Prius Hybrid Gauge

Every time I give somebody a ride in my car, the first thing they ask me about is this gauge on the dashboard. I never know what to tell them because I'm not really sure how it works either. The only thing I know for certain is when the battery is charging because the charging section of the gauge fills up. But, besides that I couldn't tell you what's going on exactly. Sure, when I step on the accelerator the fat section in the middle fills up and the more I depress the pedal the more it fills up. Eventually, the fat section fills up completely and the power part starts to fill. I also notice the "ECO" indicator on the gauge goes off once the power section starts to fill. But, I can't explain a lot of things. Why does the ECO indicator go off? What does it mean when the power section get filled? Why is the fat section divided into two parts?

Let's see what the owner's manual has to say. Looks like the gauge is called the Hybrid System Indicator. The fat section is called the ECO area and shows that the vehicle is being driven in an environmentally friendly manner, hence the ECO indicator is on. Apparently the first half on the ECO area is also called the Hybrid ECO area and indicates that gasoline power is not being used very often. Ok, but doesn't that happen for the whole ECO area? I don't see how the Hybird ECO area is that much different from the rest of the ECO area. Anyways, when the power area starts filling it shows that an environmentally friendly driving range is being exceeded and the ECO indicator goes off.

I guess in retrospect that all makes sense, but I don't think the gauge is all that useful in general. In fact, I usually never watch the gauge when I'm driving. I prefer to watch the fuel consumption gauge, which gives you the real time fuel consumption of the car as opposed to some reference gauge which does necessarily give me an useful information. The fuel consumption gauge also gives more feedback on the environmental friendliness of your driving. If you are getting more mpgs then you are obviously doing more Eco friendly driving. In my opinion, the Hybrid System Indicator serves very little purpose and adds no value to the driving experience.

Beware of Frog

I was looking at Justin's blog post the other day about the mutant bird sign and it reminded me of this sign I saw in Germany. I found it really weird as I've never seen anything like it before. First, I don't recall ever seeing a triangular sign with a red outline in the US. Second, I've never seen a road sign with a frog in it. The shape of the sign made me think it was a "beware of" sign, but a frog seems like a strange thing to be cautious of unless, of course, it's a poisonous frog. But, I don't think Germany is known for poisonous frogs.

Anyways, after some research I found out the sign meant that road was a frog crossing. Apparently, the road ahead is used by migrating frogs (I didn't know frogs migrated...). Still, you don't normally see warning signs for such small animals, usually you see them for deer or other larger animals. I just thought it was a really interesting sign and wanted to share it. I guess the moral of the story is when you're in Germany watch out for migrating frogs on the road.