How to use your Plug in Hybrid ( Toyota Prius Prime ) EV mode VS Hybrid Mode.
Hey guys. So, I own two plug-in hybrids. I own this Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid and my other car is this Prius Prime plug-in hybrid. And today, I’m going to explain to you why it’s a bad idea to use them in EV mode all the time. So, this video is for those that have a car like this. They charge it, they use it in EV mode, they have a short commute, and they never use the gas engine. In this car, when I turn it on, it goes into EV mode right away, unless I am low on battery or I manually switch it over to regular hybrid mode. As you can see, it’s full. There are eight bars there. Excuse the dust. There are eight bars there. And if there are two bars or more, it’s going to start and drive in EV mode until it gets down to a bar or two. Then it becomes a regular hybrid. So, just because you have an EV mode in a plug-in hybrid, this does not make it into an EV like a Tesla. You still have a fuel system. If fuel sits for a long time in the tank, it’s going to accumulate moisture. The fuel is going to go stale. It’s going to clog your injectors, your fuel lines, and your fuel pump. You have a 12vt battery which needs to be used, otherwise it goes flat. You have engine oil in this car. The engine oil is going to accumulate moisture from the air, and some of those moving parts are going to be exposed to corrosion. There’s an engine cooling system in this car that needs to go through heat cycles like the uh rubber hoses for the radiator. There is a water pump. All those things have seals and they can crack and dry if they sit without being used. There is no alternator or serpentine belt in this car. I’m not sure some plug-in hybrids might have a serpentine belt, but they have camshaft and crankshaft pulley that also needs to be put to use. Otherwise, it’s going to become like an abandoned car where it makes noises and the seals are dry. As far as the EV system in this car, it’s pretty simple. Most of these lithium ion batteries do not like to sit full for a long time. They like to be around 50% charged. For that reason, most of these cars have a charging timer feature where you let it know what time you’re going to begin your commute if you’re charging it overnight, and it’s going to make sure the car is going to be fully charged by that time, and it won’t begin charging it too early. So, if I start with a full EV battery or more than half full, I drive the car in full EV mode to use up that energy and to make the EV battery last longer. Once I get to half EV battery, I press the button to turn off the EV mode and put it into regular hybrid mode. And ideally, I like to do this when on the move and not anticipating a big hill because the engine is still warming up and you don’t want to put it under stress. And the reason why I do this on the move because once you get to a stoplight, if the car has not gone through the heat cycle, the engine, the gas engine will continue running uh and burning fuel when you’re at the stoplight. But it’s not that big of a deal. You still have a very efficient Atkusa cycle engine. And now, as we can see, the gas engine is on. And um the engine should be fully warmed up so that when I come to a red light, the auto stop start uh feature will be uh activated. Like right now, I’m in a red light and the gas engine is off, not burning unnecessary fuel. For best fuel economy I found with this car is you need to have some EV battery as it will pitch in to help the gasoline engine way better than if your EV battery was almost flat. I get a lot better fuel economy that way. Every plug-in hybrid uh in principle is the same thing. You have an EV EV mode, you have a hybrid mode and um there are slight differences. Uh, most of them have a charge mode where you run the gas engine and it sends electricity to the battery. But to me, that’s kind of pointless because not only are you burning fuel, but you never have 100% conversion of energy between one source to the other. Like when you run the gas engine, you’re going to lose energy in the form of heat. So, to quickly summarize, if you fully charge your plug-in hybrid all the time, use the charging timer feature or time it yourself because lithium ion batteries are expensive and they do not like to sit fully charged for a long time because that will reduce their life. Second, and more important, in my opinion, you have to run the gas engine two to three times a week to keep everything moving nice and fresh and to keep the fuel from just sitting and um going stale in your fuel tank, which will cause you really expensive repairs. And that’s all about it. And hope this helped you.
Remember to change your oil on time.
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