Aug
06
2008
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Written by Kacey Green
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Wednesday, 06 August 2008 |
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The Midlands Hybrid Club has two components, The Midlands Hybrid Club, and the Midlands Hybrid Owners Club. The Hybrid Club focuses on spreading clean personal transportation technology and fostering environmental stewardship. While the owners club takes this concept and frames it from the perspective of the owners/operators of cleaner cars and trucks. On the Evening of Thursday, August 14th at 6:45 PM we will hold a club meeting at Midlands Honda. The goal of this meeting is determine what topics the Owners Club members want to focus on. Owners of Honda and other manufacturers: Hybrid, Compressed Natural Gas, Hydrogen, Bio-Diesel, and other low-emission/low environmental impact vehicles, and Electric Vehicles are welcome. Please see the Midlands Hybrid Club website for more information as it becomes available. A special thanks goes out to Midlands Honda and the Gainesville Hybrid Club for their continued support of the Midlands Hybrid Club and Midlands Hybrid Owners Club. |
Sep
20
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Thursday, 20 September 2007 |
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Yesterday I installed an EV switch in my Prius, the EV switch/button, persuades the engine not to run when certain conditions are met. The EV button will only work below 35mph and within certain environmental and performance envelopes. The install took about 45 minutes of actual work, but much longer in gathering the parts and studying the installation method I chose (Evan Fusco's headlight flasher method). The hardest part of the install was getting the new pin 27 seated fully, my brother and I took the Prius out for a spin and the mod worked flawlessly. My first commute with the EV button was a success; I noticed several parts of all of my past commutes where my Prius does stupid stuff. The most common thing my Prius does during a commute is running the engine when the battery is at an acceptable state of charge (S.O.C.) and the emissions system is already at operating temperatures, and I'm at a complete stop for some time. Another time my Prius runs its engine needlessly is during some downhill stretches where doing so is unnecessary. I understand most of this is because it doesn't know what the upcoming terrain might surprise it with.
The main reason for installing the EV mode on my car was that I wanted to be able to shuffle the car around its various parking arrangements without having a senseless engine start. How does running the engine for 60 seconds, to move the car 75 feet at the most, benefit the environment or improve air quality? My wallet also disagrees, seven seconds is barely enough time to get out of a garage, and is not enough time to back out of most parking stalls and start moving forward. (I know it's not much but costs add up over the Prius' 100,000-150,000 warranted period). Now I can move across small parking lots and driveways without wasting gas or adding additional pollution to the air when shuffling my car.
I added three MPGs to my commute by cutting the engine at times where the Prius was being stupid. I will mention more when I have had more time to get accustomed to the new functionality.
EV mode as with any aftermarket modification may void a portion of your warranty. If you have any questions about my experience let me know so when I'm writing the next article I will cover your questions right here for all to benefit.
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Sep
19
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Wednesday, 19 September 2007 |
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Today I finished a project I had been planning since the
month after delivery of my Prius. I will
provide more details in tomorrow's post(s).
What I will say is that the project involved the high voltage ECU and
less than $3 spent purchasing parts. One
more hint, I'm looking forward to some of the low speed, high congestion
sections of my commutes to be a great deal more silent, assuming I don't need
the heater set to crazy levels.
I came across several hybrid drivers while running errands
today and all but two waved, thank you all for making my day a bit brighter.
I am looking for story ideas and guest bloggers, if interested
or if you have an idea, use the "contact us" page.
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Sep
18
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Tuesday, 18 September 2007 |
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Today I struck the hybrid watcher's jackpot, two Prius at a gas
station, lined up, both gassing up. My
Prius dropped down to three pips on the gas gauge after I'd dropped off the
freeway to begin my 2 mile straight shot work is practically on the freeway
after a 45 minute drive. Yesterday's
trip took me down to half a tank and driving home from work dropped me to four
pips, I refuel at three pips when possible.
I do this because I refuse to become of the Prius owners who complain
about the car suddenly stopping (because I was trying to drive without fuel)
and wondering why. NHW20 Prius have a
message that pops up on the multi-function display (MFD) that says to add fuel immediately
but it can be missed, though not easily.
I had been at three pips for the latter half of my commute
and the temperature was perfect for refueling, so I stopped at the nearest Top Tier
gas station to work, a Shell. The driver
of a black 2006+ Prius(if anyone wants their 06 or new photographed alongside
my 04 I will point out the differences) chose the same place and time to fill
and the only available pump (facing the car's left) was right in front of this
car and driver pair. As I mentioned in
an earlier post multiple Prius filling together are quite rare because of their
fuel efficiency.
