MNSteve
Well-Known Member
You did a great job of expressing exactly my question. It seems that if I even look hard at the accelerator while at a constant speed on a flat stretch of highway, the gear icon evaporates. I would think that they would want to take advantage of the efficiency of direct-connect as much as possible, and there should be plenty of power available assuming there's battery capacity. I am sure there is logic here and that we don't understand it because we don't have all the inputs.To summarize the mystery, if the car can propel itself down the highway fine in EV mode and its 121 hp, why can't it propel itself fine with EV plus the ICE (ie engine drive gear icon mode) especially if the battery is full? The only time on the highway it should go out of engine drive mode is downhill. The answer must have something to do with engine efficiency but in the narrow speed range of highway driving its hard to understand why.