Race!

[UKdave99]

A bit of fun today.  In town, happened to pull up at the lights next to a 2017 Prius.  Joked to the wife, "Look, I'm going to give this Prius a race" (fortunately she's easily amused).  Pulled away slowly at exactly the same speed as Prius, both of us obviously attempting to keep it in electric.  Held up everyone behind us for a bit as we slowly accelerated but the Prius driver seemed to find it as amusing as me.  

He won by the way but I was rather heavily loaded.  

Is this normal behaviour to try to keep it in electric mode around town using gentle right foot action, or should we just relax and let the car do it's thing?

[m4rkw]

3 minutes ago, UKdave99 said:

Is this normal behaviour to try to keep it in electric mode around town using gentle right foot action, or should we just relax and let the car do it's thing?

Is there not a mode you can put it in to tell it to just stay in electric mode until it needs to charge itself?

[UKdave99]

Not to my knowledge...but learning new things all the time.  More experienced members might be able to better answer.  Keep the acceleration needle below the "ECO" level is the only way I know.   

[m4rkw]

What happens if it's out of petrol? Does it run?

[colin79666]

2 minutes ago, m4rkw said:

What happens if it's out of petrol? Does it run?

Probably not.

 

36 minutes ago, UKdave99 said:

Not to my knowledge...but learning new things all the time.  More experienced members might be able to better answer.  Keep the acceleration needle below the "ECO" level is the only way I know.   

There is a EV mode button next the the driving model selector dial. I think it might have been on the 2014+ facelift and later only however. That only keeps it in EV mode at slow speeds/gentle acceleration and until the Battery drains down however. It still starts the engine if it needs to. Handy when wanting to keep the engine off going round a mutlistory car park and the like.

[ColinBarber]

49 minutes ago, colin79666 said:

There is a EV mode button next the the driving model selector dial. I think it might have been on the 2014+ facelift and later only however.

No, they all have this mode. As you say, anything other than gentle touches of the accelerator will make the system come out of EV mode and fire up the petrol engine to give the driver more power. Really I've only ever found it useful to stop you petrol engine firing up when cold if all you want to do is move your vehicle off the driveway or something similar rather than during a journey - just let the vehicle come in and out of EV mode automatically based on acceleration demand, load, Battery level etc.

[Bowserman]

Dont let it run out of petrol as it will throw up a hybrid system fault and need resetting with a code reader.