Charger and car not communicating

some people have reported intermittent problems with charge point

 

I have also noticed that if you recently ran the car in Charge Mode it will prevent charging. Likely because charging in charge mode heats the battery up quite a bit.

 

I’ve used charge mode a couple times. I feel it’s not necessary. The car is generally so efficient that any minor gains are outweighed by normal ev only driving or hybrid driving modes. Btw I have owned the car for 10 months with 19k miles on it.

 

I've seen several situations where you had to wait up to 5 minutes for the Prime to start charging. Not sure if it is due to battery temperature or not as it has happened when it has been very cold and very warm out. Always after I've driven a few minutes at least on battery. I usually wait a few minutes by the charger until I see the blue lights start blinking on the dash.

Plugging and unplugging, moving the car a few feet and all that will NOT help the car to start charging any sooner than it's ready, though.

WISH LIST - that Toyota would include an error message (hey why not on that huge screen!) that says something along the line of - "A correct connection has been made to charging device - vehicle will be ready to charge in a few minutes". Otherwise we end up blaming the charger when it's actually the car we are waiting for.

 

I have a 2103 Plug-in Prius and my charger quit. Went to Toyota & got their price $847.58. My independent mechanic found no e-power beyond the charging box. I then bought an after market charger and got the same result including my mechanic's check. I returned that for another and had the same result. I suspect the problem might actually be on board the Prius. Before I return to Toyota for their expensive diagnosis (it always costs a bunch) I am wondering if there is some other service option, some kind of mechanic that would be able to diagnose the charging system to see if it works. I don't have a driving situation where the plug-in solution is a big part of the fuel budget as I always drive further than the small EV period will cover, so it didn't make $$ sense to spend over $800 on a fix. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and/or ideas.

 

Weber state has a Youtube video about the Prime battery. There are battery heating elements that turn on during extreme cold conditions. Maybe changing is delayed until the batteries have heated to a certain temperature?

 

welcome!
the charger is on board. the cable is called an evse and only facilitates the connection to power in a safe manner.
the onboard charger is a known defect. call a dealer and see if toyota will cover it.