Corolla Hybrid

[Bob williams]

My Corolla hybrid is starting on the petrol engine, it was starting on the Battery when I bought it. Any ideas why this is happening it’s my first hybrid.

[Hybrid21]

Really depends on a lot of variables Bob. Things like outside temperature, settings in vehicle such as aircon, heating, heated seats, etc and the charge left in the 12v Battery and how long the vehicle has been sitting and what the recent journeys have been like, etc 

Mine often starts first thing on electric and quickly switches to engine and then back to electric.

And often starts on engine and quickly switches to electric.

Don't think there's anything to worry about 👍

  

[forkingabout]

After standing overnight sometimes I can get to the bottom of the road before the engine starts & sometimes the engine starts immediately in my garage.

I just leave it to get on with what it wants to do.

[john p williams]

7 minutes ago, Hybrid21 said:

Really depends on a lot of variables Bob. Things like outside temperature, settings in vehicle such as aircon, heating, heated seats, etc and the charge left in the 12v battery and how long the vehicle has been sitting and what the recent journeys have been like, etc 

Mine often starts first thing on electric and quickly switches to engine and then back to electric.

And often starts on engine and quickly switches to electric.

Don't think there's anything to worry about 👍

  

Agreed.

[dee123456]

Mine sometimes starts with the Battery but by the time i get to the end of the road the engine cuts in. Sometimes it starts with the engine and then reverts to Battery quite quickly. It's perfectly normal for it to be this way.

[john p williams]

5 minutes ago, forkingabout said:

After standing overnight sometimes I can get to the bottom of the road before the engine starts & sometimes the engine starts immediately in my garage.

I just leave it to get on with what it wants to do.

That is the right thing to do.

[john p williams]

1 minute ago, dee123456 said:

Mine sometimes starts with the battery but by the time i get to the end of the road the engine cuts in. Sometimes it starts with the engine and then reverts to battery quite quickly. It's perfectly normal for it to be this way.

Perfectly normal indeed.

[Cyker]

Yeah it's best not to worry about it.

The 3 main causes for the engine to start up early are:

1) HVAC is on and temperature is set above external temperature - Result; Car starts engine to generate heat to raise cabin temperature to set value

2) Battery is below 40-50% charge - Result; Car starts engine to put charge into Battery

3) Driver presses accelerator more than MG2 can provide - Result; Car  starts engine to provide additional torque

It's really tricky to not trip one of those in the morning unless you are a quite OCD - I've only managed it once so far  

[Bozz]

I reverse out of my driveway and the engine always kicks in before I pull forwards onto the road. Hybrid control just doing its stuff. Not worried.

 

[Tech429]

I know we are usually all in a hurry these days but if mine starts on ICE then i just sit while it does it's thing then once done and it shuts off i then get going.

During the warmer weather - and if i have not left the AC on then mine always starts on EV, but if too low then it will kick in anyhow.

[Roy124]

There was a tip on here quite recently.  As soon as you go to Ready mode switch off the Aircon. 

I have started to do this, right hand button on the control panel.  I can then get the car out and manoeuvre on the on Battery.  Even managed about 100 yards with ICE cutting in as I started up a short slope. 

All the other factors mentioned above may still cause the ICE to run but that tip certainly works too. 

[Cyker]

That's a good tip - It always surprises me how much energy the AC compressor needs to run!

3 hours ago, Tech429 said:

I know we are usually all in a hurry these days but if mine starts on ICE then i just sit while it does it's thing then once done and it shuts off i then get going..

Just FYI, unless I misunderstand you, but you don't need to wait for the ICE to shut off before you start driving; In fact I'd say you're better off driving as it'll help the engine warm up faster if it's given some load to work on, whereas stationary it's only pushing against MG1 so won't be as efficient.

 

[TonyHSD]

29 minutes ago, Cyker said:

That's a good tip - It always surprises me how much energy the AC compressor needs to run!

