Part-charging the battery and "charge-alert"?

you can't fool the car, because it doesn't have any mechanism for making heat except the ice, and you're right, it's probably not worth it, that's why no one has done it except michael. we just keep shivering to stay warm.

 

How exactly do you achieve partial charge? is it done automatically with an external timer? Or are you setting car's timer to finish in, say, 45 minutes each time you charge?

 

i'm embarassed to say i do it manually. the timer doesn't work like that. you either program a start time or an end time. either way, you'd have to unplug it after 30-60 minutes or whatever.

 

Manual is OK for me, my only embarrassment is the remembering part...
If you finish a trip at, say, 5 pm with no EV left and set the car timer to finish at 5:40 pm, will it not start right away and give you only about half the charge? (I have to try this, it may even satisfy the OP by not showing the "charge not completed due to..." massage).

EDIT
I have just tried it, at 1:30 pm I have set the finish timer to 2:00 pm, charge started immediately but ignored the finish time and continued to charge to full!
Could be that Toyota believes charging to full is better for battery health than partial charging? Even if the car is sitting fully charged for several hours? (with the exception of sitting under direct sun in a hot summer day).
Could be that in "extended period of time" they mean days (or weeks) and not hours?

 

very interesting! now more questions than ever. i forget to plug in from time to time, very frustrating.

 

Look for the "heater In A Box" topic.

 

Welcome to PriusChat! And congrats on your new PiP. Like your wife, I like it warm, so the seat heaters are always on high and the temperature is set at 74 (about 22C). Yeah I moan a bit about my mileage coming down to the high 60s (3.5 L/100km) and low 70s (3.2 L/100km) but I like comfort.

 

....palm...on face...shakes head slowly from side to side...

 

If I have a zero EV miles left I just plug it in for an hour and get a minimal charge of say 6 miles so I can go somewhere close if i need to.

 

My interpretation of the manual on not leaving the car fully charged is several days. The car doesn't allow you to charge past 85% SOC anyway so I'm not concerned about the battery being "happy." I sometimes leave my car for two days at full charge from Saturday morning to Monday morning on those lazy weekends where I don't go out. I never partial charge except when I don't have the time.


iPhone ?

 

I think along these lines. If the car itself tries pretty hard to not be at "full" once you start it, even if you switch to HV...then it probably isn't great for it to sit that long with it full.

I would really reconsider leaving it "full" for that long.

 

I agree with you on that point but 85% SOC is hardly "full." Tesla recommends not using max range charging that adds 15% to range, so is that about 85% SOC? The Volt only allows charging to what 63%? or something ridiculous like that. And the Leaf goes to 80% and I suspect that's because the battery has no active cooling. Me worry about 85% SOC? No way.

 

So both GM and Nissan won't touch 85% but you are cool with leaving it there for days?

Also, if it wasn't bad for it, why would the car work so hard to get it down to 70% once you start driving it?

Your car, your battery. I just know for me that a little bit extra work and planning is worth any possibility that it keeps the battery in great condition for the long haul.

 

I think that you are overthinking this and have come to the wrong conclusion.

The battery is designed to be used MOST when the efficiency of the ICE is at it's WORST.
That would be when warming up and accelerating and going up hills, just to name a few.
It just works out that the boost it provides when the ICE is cold and you are just starting out
usually gets it down to 70%.

It is NOT engineered to do that for the benefit of the battery.

 

If that is true then start the car with a full battery (85% SOC), change the mode to HV and don't move the car until it goes into EV (not EV mode but EV operation of HV mode). That should take significantly less electric energy than driving the car until EV operation is available and the SOC should be significantly higher than 70%. (Actually its not clear why sitting parked until the coolant is warmed up should take anything more than a very small amount of electrical energy.) Then drive the car in HV and see if the SOC stays near that larger than 70% value in much the same way as it stays near (about 1 EV mile) to whatever SOC value it is at when you switch from EV mode to HV mode at lower SOC levels. Not good for gas mileage but it might be interesting.

 

Actually, it's just GM that won't touch 85% and there are many critics to that decision. Nissan allows for >80% charge with the same disclaimer as Toyota has for the PiP. I don't know why the car works so hard to get to 70% at start up. Assuming it's because its bad for the battery is the same as me assuming 2 days is not a long period of time to let the car sit at full. Without solid information one way or the other, I'm just going to do what I think is best. When my battery exhibits noticeable degradation, I'll let you know.

 

The 2014 Leaf no longer has the charge to 80% option. This is because the EPA insisted on estimating the car's range using the 80%. It is also believed to be because they have determined (or maybe just decided) that heat is much worse on the car's battery pack than just charging to 100%.

​

 

Indeed. This again shows how little I know or even how little manufacturer's know is best to manage battery life on a plug-in. Perhaps, that's why Toyota is vague with the blurb.

PS Is anyone's quote button broken in IE as well? It worked on my iPad but this is the second time, I cannot quote.

 

You clearly do not own a PiP nor understand how it functions. Please don't post like you do.

 

And YOU clearly don't know anything about what I know.

Kindly stick to the facts and don't take personal shots at other users here.

It doesn't make any difference which model we are talking about.
Certain basics of hybrid operation apply across the board.....and to the PiP when not
operating in "forced" EV mode.