Auto Stop Start in non hybrid

Or, in the case of a Prime, from the wall outlet.

 

And we all know how expensive AC is to run at home in the summer from the wall outlet.

 

This somewhat depends on the efficiency of your home A/C and insulation of your house. My home A/C is not particularly expensive, but that's not indicative of all installations.

I do find that the electric A/C in the Prime is very efficient. According to the numbers from Hybrid Assistant, it is less than 1 Kw at full load. About 1 HP, and at cruising speed of 60 mph the Prime probably needs 10 times that for propulsion alone. And once the cabin cools, the A/C is not operating at full load.

Edit - I looked at some Hybrid Assistant outputs, and at 60 mph with the A/C on, it looks like 20 Kw is the average load when the engine is running (there is quite a bit of data scatter). So, 1 Kw is 5% of the total load, and once the engine reaches its sweet spot of low 2000 RPM range, it is pretty efficient. The graph below was from a 70 mph run across Iowa showing the efficiency vs. RPM.

Just a bit of data, but it's indicative of efficiency.

 

It’s simple physics it takes energy to move energy we will always have inefficiencies of friction and compression in the larger the differences the larger the energy consumption will be. In a electric car with electric compressor the energy consumed to lower the temperature of the cabin to cool off the HV battery is much less than allowing the cabin to get hot on a 90° or hundred and plus degree day trying to charge and discharge the HV battery the losses are much greater.
As for heating your vehicle or your home in winter time when it’s 30° outside there’s a lot more potential heat energy in one cubic foot of air to give you the same BTUs of heat output it’s five times more efficient than using a electric heater element.

When testing the efficiency of an air conditioning system and to get accurate true test results the system Hass to be in perfect working order and on vehicles they have a slow but continuous natural refrigerant leak rate through the hoses and all the seals each year
The mode of operation the logic controlling a variable electric compressor when the system is just 2 to 4 ounces low on refrigerant on a hot day with a sun heat load on the interior with the thermostat turned down and there’s not enough refrigerant to satisfied the set point the logic reacts by spinning up the compressor faster and consume the more power to try to satisfy the set point that’s consuming more energy and it will never get there because The refrigerant is a few ounces low. All electric or hybrid vehicles with electric compressors take a great hit on their mpg if they’re running just a few ounces low on refrigerant. Not to mention cycling their HV battery more often taking a hit on longevity

 

Actually the difference between black and white is a huge difference if both vehicles were sitting in a parking lot exposed to the sun somewhere between 11 AM to 2 PM with clear skies you’ve probably noticed the white cars interior On a 70° day after 82 to 3 hour sun soak you read a temperature somewhere around 90 to110°. At the same time the black vehicle with black interior you’ll be reading somewhere just below 130+.

Couple years ago I made some videos on this never thought about YouTube or something I should’ve released have to remake that again and this time actually release it on YouTube so people can see how much of a difference color makes.
Having the black Dash below the windshield reaching a temperature of 147° that is a solid mass of plastic. You have to realize for every pound of material whether it be glass plastic vinyl or leather as you heat all this material in your vehicle it will absorb all the cold air coming out of your ducts and will have to be cold first before the interior of your cabin starts to cool down. Think of it as a very large extremely efficient sponge that just a little of the sponge material soaks up a lot of water like those super crystals in baby diapers.
It takes time and energy to remove that heat. Take a sewing pin and heated up to 2000° glowing red. Now take the same steel the pin is made out of the size of a construction brick and heat it up to 500°. Now place both of them in front of the cold air ducts of your air-conditioning. In 30 seconds you were given the choice that you have to tightly grab one of them and hold onto it without letting go. Which one will you choose.

 

That was good. Too bad their sun shade sucked LOL. HVAC TECHs use our duct wrap. It’s a aluminum material specifically to reflect infrared with a R8 bubble insulation rating. You trace an outline holding it over the outside of your windshield and then cut it out to match. When you inserted inside your vehicle you tuck it up in all the corners so any hot air that does develop on the inside of the windshield there is no flu affect. (Flu affect ) as the air heats up it rises sucking air in from down below and pushing hot air up into the cabin area continuously completing this cycle would add much more heat then if it was sealed off at all corners . It works so much better than anything that is sold to the general public on the retail level. And for HVAC TECHs it’s just a waste product left over at the end of a job of insulating air ducts.
But everybody who’s had fifth grade science would know this it was covered in class along with doing temperature tests on different colors and explaining the physics behind it

 

I find that the beige interior on my 06 Insight stays the coolest of any car interior I've been in - with no window tint. Cloth + a lighter colors helps keep the heat out. The Prius has dark gray leather, and get the hottest of any car interior I've been in.

Keeping the windows cracked is the best bet for keeping heat out.

 

I've had black, cream and tan upholsteries - I've noticed no difference in temperature inside as long as the windows are tinted and a cover like in the YouTube on the front window. The old vinyl felt hottest, leather a little better - but cloth, no matter the colour much the same.

 

True on that!

IIRC both the Prius and the Insight are supposed to have some sort of invisible window treatment to help reject the heat - but I haven't noticed a difference. The beige leather on our old Sienna trapped heat about the same as the gray cloth on my old civic; both were somewhere in between the Insight and the Prius.

So far the Insight is the only vehicle I've been in where I can get in the car on a hot summer day and not be instantly baking - warm, yes, but not unlivable until the wind / fan cool the car down.

 

Cloth you can’t feel the difference with your hand because it does not conduct heat through touch black metal or glass or hard dense plastic.

If you want to help heat the house in Winter you change your curtains to black as the sun hits them they will create heat and a convection as the air rises it makes a flu effect like a chimney continuously pulling air that is cooler off the bottom of the floor and raising up along the hot black material heating your room this is white people who have dark curtains in the summertime complain about a hot house and it’s because they have dark curtains .

Take the same house and change the curtains to bright white can you lose all that extra heating .

 

On the former Gen 4 US Trims, only 2 Eco & up has the coating. 1 & 2 do not
I also notice it appears the coated windows have more cracking complaints here. My Trim 2 was in a windy hailstorm that blew the car sideways across the road and the windshield survived with just some small dents around the trim.

 

Yes, I did that in my last house - it had white "blackout" curtain liners on the north (we're southern hemisphere), but darker curtains, so I'd pull them aside to allow the winter sun to hit and warm the darker curtains in winter. In summer, the sun is more overhead, but I'd leave the white liners closed on windows which had the sun hitting it.

The present house has large verandahs over the north and south of the building, and a carport on most of the eastern side - which provide shade to most windows.

Where I am, I spend more effort on keeping cool than warm - winter heating bill is almost nil. I'm considering replacing my roof - and it will be with a light-coloured roof for the same reason.

 

Use peroxide boiled wood shingles*. Those actually shed heat and cool structures.

*not available
Stronger than aluminum, a heavily altered wood cools passively | Ars Technica