Just FYI, unless I misunderstand you, but you don't need to wait for the ICE to shut off before you start driving; In fact I'd say you're better off driving as it'll help the engine warm up faster if it's given some load to work on, whereas stationary it's only pushing against MG1 so won't be as efficient.

 

This for the engine can be as you describe but can also be exactly opposite. I always wait 1-2 minute before driving off and in winter up to 3-4 minutes The engine is running but if you drive low speeds it will not propel the car and the car still will be moved on mg2 alone because the ice will be in warm up stages and only if you demand extra power will take over.

Sometimes in certain conditions the car can enter into a “play mode”  - constantly switching between mg2 and ice on and off. It is similar to what some may had experienced in older type automatic transmissions when the car can’t decide which gear to stay in and it’s switching between two gears ( 2-3, 3-2 for example). Very unusual and jerky behaviour. There were even members complaining about that previously. It’s normal but rare to happen and can be a strange thing to many Toyota hybrid owners. 👍 How to deal in that situation, simple, just floor it 😂👌🏁

[Cyker]

Oh that's good to know... I had noticed that occasionally it seems to run the engine but still only use MG2 to drive the car instead of the ICE and was wondering why!

 

[TonyHSD]

3 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Oh that's good to know... I had noticed that occasionally it seems to run the engine but still only use MG2 to drive the car instead of the ICE and was wondering why!

 

That’s the reason. I always like when the car moves on electric power alone and engine is running at constant rpm when is warming up , feels like electric car with range extender ⚡️👍😉

[Big_D]

Nicely put @TonyHSD

[Kental]

Since having a Corolla with a rev counter rather than just the Yaris, I’ve noticed it will sit at 1k revs rather than shut off to EV mode. Sure it knows what it is doing, but odd as it has 4/7 Battery so not because low traction Battery.

[Roy124]

I have occasionally got rpm but zero mpg from which I guess the engine is being turned over by the motor.? 

[AndrueC]

On 7/3/2022 at 1:49 PM, Cyker said:

Yeah it's best not to worry about it.

The 3 main causes for the engine to start up early are:

1) HVAC is on and temperature is set above external temperature - Result; Car starts engine to generate heat to raise cabin temperature to set value

2) Battery is below 40-50% charge - Result; Car starts engine to put charge into battery

3) Driver presses accelerator more than MG2 can provide - Result; Car  starts engine to provide additional torque

It's really tricky to not trip one of those in the morning unless you are a quite OCD - I've only managed it once so far  

And outside of summer the ICE will always start if the ambient temperature is below 16c.

It's also worth noting that running off the Battery instead of the ICE isn't always the most efficient thing to do. The charge in the Battery is not 'free energy'. It all came from burning petrol. Every joule you pull out of the Battery is going to result in petrol being burnt eventually to replace it and if the ICE is cold having it run to warm up might be the more efficient choice since at least then it's doing two useful things.

Running on electric is quieter and prevents local pollution so those are good reasons to trying to stay on electric when leaving/arriving home but the fuel efficiency benefits are questionable. If car 'thinks' it should run the ICE it's usually best to let it I think.

The best way to think of our electric power is a way to run the ICE more efficiently not as a more efficient power source. It's the combination of the two working together that makes hybrids so good. Being able to run just on electrical is a useful trick but it's only part of the picture and based on the typical(*) driver's mix of driving I'd say it's a fairly small part. Most of our driving is in conditions where we can't run solely on electric.

(*)Taxi drivers are an exception. They spend a lot more time travelling at speeds where the electrical motors can take over. In these cases the ICE is mainly just operating as a generator.

[Cyker]

I find I get better overall mpg if I can run on electric when in traffic or lower speeds, and ICE for acceleration and higher speeds.

The problem is the real world doesn't sync up so the ICE will end up charging the Battery while I'm going slowly or not moving, then just as the traffic clears it will cut the ICE and use MG2, but then depletes it very quickly due to the higher demand and then has to fire up the ICE again.

I get the best returns if I can keep enough charge to roll through the low speed and stationary traffic on MG2 alone I can stay in EV-mode for a lot longer, and deplete the Battery just as the traffic clears and I can accelerate and wake up the ICE to give me the torque and charge the Battery back up.

