Traction battery Cooler

No. ICE will not come on when the car is plugged in.
Yes. Depending on how much power is needed to cool or heat during pre-conditioning, you may not get full charge on scheduled time.
I don't know the answer to the third question. Mine is not Advanced trim and no phone app.

I totally agree, though for my car, I have seen the pop-up notice for the battery cooler only once in last two years.

 

Being that I live in an area (Phoenix, AZ) where the temps exceed 100 F / 37 C for well over 90 days per year (closer to 120 lately) I see this option regularly. I have L2 charging, but if I don't tell it to turn on the AC while charging, it can go all night and never fully charge, and the inside of the car is like an oven. This has to be one of the stupidest design flaws ever -- the car was designed in a region that rarely sees 100F and I think they added this "feature" as an afterthought. It needs to be a setting where you tell it what temp to use that it will automatically turn on internal A/C. And that's not just the frigging OUTSIDE temp, it's the temp INSIDE THE CAR as well!

We typically get a 25-30 degree temperature swing between high and low temps at night. So you park the car and it's still 107 outside. The charger comes on without the A/C and it heats the inside up to 115-120, and stays there all night even though the outside temp may drop to 90. It's insane. Who cares that it's 25 degrees cooler outside than inside the car? The damn battery heat vents INSIDE, and the car can't cool down!

FWIW, if I miss changing the setting to turn on A/C while it's charging (b/c it's only displayed for like 5 seconds), I leave the car off for about 15 seconds, then turn it on again, wait about 15 more seconds, and then shut it off. It won't show that option if you power cycle too quickly.

This is something Toyota should be able to fix with a downloadable software update. Unfortunately, I think they see it more like a "recall", and unlikely to do anything about unless it causes injury or death to anybody, or results in expensive warranty repairs.

 

Apparently electricity is also expensive in Japan. It's pretty cheap here, so I'd rather "waste" a little electricity to keep the battery cool and extend its lifespan, than let it get hot.

 

Even if you set to Max A/C in Remote Climate, the car seems to cool down only to the last A/C temp setting. For example, when I had A/C temp set at 77 when I last turn off my car, Max A/C in Remote Climate only cools my car down to 77. I intentionally set the A/C temp to Lo before I turn off my car in hope that this will ensure cabin to be cooled while charging if traction battery needs cooling.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

I've never seen any signs that the traction battery cooler runs unless you say yes when you park. And even then it only runs at the beginning of the cycle. Otherwise it won't start no matter how hot the battery gets, it will just limit the charging speed.

I have a Plus so remote climate is limited. But even if you can start the AC remotely I don't think it will do much to cool the battery. When the traction battery cooler is running the battery fans go much faster than normal, and the cycle lasts about 30 minutes. During charging I don't think you'd get enough airflow through the battery to do much even if you remotely start the AC. And the cycle for cooling the cabin is shorter, probably about 10 minutes.

I don't understand why the car doesn't cool the battery with outside air if the cabin is much hotter than outside. I often leave the windows open if the traction battery cooler isn't going to run, and if it isn't going to rain, but it would still be better if the car had a way to bring in outside air on it's own.

 

The traction cooler functionality is utterly and completely pointless and useless. At the time you turn off the car, it determines if it is hot right then, and asks if you want to use the traction battery cooler at the time the timer will start the charging. Why would would one expect there to be any connection between the temperature when you shut of the car and the temperature, likely hours later, when you charge it? And it gives you about 10 seconds to activate it before irrevocably clearing the popup. I just ignore that meaningless garbage.

It is about as screwy as the separate start/end timers. Maybe the designers of the interface are too young to have ever used anything like a VCR start time/stop time feature.

EDIT: a following poster notes that that the traction battery cooling functionality actually activates after about 5 minutes, not at the scheduled charge start time. So it actually potentially does something useful.

 

I will try that next time if I miss it again.

Last night my regular charging schedule didnt kick in. My garage (as outside temperature) was quite warm not hot. I ended up turning the car on, turn on the fan+AC then power it off. Forced a charge now to get it going. An hour later went back to check which is charging but I felt the inside temperature of the car is like an oven. I didnt hear or felt the AC/Fan was running as needed. I am hoping I am not killing the traction battery life span

 

If you select "Charge Now" that doesn't let the AC run. It would be better to cancel any scheduled charge and let it charge on its own. I'm not sure if you'll need to turn the car on for 15 seconds to say yes to the message again, or if it will "remember" from when you shut off the car. I generally assume if it doesn't run 5 minutes after you plug in then it's not going to run at all, but I could be wrong.

