Climate Prep using scheduler not working

My Advanced is a week old. Set the onboard charging schedule for 2 mornings. The car charges but the climate prep didn't come on either day.

The display at power-off indicates the next scheduled charge and shows climate prep on. Climate system in AUTO, set for 72 F. The car is kept in a garage that is about 40 F in the mornings. Since I am up early, I noticed the car charging until about 1 hr before departure time. No sounds coming from car 10 minutes before set time. Nothing on the second occasion when I waited until a couple minutes past the set time. I did not open the car door until I was actually leaving. The car was cold inside.

Using the FOB A/C button, the climate system obviously comes on when listening from the outside and quits when I open the driver's door.

I have noticed that when I first start charging using "charge now" that the estimated time is about an hour too long. Within 10 minutes the car reports the correct charging time. (Like 6.5 hours for fully depleted EV, then shows 5.5 hours a few minutes later). That lines up with the scheduled departure charging finishing an hour early if it uses the immediate estimate for deciding when to charge. This morning I caught the end of the scheduled charge, the climate system did not come immediately and nothing at the departure time either.

Any ideas? Anyone else having this problem?

 

I'm not using the phone to schedule this. I have not downloaded the Entune apps yet. Clocks (GPS and car clock) both show the correct time.

 

Just did. Time zone is eastern, daylight savings is OFF. The clock indicates the correct time.

 

I think found the problem. The short answer is that you have to lock the car.

I noticed when I tried the "A/C" button on the FOB that the doors locked then the climate system came on a few seconds later. If you touch the driver's door handle and unlock the car, the climate system keeps running. It quits when you open the door. I never used this feature with my 2012 Prius because starting the air conditioning when I was maybe 200 feet from the car seemed extremely useless (the solar roof that ran the fan was way better).

I had run the Prime down to about 5 miles of EV this morning and had been recharging it when I decided to run an experiment. I disconnected the charger after seeing that I had 2 hr 10 min left to charge. I then entered a program for departure at 6 PM with climate prep and plugged the car back in at 2:30 PM. I would have expected charging to begin around 3:50 PM. I then LOCKED the car and left it in the garage.

I was puttering around the house and checked the car every 10 to 15 minutes. I saw charging had started at 3:15 PM. Around 5:10 PM the car's blue LED's indicating charging had turned off. Climate system was off.

At 5:50 PM the climate system came ON (yea!). At 6 PM, the climate system was still on and the charging LEDs were on with the last one blinking. At 6:02, the climate system was off, charging LEDs still on and blinking.

I unlocked the car and opened the door to see the display telling me it had 20 minutes to full charge (and it was nice and warm inside). I then removed the charging cable and powered the car on. It indicated an EV range of 23.2 miles. When I charged the car yesterday it had indicated 23.3 miles just after charging completion, so this seemed pretty much fully charged. I decided to terminate the charge as I probably won't be using the car until tomorrow afternoon.

I will verify that locking the car makes the difference on Monday morning which is the next event in my charging schedule that I am using. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions!

 

No, you're screwed either way. I have watched it several times. Charging finishes early, as much as an hour ahead of time. Climate prep comes on 10 minutes before departure time. A minute or two later, the charging LEDs light up with the "almost full" one blinking. Right at departure time, the climate system turns off. Unlocking the doors and checking, the MFD has said 20 minutes to full charge the several times I checked.

At least for me, Toyota's claim that climate prep gets its power from the charging cable is not true (at least for the 120V charging). 10 minutes of climate eats 20 minutes of charging according to the car. I have not let the car top up to see if it would actually take 20 minutes. If it did, the car would be cold again and climate prep would no longer be "prepped". I actually have it set for my departure, so I haven't been hanging around to watch.

I have a current monitor that I will use the next time I charge so I can see what is happening at the wall outlet.

 

After more experience, I have learned a little more about charging. So far I have seen the following:

Initial charge time estimate (as seen in MFD when door opened) is always longer than actual charge time. For example, with 0 EV miles remaining, I have seen an estimate as high as 6.5 hours when charging took just over 5 hours.

When the third blue LED in the dash starts blinking, the MFD says 40 minutes to full charge. It actually finishes in only 10 to 20 minutes.