It's generally known that ICE are more efficient under load, diesels especially - Idling through traffic or just spinning MG1 while stationary doesn't provide much load and I'm sure it is less efficient than when it's providing acceleration torque or moving the car at speed.

 

6 hours ago, Roy124 said:

I have occasionally got rpm but zero mpg from which I guess the engine is being turned over by the motor.? 

Yea it's usually a touch of engine braking but I have caught it doing that when cruising occasionally. Not sure why...! I try to ignore it as all the weird things it randomly does would drive an OCD-person crazy!   

 

[AndrueC]

15 hours ago, Cyker said:

The problem is the real world doesn't sync up so the ICE will end up charging the battery while I'm going slowly or not moving, then just as the traffic clears it will cut the ICE and use MG2, but then depletes it very quickly due to the higher demand and then has to fire up the ICE again.

That seems to be an very efficient way to operate though. A couple of years ago I was stuck in a long tailback on the A55 in summer. It took nearly an hour to crawl about three miles. During that time the ICE seemed to only be used as a generator. The main Battery would drop to about 30% then the ICE would run at around 1,200 rpm until the Battery was back to 50%. It repeated that cycle multiple times.

At the start of the tailback the dash was showing mid 60s mpg. By the time I'd cleared the tailback it was showing low 70s. Once I got back up to speed (60mph for me all though it's a dual carriageway) consumption dropped back to the mid 60s.

But you're right about engine load and efficiency. Possibly in that scenario a smaller engine would have done even better. But I was rather surprised at the time. I bet the conventionally powered vehicles in that queue didn't get to the end having operated in excess of 70 mpg 🙂

[Kental]

57.1mpg on a 30 mile mainly 70 limit dual carriageway journey this morning doing 65-70mph.

[Roy124]

4 minutes ago, Kental said:

57.1mpg on a 30 mile mainly 70 limit dual carriageway journey this morning doing 65-70mph.

Fair enough.  I do regular short nthere and back runs on the A1, sometimes north, sometimes south.  The there and back consumption can differ by about 10 mpg. 

[TonyHSD]

Wind speed and direction, deviation and road surface can really impact the fuel efficiency as mentioned up to 10mpg +/-. 
The engines in Toyota hybrids does indeed work as generators in many cases and perhaps it’s one of the reasons why the engineers chosen to do them operating in different cycles, Otto, Atkinson, Miller etc. 

If you spend more time in the car in various situations, like traffic jams, waiting stationary for a few hours, going long uphill/downhill, waiting few minutes on cold start for the engine to warm up, you will notice how the engine works at many different loads and rpm’s , how it goes from doing one thing to another ( charging Battery then only idle to warm up itself).
You will most likely also notice that the car operates the main brakes by herself, for example when hybrid Battery been charged at stationary and the engine is about to shut off itself, it changes the rpm and load ( different sound) the brakes pressurises to hold the car , engine shuts off while the car make you feel it’s trying to move forward, engine is off and the brakes de pressurises themselves, the typical pumping noise and pressure valve release can be hard. There were complaints from people new to Toyota hybrids back in the days about those processes and even some has returned their cars as they had been feeling not safe as what they described “ the car moves on its own “ 😂👌 also complains about engine been too noisy, rpm too high etc, they did favour diesels more , huge mistake ⛽️⚡️

[Cyker]

I finally ran my tank down and had to refuel (At a Texaco no less! I never thought a Texaco would be the cheapest petrol station in the area!  185.9 vs 188.9+s in my regular places!!)

Final tank average as 83.4 according to the car, and 80.5 by calculation. That was painful tho', I'm going back to mid 70's as my target  

Annoyingly I was on track for an ~85mpg tank but lost 2 mpg because I got stuck in a big jam and because I left the AC on the engine wasted a lot of energy spinning up to charge the traction Battery! In hindsight I should have turned it off, hidden in the shadow of an artic and wound the windows down