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Sep
17
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Monday, 17 September 2007 |
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Extremely quick update today, I left home at 06:45 Eastern so that I could make my meeting on time. First, I drove right off the map (it is time to get My Prius' maps updated) when I realized the road I wanted to take had changed paths slightly. I turned around and got back on the right track, when a black Prius crossed me, we traveled together for about a mile when they left me as they ran a red light they thought they'd make before it changed. I found out that my company will be getting a fleet of Prius next year! Round trip, I used half an indicated tank, and got an ok 51.5 MPG over more than 375 miles. The reason for the poor mileage was mostly excessive speed, the set of interstates I used have steep hills and I let people push me well over the speed limit today, it had very little to do with the unfamiliar terrain, speeding hurts mileage but doing it into an unfavorable wind will destroy any progress made toward great fuel economy.
Now I need to get some rest, tomorrow I have to get to work early. Thanks for reading I will see you tomorrow, good night.
Kacey Green
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Sep
16
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Sunday, 16 September 2007 |
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Tomorrow I have a business trip scheduled, they offered me a company car and I declined for several reasons, the reasons that are relevant here were the environmental and resource conservation concerns. First, my Prius is over two and a half times more fuel-efficient than the vehicle the company would loan me. Second I would save time and distance travelled by leaving immediately from my house instead of going to work to pick up the vehicle and then going on my trip. The time-savings and the reduced environmental impact of my trip by taking my car far outweigh the few miles of wear and tear I will add to the vehicle.
Some other reasons worth discussing here against taking the company car follow. First, I'm new to the area and the Prius knows its way better than I do, even with it having maps that are three years out of date. I have not had them updated yet; old maps are better than no maps as long as one uses some common sense and does not blindly follow the computer's instructions. Fun fact some of the Prius geeks loaded their navigation DVDs on their computers and found the voice files are stored in a folder called Jill, so that is what we call the computer lady, Jill. Another reason is my car can more readily play stuff I want to listen to through the sound system. Next is my Prius is more comfortable than a Malibu, and lastly, I still have vivid memories of my little adventure.
Kacey Green
GRLT.com
"Tech with a twist of lime!"
Express yourself by posting a comment below.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 16 September 2007 )
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Sep
11
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Tuesday, 11 September 2007 |
 Those readers that know how much I like Woot.com will understand the posting goodness in store today when I say Two 4 Tuesday (refering to the number of posts)! First, up, while running errands today I crossed paths with Jason Benns, a local Prius driver. Seeing two marked Prius from different companies is about as common as seeing two Prius together a gas station. Jason drives a CoStar Group branded 2006 package #7 NL Prius wrapped with the CoStar Group branding. Jason says his company bought 120 of these, some of which have XM radio. Three of these vehicles travel throughout South Carolina: there are Jason's in Columbia, one in Charleston, and one that travels between north and South Carolina. There is also one in Florida. These Prius are equipped with an extra antenna, which the company uses to track their drivers. After the jump is a photo gallery of the CoStar Prius. Underneath the wrap, the Prius' paint is white. Jason gets about 50MPG city, the people that gave him the vehicle said to use B gear, I suggested he not do that unless descending a mountain, remember B is the same as L in a regular automatic transmission.
Costar handles commercial real estate in the United States and United Kingdom.
Continue to the photo album.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 September 2007 )
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Sep
08
2007
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Written by Kacey Green
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Saturday, 08 September 2007 |
 On Wednesday, I
stopped for fuel and the Prius reported something odd, it showed 25 watt-hours regenerated
during the fill-up. If I am 100 percent
sure the engine will not be starting during the refueling process, I don't shut
the car down. However, there were only energy
expenditures during this block of time you can see it at 25 minutes ago on this
screenshot of the consumption graph. I'd
call several gallons of gasoline more than 50WH :). I'm not sure what happened there but I've
seen it before and it is unrelated to the fuel stop. When I refuel it usually shows an empty five
or ten minute graph (depending on how long I take with paperwork after the fill
and how slow the pump is).
A month before I traded my Civic, it shut down all power while
going down a large hill, but by about 100 feet from the bottom of the hill
(where I then needed to go up another hill) everything powered back up, all
with no intervention on my part. This
was weird I had power steering, zero RPMs and no electricity. I usually build up speed on a down slope so I
had enough momentum built-up to continue without incident. It never did it again and I saw it in town several
times after the trade, still looking good and clean (but with dirty tires).
What weird things have your vehicles done?
Kacey
Green
www.grlt.com
"Tech with a twist of lime!"
Express yourself by posting a comment below.
If you liked this post, share it! (Digg is up top, Stumble, Tencorati and
others below [on this post's page], or tell a friend)
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 08 September 2007 )
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