Why Toyota is not selling electric cars

Plus ideally, if the car is plugged in outside you have to factor in TMS for warming the pack when it is too cold.
And I hear there is a round about way of cooling the pack when it's too hot while plugged in, but it involves driver input.

 

Technically, you are correct that no official statement from Toyota for kWh required to charge the battery full from zero EV range. But from the published values of MPGe and EV range, you can deduce the number to be 6.39 kWh as I posted in #243
Why Toyota is not selling electric cars | Page 13 | PriusChat
What we don't know is the condition and equipment L1 or L2 they used for the charge.

 

It takes the same amount to charge, but the internal resistance of the battery varies under different conditions, and the higher it is, the less efficiently it provides electricity. Cold is one of the things that increases that resistance.

 

So technically speaking, "less efficient" is the correct term to use, or is it OK to say "less capacity" in winter? Although I think everyone understand what it means using either terms.

 

Less efficient, since the battery can be fully charged.

Have you actually timed how long it take to charge your car? It is probably taking longer to charge it during the winter because of the internal resistance.

 

Thanks for the clear answer. About the question above, my answer is No. That is one parameter I have never looked closely. Without having a fancy L2 EVSE, manually checking the time it takes to fully charge the battery over night is bit difficult. My MID always shows 6 hr 10 min to full charge when I first plug it in, but I suspect it takes shorter than that most of times.

 

IIRc, the reported charge time on Level1 is under 6 hours and closer to 5.5.

 

Yes, I think so. But my MID always displays "6 hours 10 min" to completion. I don't know why.

 

In the winter you get both effects. The capacity is less, plus you use more kwh per mile to drive due to heater usage, air density, maybe more use of lights and wipers (I know these are small) and maybe worse road conditions (rain, snow, etc.)

Over 6 winters with my PIP and charging daily with ChargePoint L2 chargers at work I saw the kwh consumed drop from about 2.9 kwh (summer year 1) to 2.2 kwh (winter year 6). Each year it would bump back up in summer but not as high as the year before. However, the watt-hours per mile would go down in winter and back up in summer...and the summer value is about the same as it was back in year 1.

Hence, the battery capacity degrades over time. But the efficiency, with the same conditions, is about the same

Mike

 

At least on my PRIME, for the last 20 months, there has not been any appreciable change in kWh needed to fully charge the battery. Winter or summer, this number has been fairly constant 6.5-6.8kWh. It may degrade over time, but I am not seeing seasonal fluctuations as you stated.

 

seeing exactly the same thing

 

You are looking at the amount of electric drawn through the watt meter. For tracking electric use and costs, that's all you need. It isn't an actual measurement of went into the battery. There is the potential energy use of the battery heater and A/C. Then the internal resistance of the battery for being too cold or hot results in some of the electricity measured by the meter gets converted to heat and wasted before the car even starts.

 

OK, I understand the part "at wall" reading is only good for knowing the amount of electricity drawn through the watt meter and how much it cost. My new question is then, when the battery actually lose "capacity" due to degradation, how do I know or measure that?

 

ooops

 

The easiest way is to measure the amount of electricity used to charge. If that doesn't vary, then the cells have not gotten cold enough to affect the capacity.
Alternatively, you could disassemble the pack, and measure the voltage of each individual cell, but that seems a bit overboard

 

It won't be obvious in the beginning, and the software could free up more of the buffer capacity to mask it, but degradation will result in the loss of EV range.

There are tools for measuring the battery's capacity, but those that do so without needing to disassemble anything would only be available to dealers and shops, or more accurately, most individuals wouldn't want to pay for them.

 

Thank you both. Sound like the best thing to do is to continue monitoring the "at wall" charge then. I have no intention to mess with a high voltage battery pack nor do I have the interest to pay for the service or tools. So far no noticeable degradation and most of my range reduction can be attributed to the cold temperatures and use of the heater.

 

I took delivery of Model 3 with Premium Interior. I can say how ancient the Prius Prime, and all other EVs, is in this segment. Tesla EV IS truly revolutionary.

All other automakers are just hacking their existing models to be "EV". In short, after owning Tesla, there is no other viable EV option other than Tesla - in terms of functionality, technology, and charging network.

 

Congratulations on your new car!

 

Totally awesome! I was hoping to buy a Model 3, then my wife saw the screen... All in all, I’m probably OK with it, but not her. Other than that, it would have been a red long-range AWD, probably regular wheels.