Hi everyone,

Here are some photos I took today driving my car, offhand with my phone, showing the various main dash gauges at different points and speeds during the drive. Captions tell more. Conditions: About 83 degrees F outside, overcast, quite humid. A/C on, recirc mode, set at 72 degrees and working well. P235/70R16 Pirelli Scorpion Verde Plus IIs all around at 38 PSI. Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0W-20. Listening to MP3s through USB. I'll try to put them roughly in order but it's not precise (that's why the estimated fuel remaining jumps around) but they were all taken at various points during the same drive. This shows how my car is performing through the gauge readouts. Sorry for the blur on the "uphill onramp" photo, it's an S-Curve and I fumbled with the camera a little.

For the sake of the forum, please delete the photos if you QUOTE when you respond. Thank you. On the on-ramp photos (6 and 7), you can see the traction motor assisting the ICE. It is actually beginning to fall off here as I am dethrottling slightly from about 3750 RPM back to 3500. The assist actually goes a little higher than this and the car maintains that for about 10-15 seconds as I accelerate up the ramp, I am nowhere near full throttle max. effort, the car has plenty in reserve and if I punched it the assist would go higher. By the way I really like the Mobil 1 Advanced Fuel Economy 0W-20. The engine is really smooth and the mileage has improved a little, maybe 1/2 to 1 MPG overall, especially from cold start.


Flat Ground to Slight Decline - In Cruise at 70

On Highway at 80 Slight Incline

On Highway at 80 Slight Downhill

Highway at 80 Slight Downhill Thru Windshield. On the following uphill, the car sheds a couple MPH and then the cruise bumps the ICE to around 3500-3700 to reaccelerate to 80 and climb the hill.

Highway at 80 Flat Ground Slight Charge - ICE is actually charging the battery a little at 80!

My Goofball Thrillsville "Truck-Dodge" S-Turn Uphill Onramp -- About 1/4 Mile Onto 3-lane Interstate - it continues uphill after this into the merge section. No big trucks here today but when they are there, they're moving.

Battery+Traction Motor Assisted Acceleration Onramp (I have already backed off a little here, the assist actually goes higher and this is maintained for about 10-15 seconds, until I step out of it at around 68-70 and put it in cruise.)

Offramp On the Brakes Heavy Regen From 80

Heading Home - Around Town on Flat Ground in EV Mode. This was a slight downhill. Normally on truly flat ground the needle is in "assist" a little bit to push the car down the road. My car's EV "go/no-go" point is about 44 MPH.

 

Heh, my RPM doesn't appear to go that high but I also don't get the assist needle that late in the game. I will try keep a better eye on it and compare. BTW, when driving with GPS, the speedometer skews high. I find I'm going 53 right near the 60. Has to be right on the 60 or else I'm going slow.

 

It's been pretty consistent and this is with AC on. When I first got the car I put it in cruise at 70 indicated with the AC off and it was at a hair under 2K on flat ground. A year on it seems that everything is a couple hundred RPM higher, but the tires are different also. The older tires were *much* harder (worn out) and the Pirellis are stickier. My speedo is off by 2MPH at 70, I've measured it with a stopwatch. So 80 is probably about 77 and 70 is 68.

I can get the car into assist at any speed by hitting the pedal moderately hard, unless I've been sitting at a dead stop in traffic with the A/C on for a long time and the car has gone into "idle with charging." Then it has to get back a couple of lozenges on the Information display before it will give me assist again. On that onramp, I put the RPM where I want it for acceleration and hold it there as the ICE + traction motor accelerate me up the hill, quite a bit different from a normal car. The engine RPM barely changes at all from 20-70 until I back off. In that picture my speed is still increasing but I have actually dropped the RPM a little. Only car I've ever driven that keeps accelerating even when the engine slows down! Lol. That makes sense though, because the computer is really controlling *power* and *energy* not speed per se.