“EV CHARGE” Mode

[jzchen]

Stumbled upon this just yesterday or the day before. When you just start the car and as the indicators are lighting up on the instrument cluster if you hold down the HV button for maybe 1 or 2 seconds instead of just press and release. The usual green “HV” lights up but there is also a white “CHARGE” text, actually white background with dark text. It is accompanied by the engine starting/running. Anyone familiar with this mode? I assume it uses gas to charge the HV battery. Thanks!

[darthpuppy]

I recall reading about it in the owner's manual. IIRC, you can get to it anytime by holding the HV button down. And yes, it is a more aggressive use of the gas engine to both drive the car and charge the battery, not just drive the car. So the motor will continue running while the car is otherwise idle where the normal HV mode will switch to EV while at stop lights. Not sure why one would choose that option unless you have zones that are EV only and you need to be certain to have enough battery charge when you get there to go in, do your driving, and get out all on EV. I think I read somewhere they have some of those in Europe or they are in the works to do something like that? But if that were the intention, I would think there would also be a setting where you could force it to only use EV.

[jzchen]

We've been driving mostly in hybrid mode, stopped charging at home. When I get the opportunity to charge outside home, I save the charge for my wife to use. But even if I quickly press the Hybrid mode very quickly after starting the car it will eventually deplete some of the EV range. I guess that EV CHARGE mode could be used to replenish this lost charge. (I don't use it. I am not comfortable with the inefficiency loss converting from gas energy to electric. As you kindly note, there's no place that requires EV driving, at least here in the US...)