My first fill up + range experiment

[teedee]

Day 3
Start: 44 EV, 411 HV
End: 0 EV, 296 HV
Miles driven: 102.6
HV range reduced 115

So far the results have been very consistent. Looks like I'll be able to go a full week on the tank of gas and regular nighttime charging.

Next week, I will start playing with the HV charging mode. Might be difficult in traffic though.

 

[loomis2]

There HV charge mode is way more effective at highway speeds. It isn't even worth using in traffic.

 

[teedee]

There HV charge mode is way more effective at highway speeds. It isn't even worth using in traffic.

What about 15 minute segments at 65+ mph?

 

[Tiralc]

What about 15 minute segments at 65+ mph?

If there is a reason you need EV miles, it makes sense. For example, nearing a destination, you would rather be on battery in EV mode for local driving and the EV side is already down to two segments (what seems to be full allowed discharge). Or, someone cannot charge at home and they just want to do some EV driving. Or, just for fun.

Otherwise, it almost certainly costs more to charge the battery from gas, than it does to charge at home.

 

[Tiralc]

At the Destiny Mall at Syracuse the other evening, mostly just for fun, I used one of the chargepoint chargers in the basement parking. It cost $0.65 per kWh! The highest I've seen here at this forum is $0.36/kWh on peak. Even before the solar panels I only paid $0.15/kWh including surcharges and taxes. Not only that, but the chargepoint display said 2.2 kW charging, the bill said 6.6 kW charging, and it auto disconnected after 1/2 hour anyway. What a waste.

 

[loomis2]

What about 15 minute segments at 65+ mph?

As long as you are going that fast, then sure. I've never tried ev charge mode yet, but from what I've read it seems to charge quicker than I would have thought.

 

[teedee]

Day 4
Start: 44 EV, 296 HV
End: 0 EV, 181 HV
Miles driven: 102.4
HV range reduced 115

Just more of the same...

 

[ab13]

Day 4
Start: 44 EV, 296 HV
End: 0 EV, 181 HV
Miles driven: 102.4
HV range reduced 115

Just more of the same...

Total range is in the expected area. What happens when you have to fill the tank is the question. Is it going to reset or maintain the range.

 

[Tiralc]

Someone said that the huge error in HV miles seems to be caused by or related to EV miles vs gas miles. Apparently, the Clarity HV range error might be related to miles per gallon on EV (Is that right?). So, if someone is driving almost exclusively short ranges, EV only (except for the odd engine run), their HV range errors should be the highest, even after the next fill up.

It's a real pain to take data like this, but if possible, it might be interesting to count number of segments or bars on the gasoline side at each day's report (current gas tank level). If the HV range numbers come down on the next fill up, we might have the answer.

 

[dstrauss]

Someone said that the huge error in HV miles seems to be caused by or related to EV miles vs gas miles. Apparently, the Clarity HV range error might be related to miles per gallon on EV (Is that right?). So, if someone is driving almost exclusively short ranges, EV only (except for the odd engine run), their HV range errors should be the highest, even after the next fill up.

It's a real pain to take data like this, but if possible, it might be interesting to count number of segments or bars on the gasoline side at each day's report (current gas tank level). If the HV range numbers come down on the next fill up, we might have the answer.

Sorry new buddy, but I am so satisfied with this car, and drove myself completely NUTS documenting my mileage on my first Prius, that I am going to call it quits and just enjoy my new car under the following rules of thumb:

1. Except when below freezing, I know I can always get 40 miles EV (more or less) but run it to 0!
2. After "0" on #1, or on the freeway under HV, refill every 250 miles of odometer mileage

Happy trails!

 

[jdonalds]

Sorry new buddy, but I am so satisfied with this car, and drove myself completely NUTS documenting my mileage on my first Prius, that I am going to call it quits and just enjoy my new car under the following rules of thumb:

1. Except when below freezing, I know I can always get 40 miles EV (more or less) but run it to 0!
2. After "0" on #1, or on the freeway under HV, refill every 250 miles of odometer mileage

Happy trails!

I'm with you. I constantly paid attention to my driving habits with the Prius, using techniques to squeeze better mpg out of the car. At every gas station fill up I checked my mpg compared with the car's estimate (usually the car was high by 2-3 mpg). I would pay a lot of attention to driving below 41 mpg after which the ICE would be on all the time. But the Clarity erased all of that.

Now we just drive the Clarity using the soft pedal techniques we learned from the Prius, but just a bit more aggressive. We don't even bother to reset the trip odometers. We just drive. Our gas usage since Dec 20 is about one gallon due to two days when we drove the battery dry without an opportunity to charge mid-day.

When we do take a long freeway trip I'll try to remember to set the trip odo to zero so we can check the HV mpg.

It's a great car. We love it. I don't want to make up trips to take so I can drive it. I'm just thrilled when I do have a reason to take it out.

