Toyota Prius: Behind the Wheel Blog
'B' mode running provides added chargeToyota Prius i-Tech
Read our Toyota Prius news report here.
Not much to report today. Back in the Prius after a night in a Ford Fiesta, it's apparent that there are a couple of staff here at the Carsales Network who could manage to achieve 20L/100km from a moped! Prudence's average fuel consumption has risen to 5.0L/100km in just 24 hours.
On the run into the office this morning, the petrol engine was working overtime, even though the traffic was largely favourable for electric-mode travel. In fact, that appears to be the reason why, in the main. With Prudence drawing so much power from the batteries on uphill grades and the flat, the petrol engine was running principally to recharge the batteries.
In 'B' mode for additional regenerative charging, Prudence would kick the petrol engine into life -- on the overrun! This is an unexpected side effect of the 'B' mode. If the petrol engine is running, but not inducting petrol, it would be providing compression braking and spinning the electric motor that generates power to recharge the batteries. Certainly the petrol engine did not operate for any length of time (no more than a few seconds for each occasion backing off the accelerator), so it makes sense.
Took the Ford Fiesta Zetec three-door overnight the night before. To say that the Prius and the Fiesta are like chalk and cheese is an understatement on a level of magnitude seldom witnessed since 1970, when Jim Lovell transmitted to Houston that Apollo 13 had "a problem". How's that? A reference to the American space program so near the 40th anniversary of the original moon landing!
The Fiesta is more fun than a kitten with a ball of wool, but it's a bit tight inside and makes the Prius feel like a stretched limo. Getting in and out of the Ford, with its aggressively contoured seats and long doors is objectively more irritating than in the Prius. The Prius doesn't have Bluetooth, but the Ford's facility wouldn't connect with the writer's phone anyway. There's also the whole question of fuel consumption -- which seems to occupy one's thoughts rather a lot lately. A week of whinging about Prudence not bettering 4.9L/100km is thrown into sharp relief by the fact that that same run home in the Fiesta raised the average figure from 7.1L/100km to 7.5L/100km. Still, gears, steering, brakes... woohoo! But then, how will the Fiesta Econetic compare with the Prius when it arrives in about a month's time. That's the real test.
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