not have to focus on the instruments.




Above: of course, if you're trying to maximize EV range, you'll have one of the 2 redundant range-guess-o-meters displayed (also available in the HUD), so you know how much farther you can go before the ICE is going to fire up.





Above: at the end of your drive, you have all kinds of logged info available to nerd out on, including an "eco diary" of up to 30 days of energy consumption data!


Below are a few more for the data nerd in you.







Above: this one's interesting. It appears to be a "lifetime" display since the car was bought. Although since the car is new, maybe it's going to roll over once you hit 30 days, like the table version shown a few pics earlier.

[MetroMPG]

Admin note: I moved the 20 (!) Tesla posts from this thread to the Tesla Model 3 thread.

[MetroMPG]

Oops, just saw this:

Originally Posted by jcp123

Maybe a Chevy Bolt-style paddle for regent would be well-advised. If integrated with a brake light, I would think you might have marginally more controllable braking plus the regen.

The Prime has a "B" mode on the transmission selector that increases regen.



But here's the thing: I didn't get a chance to check whether or not shifting to B also causes the ICE to spin up (injectors off), as it does in the non-plug-in Prius.


A local salesperson has been telling Toyota hybrid buyers to use B mode to gain range when slowing, but that's a mistake because B mode ALSO spins up the ICE to increase braking. Confirmed via the RPM display on a ScanGauge. In that case, B mode wastes some kinetic energy on generating friction/heat in the engine. It's better to use 100% regen under normal conditions by just pressing the brake pedal.


However, it's possible the Prime's "B" mode may be different than the regular Prius. I'll have to check it in the future.

[jcp123]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Oops, just saw this:






The Prime has a "B" mode on the transmission selector that increases regen.



But here's the thing: I didn't get a chance to check whether or not shifting to B also causes the ICE to spin up (injectors off), as it does in the non-plug-in Prius.


A local salesperson has been telling Toyota hybrid buyers to use B mode to gain range when slowing, but that's a mistake because B mode ALSO spins up the ICE to increase braking. Confirmed via the RPM display on a ScanGauge. In that case, B mode wastes some kinetic energy on generating friction/heat in the engine. It's better to use 100% regen under normal conditions by just pressing the brake pedal.


However, it's possible the Prime's "B" mode may be different than the regular Prius. I'll have to check it in the future.

My impression on the Bolt regen paddle vs a Prius B gate is that it's a really easy way to do both regen AND using it as dedicated braking. B mode is an estranged step and while technically the same - you control regen via pedal - the Bolt is more user-friendly? Or maybe I am too used to the engine brake ("jake brake") button on my truck as an aux brake as a comparison? It was different having a "steering wheel brake" as a secondary way to slow at first but the Bolt paddle seems so logical in that world now that I rely on something similar.

Using the actual engine spin to enhance braking where there was none is dumb unless it produces some viable electricity or air conditioning benefit. I'm loathe to say Toyota doesn't have some idea of what they are doing by now, though.

I didn't catch if this is full brake by wire, but if it is, I think a regen paddle is a nice solution.

[sidecar]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Most of the same ways you do it in a regular car. Avoid the devil pedal as much as possible in sub/urban driving, keep it at moderate speeds on the open road. There are a few more hybrid specific tricks, but they're minor compared to the basics.

drive like it has no brakes !
honestly it works

the better you can drive at an average speed the better the MPG

[sidecar]

Originally Posted by Gasoline Fumes

The friction brakes on my mother's 2008 Prius get grabby sometimes. The transition from regenerative to friction at low speed can be somewhat abrupt. They tend to rust from not getting used much. I clean them by braking hard in neutral.

the disk brakes have tiny rotors and tend to grab when coming to a stop. Otherwise the regen system takes some getting used to in how hard you initially brake. Once you get used to it its fine. Regen does save on brakes tho. Im over 100k miles on the original pads

[sidecar]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Anything you want to know about it? Ask away.

ok so you open the boot and pull up the floor, what do you see
A stock Prius has an empty tray which you take out to get the spare out, and forward of that is the Panasonic battery about the size of a small suitcase.

Ive been thinking one could fill that tray up with lithium iron battery and somehow connect to Panasonics battery the system should be more robust (hence higher mpg) without doing much else

this because the battery is only allowed to float at something like 70 - 80% charge and recharging from the engine is quite quick

well. its a theory anyways ...

[dougfromdenver]

I own a 2017, which is the same as the 2018 Prime plug-in with the advanced package.

My son was very much opposed to our buying this "video game" overloaded with be 'confusing array of features that would constantly distract us." We bought it and now understand most of the features that are essential to our particular driving habits.

it was a slow process for us to understand those key aspects of the many features. There are several aspects of this car that I don't understand even after driving the vehicle for a long time. And the Toyota dealership near my home doesn't sell many of these vehicles and is almost totally ignorant of even the basic stuff that I know from living with the vehicle. Studying the owner's manual is probably the answer to my ignorance. But I have never really taken the time to do much more than learn what I had to learn for the time being.

