Hi all. this might seem a daft question to those who know, but can you go from eco to power or vice-versa while you are moving, for example going up hill in eco mode, and you want to put a spurt on, can you just press power. hope that makes sense........thanks



PS, just had the car for 3 days.

Still waiting for next year until delivery, but when on test drive did just as you've suggested, engaged eco and power modes while moving. No problems noticed.

thanks for that, I imagined a grating of metal and the gearbox landing up in the road.....

The car is drive by wire - all it changes is the program settings.

Thank you, we are out in it in the morning, so I will give it a try////

Yes you can. I leave the car in "normal" and often stick it in PWR when joining the motorway. It doesn't make much difference other than to alter the way the throttle responds

I think my brain is shutting down, dont all laugh at once, but, what is normal mode, I have left mine in ECO mode since we got it, and one have pressed the "power" mode to try it.

thanks again

When you're in Eco Mode, press the Eco button again and the eco light will go out. There now should be no lights saying Eco, Power, or EV. Thats normal mode. Normal mode is like a cross between Eco and Power modes, and probably the best compromise for everyday driving. Cheers!

Thank you for that, I have read the bit in the book time and time again, still could not get the head around it, you have made it clear, thanks again.

We were also rather flummoxed by the terminology - our salesman didn't refer to 'normal' mode and our test drive was all in eco or power mode. We spent the first 50 miles in 'normal' mode by default - but after doing our homework we tried out Eco and Power (haven't tried EV yet) and also Cruise Control. I'm fairly sure that with time we'll learn to use the Power button like 'kick-down' in our previous automatics. We've not had any grating of metal yet.

This is the first car we've ever had where we feel we need a co-pilot with the manual to hand! But we love it!

Pam S

Changing from one mode to another is impressively ***** free- try driving at about half throttle in eco. Keeping your foot still, press the power button. The car will speed up, but gradually over several seconds.

If you need a burst of acceleration, it's much quicker to press the accelerator. Whichever mode you're in, pressing the accelerator down fully gives maximum acceleration. The mode buttons only alter the car's responsiveness at part throttle.

Pete

Oh Dear! I appear to have used a naughty word- the system has replaced j -e -r -k with asterisks

The system will do it occasionally with words that seem quite innocuous. I once had the word torrential replaced by asterisks, presumably because of its use in the technical side of computing.

Is it just the throttle response in PWR mode? When I had my CVT Audi the sport mode actually held the gearing higher (i.e. higher revs) for quicker acceleration

Looking at the planetary transmission, I don't think the Prius has anything even like gears.... if so I would guess it has no way or indeed need to hold the gear longer/change down.

I may be wrong however.

Of course, apart from mapping pedal position to throttle response, pressing the buttons could do plenty else, such as open the tap more on the engine, push more power to the motors etc.

You are right. By gears I meant ratio. In the Audi sport mode held a higher ratio so that the engine revved more and accelerated quicker

hmmm... could be a perception thing, but I get the impression with my TSpirit that flooring the throttle in PWR mode gives much greater acceleration than in Normal or ECO. (Or perhaps it is just me fantasising that KITT is engaging Turbo Boost mode )

I'm getting into the habit of switching to PWR whenever I aim to overtake (more reassuring to know that the throttle will respond to the max!)

I was reading a bit about this over on priuschat.com - a number of the community there get into the technical side of things in a lot of detail. The consensus seems to be that once the accelerator pedal is fully depressed you'll get the same response no matter what mode you're in. However, it could be that since you're getting more power sooner as the pedal travels from 0 to fully depressed you do end up accelerating fractionally more. You might expect Prius drivers to instinctively be gentle on the pedals which would exaggerate the effect (i.e. gradually depressing the accelerator instead of stamping on it would mean more time in the intermediate position where PWR delivers more acceleration compared with other modes).

I suppose you could try it out if you have a suitable stretch of road to safely test it out: floor the accelerator and switch PWR on/off to see if there is any perceptible change.

I do like the "turbo boost" effect - the thrill of a little extra responsiveness versus the guilt of not driving so efficiently . It would have been fun to have the power switch on or near the steering wheel (e.g. on a paddle or a big red button ); as it stands I find it a bit of a distraction to look for the button while moving.