 

To go from scheduled charge to charge now, unplug and plug in again. flashing light = scheduled charge.
Steady light = Charging now. The AC will only run with fob button, but...you must have the AC switch in
the desired position first. the car is vastly over complicated and not user friendly. The price we pay for 100 plus mpg.

 

Also, doors must be locked.

 

Never noticed that, since I always lock it.

 

The green light or blue light near the windshield?

Pressing the fob button I have tried when using a public chargepoint charger to charge now and it wont let me to pre-condition my cabin.

I am positive when not plugged in, the fob button will work.

At home tonight, while it is plugged (L1) before the schedule kicks in, I will experiment to try the fob button assuming doors are locked and AC set as desired.

I agree this car is over complicated

 

Mine is garaged, so I didn't normally lock it. However, if I try to use the remote climate from the app, it gives me a message that the doors must be locked for it to work. Also, if you choose climate prep for a scheduled charge, it does not work unless the doors are locked.

 

Mine is the Plus model. No Entune in Canada. I wish we had that to make things easier

 

When it is hot and I want to charge "now", I often will turn off the car, plug it in, wait 5 minutes, and then press and hold the A/C button on the fob. The car doors lock, the A/C comes on, and charging begins. The A/C turns off after about 10 minutes, but the charging continues to full charge. I have the Advanced with the remote charging and climate control, but it just seems easier to use the fob if I am going to be near the car anyway, like at home.

 

Pre-conditioning using the button the on the remote doesn't work until it's been parked for at least 3 minutes, or something stupid like that. It definitely doesn't need to be plugged in. I'm still not convinced it will do much to cool the battery.

The traction battery cooler starts after 5 minutes if you selected "yes" and if the battery is warm enough (sometimes it doesn't seem to run even though the message is displayed), and it doesn't seem to need the doors to be locked (I tested it). It also won't work if you select "charge now" on the screen, but it will work if there are no charge timers scheduled.

 

Thank you for the correction about the battery cooler functionality. If it actually turns on in 5 minutes, not when the scheduled charge time is hit, it actually is potentially doing something useful.

 

I don't know how it works if a charge is scheduled. If there's nothing scheduled and you choose yes then it turns on in 5 minutes. If there is a charge scheduled for later then I assume it waits until later, or maybe doesn't run at all. If I let the car sit for a while the battery is rarely hot enough that the traction battery cooler needs to run.

 

I have tried it last night. While it is plugged with my L1, the schedule is a few hours later. Doors were locked. You were right that the fob button to pre-condition will not work until a few minutes later. Once the fob's function worked, I can hear the AC/Fan running quite loud at the front of the car and I saw the blue LED near the windshield lit up and started to charge the traction battery. Experiment #1

Tonight, I will wait for the schedule to kick in and start charging, while it is in progress... will see if I can press the fob button to enable the AC/Fan. Experiment #2

Next time when I charge outside in a public station, have it plugged in, wait a few minutes and press the fob AC button.. I think it should be the same step how I did last night. In the past with a public charger, I always click the start/charge now selection. Experiment # 3

Question: While inside the cabin is cooling, how does the front AC/Fan heat cools down if the insulated garage is very warm/hot?... catch 22

 

I think the AC fob button will work in all three of your experiments.

The AC fob button is intended to cool off the cabin to make it comfortable when you get in. I don't think it cools the battery very much. The traction battery cooler is different. It runs the AC as cold as it can get for 30 minutes and runs the battery fans as fast as they can go. That is what we are having difficulty getting to run.

The AC works by moving heat. So if you run it to cool off the car in an insulated garage, it will make the garage warmer. If you leave it for an hour or two the temperature in the car will eventually equalize with the temperature in the garage. And if it's theoretically perfectly insulated it will be warmer than when you started since you added heat by running the AC compressor for a while. If it's not perfectly insulated it might add heat to your house, which might not be desirable on a hot day.

As the garage gets warmer, the AC will keep working but it will have to work harder. At some point it will reach an equilibrium where the amount of heat flowing back into the car balances the amount the AC can take out, but I think it would have to run for a long time and get quite cold in the car or quite hot in the garage before it reaches equilibrium.