Charge time changes in 10 minute decrements.

Doors must be locked for Climate Prep to work.

For departure time charge scheduling, the charging finishes well before departure time (all dash LEDs off). 10 minutes before departure time, Climate Prep starts (if on). Climate Prep stops right at departure time. At this point, charging has started again with 2 LEDs on and the third LED blinking. Every time I have seen it, the MFD says 20 minutes to full charge when I unlock and open the door.

Is this what you have been seeing (I am assuming use of the 120v charging cable we all have) ?

Today I decided to measure things a bit more carefully to see what is going on. I placed an 18" 10 gauge extension cable between the wall outlet and the charging cable. This short cable has the black wire separated out to use with a Fluke 322 Clamp Meter to measure A/C amps. The car had about 10 miles EV range left. A Fluke 77 meter indicated 119.4 VAC (checked before and during charging).

Before attaching the charging cable to the car, I measured 0.02 Amps. That's 2.4 watts for the charging cable just plugged into the wall. For $0.16/KWH electric cost, that is about 1 cent per day for the parasitic load of the charging cable.

Plugging into the car, the amps jumps up and then drops back to oscillating between 0.01 and 0.02 amps (car set to charge schedule and not charging). I repeated it several times. I couldn't read the initial jump as it took a few seconds to get back to the meter from attaching the cable to the car, but even then it was dropping from several amps back to 0.01 A. Oddly enough the meter flickering between 0.01 and 0.02 indicates slightly lower current draw when plugged into the car. This is right at the lowest reading ability of the Fluke 322, so I doubt the readings are real accurate.

I then put the car into Charge Now mode. The current draw was around 11.6 amps, varying up and down 0.1 to 0.2 amps. The car indicated 3.5 hours to full charge.

After an hour, the car said it had 2h 10m to full charge, the current draw was the same 11.6 amps. I disconnected the cable from the car and at 11:30 AM entered a new time schedule for departure with Climate Prep at 3 PM. I locked the car doors so Climate Prep would work.

At 12:55 PM charging came on. Current draw was the same 11.6 amps.

At 2:15 PM, the third dash LED started to blink. The charging current dropped to 7.7 amps with the same sort of 0.1 to 0.2 amp variation. So it appears that the charging tapers off as it approaches full charge.

At 2:29 PM I managed to catch the charging end as indicated by all the dash LEDs turning off. Current draw indicated 0.02 amps for a couple of minutes before returning to the 0.01 to 0.02 oscillation.

At 2:50 PM Climate Prep came on. I was amazed to see only a 0.26 amp current draw! That is only 31 watts at my measured 119.4 VAC line. My garage was at 46 degrees F, the car was set to Auto Climate and 72 F. No way is 31 watts enough to warm the car.

At 2:55 PM the charging LEDs came back on with the third LED blinking. Current draw was at the 11.6 amp level.

At 3:00 PM, Climate Prep turned off. I got in the car - it was nice and warm. MFD said 20 minutes to full charge but display also showed full battery (as much as you can tell).

At 3:03 PM, the charging amps dropped to the 7.7 amps level

At 3:06 PM, the MFD said time to full charge was 10 minutes (pretty close to 10 minutes after charging had restarted to 2:55 PM).

At 3:12 PM, all charging indicator LEDS when solid on for a few seconds then turned off. Current back to 0.01/0.02 oscillation. Unplugged and powered up the car to find EV miles at 22.1. Turning the climate controls to OFF made that jump to 24.9 miles.

Obviously for 120 V charging the car doesn't even try to use line power for Climate Prep. That 31 watts might be good enough for the fans. It really does pull about 15 minutes of charging out of the battery. If you adjust your charging time to 10 minutes early, then the car is pretty much cold again by the time of your actual departure.

I have noticed that sitting at a long traffic light, the EV miles drop by a couple of tenths with my 72 F heater setting. So 10 minutes of climate prep could cost maybe a good fraction of a mile (there is 5 minutes of charging at the higher current before departure time). I like a warm car, so I will continue using Climate Prep.

Anyone with a 240 charging setup that can verify that Climate Prep does not cause the car to be charging at departure time?