 

[dstrauss]

@jdonalds - I just reset my trip odometer for the first time at 2040 miles - so liberating to NOT be a slave to my hypermiling habits!

 

[Tiralc]

dstrauss, enjoy your new car!

jdonalds, I don't see any relationship between a 150 mile range error and hypermiling? I think that is what you say anytime you want a conversation to end, okay, so BYE guys, enjoy your forum.

 

[dstrauss]

dstrauss, enjoy your new car!

jdonalds, I don't see any relationship between a 150 mile range error and hypermiling? I think that is what you say anytime you want a conversation to end, okay, so BYE guys, enjoy your forum.

I don't think @jdonalds or I intended to minimize or trivialize your information quest. What we were just relating was our prior experience with pushing the Prius as hard as we could, and just explaining it is OK to just enjoy the experience if that's what they want to do. Hopefully you will get to the bottom of the gauge failure and get Honda to address it - surely they ran enough testing to know its worthless.

 

[teedee]

Day 5
Start: 44 EV, 181 HV
End: 0 EV, 64 HV
Miles driven: 101.6
HV range reduced 117

The low fuel gauge came on at about 68 HV miles left. I was practically home by that point and went to fill up.

It took 6.107 gallons and the trip meter read 513.2 so I achieved 84 MPGe. The range estimate went up to 644. Again, consistent with the number from last time.

 

[teedee]

Someone said that the huge error in HV miles seems to be caused by or related to EV miles vs gas miles. Apparently, the Clarity HV range error might be related to miles per gallon on EV (Is that right?). So, if someone is driving almost exclusively short ranges, EV only (except for the odd engine run), their HV range errors should be the highest, even after the next fill up.

It's a real pain to take data like this, but if possible, it might be interesting to count number of segments or bars on the gasoline side at each day's report (current gas tank level). If the HV range numbers come down on the next fill up, we might have the answer.

I have this data because I took photos of the instrument panel each day. I can compile it later and let you know.

 

[bfd]

Day 5
Start: 44 EV, 181 HV
End: 0 EV, 64 HV
Miles driven: 101.6
HV range reduced 117

The low fuel gauge came on at about 68 HV miles left. I was practically home by that point and went to fill up.

It took 6.107 gallons and the trip meter read 513.2 so I achieved 84 MPGe. The range estimate went up to 644. Again, consistent with the number from last time.

I decided to fill up on the last day of the month to use some gas rewards that were set to expire the next day. The gauge showed about 1/3, and the amount of fuel the tank took to fill was almost 5 gal (4.91). At that point the HV estimate was 141 miles, so if the tank holds about 8 gal and the car is getting about 45mpg (gas only), then we're probably pretty close. What's difficult is that I really can't tease out the gas only miles when - for example - the total number of miles I drove on this "fill-up" was almost 800 (778). I suspect my EV/HV ratio is about 4/1, but that's just a guesstimate.

 

[jdonalds]

I decided to fill up on the last day of the month to use some gas rewards that were set to expire the next day. The gauge showed about 1/3, and the amount of fuel the tank took to fill was almost 5 gal (4.91). At that point the HV estimate was 141 miles, so if the tank holds about 8 gal and the car is getting about 45mpg (gas only), then we're probably pretty close. What's difficult is that I really can't tease out the gas only miles when - for example - the total number of miles I drove on this "fill-up" was almost 800 (778). I suspect my EV/HV ratio is about 4/1, but that's just a guesstimate.

I believe the gas tank holds 7 gallons.

 

[Ken7]

dstrauss, enjoy your new car!

jdonalds, I don't see any relationship between a 150 mile range error and hypermiling? I think that is what you say anytime you want a conversation to end, okay, so BYE guys, enjoy your forum.

I’d hate to see a valuable member of the forum leave over something like this. You helped save me $1,700 on my NYS rebate. I’m sure jdonalds wasn’t meaning to be dismissive. In my case, the damn notches on the graph are so small, I’d need to drive with my reading glasses on to see the changes. Not good.

 

[loomis2]

Day 5
Start: 44 EV, 181 HV
End: 0 EV, 64 HV
Miles driven: 101.6
HV range reduced 117

The low fuel gauge came on at about 68 HV miles left. I was practically home by that point and went to fill up.

It took 6.107 gallons and the trip meter read 513.2 so I achieved 84 MPGe. The range estimate went up to 644. Again, consistent with the number from last time.

So if you take that 6.104 gallons and multiply by the mpg the car is supposed to get in hv (42mpg) you get 256.368, plus whatever gas you had left in the tank should get you to the correct 295-ish hv range.* It looks like it is using mpge average to compute the hv range instead of hv average. I would say they forgot to program the car to differentiate which mode it is running in. It should run a separate tally exclusively for when the engine is running and use that for the hv range estimate.

* - I am notoriously bad at even basic math, so take my numbers with that in mind.