Prius C - Test Drive thoughts

An 'A' for spelling! On the topic, stay ignorant.

CVTs don't hunt. At least not in a way you should notice. If they do, then something is wrong. They slide. And any hunting due to road conditions and driver input should not be be perceptible. And a CVT will never give you the kind of feedback you are used to, at least not with an engine this small. I have driven my C for three weeks now, and there is no hunting. As for your other complaint, if you did your test drive with ECO mode on (salesman should have known better), that would require much more pedal travel to get a response then if it was off. That kind of delay or lag could easily be defined as hysteresis.

If you found anything to like in this vehicle at all, then I would go back and drive it again. This time, tell the salesman you need to expience it as it will be in real life, with just your weight in the vehicle, and no passenger. Then, make sure ECO mode is off, and give it a real work out. I did an informal 0-60 test today and counted it at 9 seconds. This may not be the car for you, but somehow, I don't think you have seen it's full potential yet.

Bob

Just want to point out the the Prius does NOT have a ContinuousVT. It has an ECVT and ElectronicallyControlledVT (note the difference in what the "C" stand for). It does not have a set of sliding gears, but the computer controls (among other things) the ratio of the engine output which goes to the drive-train or to the motor-generator. With the motors either adding power to the wheels or sending power to the battery (or both), it's obviously more complicated than that, but the bottom line is that the Prius does not switch gears in the conventional or CVT sense and therefore can never "hunt".

-- Peace, bobJ

Perhaps not by design, but the drive-feel is slushy, lacking feedback.

Just want to point out that the Prius does have a continuously variable transmission, which in form is exactly what you describe but in function is a continuously variable transmission.

"CVT" does not by definition mean "variable width pullies and a belt". It simply means that the transmission does not have stepped, discrete gears.

True, but the difference still needs to be pointed out as some see eCVT and assume cone and belt, not a computer controlling the speed and direction difference between 2 motor/generators attached to a planetary gearset.

Exactly. High-tech electro-mechanical slush for the box.

I should not have used the word "slide" to refer to what happens in the planetary gearset used in the Prius PSD (variable transmission). Although it occurs smooth enough (except for News) to refer to it that way. It's actually a very interesting way to transfer power between multiple sources, and, as everything else in the Prius, is geared towards (no pun intened) maximum efficiency and MPG.

Fascinating interactive animation here:

Bob

Nice animation. Too many degrees of freedom for any single flavor.

I should not have used the word "slide" to refer to what happens in the planetary gearset used in the Prius PSD (variable transmission). Although it occurs smooth enough (except for News) to refer to it that way. It's actually a very interesting way to transfer power between multiple sources, and, as everything else in the Prius, is geared towards (no pun intened) maximum efficiency and MPG.

Fascinating interactive animation here:

Bob

What's wrong with saying the gas motor has high torque at high speeds and the electric motor has high torque at low speeds. That makes acceleration nice and smooth for us non educated mechanics. (But happy Prius owners)

On a CVT the CV part doesn't have gears since gear ratios give definite steps. There is usually a set of pullies where one has variable width allowing the "belt" to move in or out to change the ratio. On some the "belt" is a stack of metal plates on a steel band and it works in compression rather than tension. The ratio can be controlled mechanically or by computer.

On an eCVT the computer balances forces between the electric motors, the ICE and the output. The computer interperts the desires of the driver based on the input at the gas peddal. If that input is spastic the engine could hunt do to the constantly changing requests. Since we aren't seeing the same complaint from others I would chalk it up to operator error.

More likely folks enamored of shiny objects who overlook, or who don't know or care enough to notice, the deficiencies.