So far as fuel economy is concerned, the vehicle registers close to 80 miles per gallon when my wife is driving it. I have a heavy foot, and so my fuel economy drops down into the 70s.

The 25 mile range running strictly on the electric motor is actually extended much further when you drive the vehicle in a way that generates electricity back into it. my wife is better at achieving more MPGs then me. However, with short trips to local stores, or even a trip to downtown Denver, 25 miles of electric is more than enough for me to remain in the EV mode.

We bought the vehicle for my wife, who's an attorney. I drove it back from the East Coast because the rebate on the 2017 were extremely generous. As the year progressed, the rebates actually increased.

I'm a professional car shopper. I normally don't buy new cars because I know how to find extremely low mileage high quality used cars, and do this for customers around the country. In Colorado, the rebates are the most generous in the country. Add the federal tax credit and Colorado State's tax credit, and the vehicle was worth substantially more than our net cost. I love it whenever a car I find for our family or clients is worth more than what we paid for it. And in the case of buying this brand new 2017 Prius Prime, the net savings we received from tax credits and the Toyota rebate gave us far more Equity than I would ever experience when shopping for used car.one thing I consistently when shopping for a low mileage, high quality used vehicles for clients and our family. the $1,800 rebate, plus $7,500 tax credit from the federal government, and then adding Colorado's $5,000 tax credit made buying this vehicle with no brainer.
IF YOU WANT TO READ ON, PLEASE DO. BUT IF YOU'RE NOT INTERESTED IN KNOWING ABOUT MY PURCHASE OF A USED 2015 LEAF, THIS IS A GOOD PLACE TO STOP.

Prior to purchasing the Prius Prime plug-in, we purchased a used 2015 Nissan Leaf. At that time, the state of Colorado gave us $6,000 in tax credits if if the used EV was never registered in Colorado. I learned that this program would disappear on January 1st of 2016. So I did what I do for clients, and searched for a certified Nissan Leaf that was outside of the state of Colorado. I found my Leaf in Oregon, payed around $10,400. I then paid $800 more to have it transported to Denver. So the total cost was a little over $11,000 to start with, but then we received our hefty Colorado State tax credit. In that context, the net cost for this be certified Nissan was around $6,000.

All this occurred after we had paid for the installation of solar panels on our home. If we owned a EV, we were able to save 30% more with a Rebate from our electric company.

The rebate aside, generating our own electricity, our new solar panels would eliminate most of our monthly gasoline bills.

We bought the Prius Prime plug-in for my wife after several instances when she needed to travel more than 100 miles. It freaked her out on one occasion, when your trip ended at home with all of the flashing lights telling her that she's about to lose all power.

We have a very low mileage first generation Honda Insight, with a manual transmission, that was my vehicle to drive. However when my wife question whether she could maintain enough charge for her to return home on several occasions, the idea of driving home and then getting the Insight became too much of a time consuming chore.

Another reason we bought the Toyota Prius Prime is because my wife had a small fender-bender one morning driving my granddaughter to school. Thankfully we had changed our insurance company to one that offered accident forgiveness only months before her accident.

The safety features on the Prius Prime are amazing. But had she been driving any vehicle that automatically stops if you're about to hit any object. The Prius Prime provided this and a great deal more. We upgraded to the top of the line model because of the additional safety features. We knew that getting into another accident would cost us at least $5,000 over 3 years because of higher monthly insurance payments..

For us, we ended up receiving a federal tax credit plus a $5,000 Colorado state tax credit, and with the array of safety features, we reduced the likelihood of having another accident, and a major increase in our insurance rates.

I like to drive fast, or at least not be as conservative as my wife. So when I was driving it back home from Connecticut, my miles per gallon we're a disappointing 46 MPGs. But that's because I simply wanted to get home as quickly as I could, and my opportunities for charging the vehicle were very limited. In fact most of the Toyota dealers between the east coast in Colorado had never seen or sold a Prius Prime plug in. Since Toyota dealers did not have charging stations, all of the Nissan dealers I visited where are most gracious in letting me charge up my Prius Prime while I ordered dinner.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by dougfromdenver

The 25 mile range running strictly on the electric motor is actually extended much further when you drive the vehicle in a way that generates electricity back into it. my wife is better at achieving more MPGs then me.

Thanks for sharing Doug.

I just wanted to point out that the increased EV range isn't due to regeneration from braking, but due to lower average speeds. It would be more efficient to drive at a constant low average speed and never slow down, than to stop and go at those low speeds. Regeneration helps to mitigate the inefficiency of braking, but it still is less ideal than not slowing/stopping in the first place.

We call this technique driving without brakes. This means leaving a larger gap ahead while in traffic so that you aren't constantly stopping and going, rather driving the average speed of traffic. I'm able to get much better fuel economy in gridlock Portland traffic in my manual transmission TSX by driving this way than constant speed highway mileage.