Prime Warm Up Cycle Long?

I have never driven Gen4 so I can't compare it, but comparing to Gen3 I had previously, I can't say I noticed much difference in behavior of warm up cycle on my PRIME. On a hot summer day, the warm up cycle is complete in less than a minute, but on a very cold winter day it can take up to 5 min to complete it. The way I drive also affect the speed of the warm up cycle. If I really push the pedal fast, I can get through the warm up cycle quicker, but it will use more gas AND traction battery.

 

I drive a gen 2 and the warmup cycle occurs on each power up. From this I take away that the prius prime does the warm up on each start up? Is that right? If you can make it to work lets say on all electric, is there a way to not do the warmup cycle and leave the engine off on pressing start? Hoping to upgrade from my gen 2 to a prime in a couple years

 

NO. PriusPrime having a larger traction battery than regular Prius, if the battery has enough charge left to run on EV mode, then upon start-up it will automatically go into EV mode. The warm-up of the engine will not start until the EV range is depleted or manually switched to HV mode. Until then the engine is usually off. I say usually because there are some circumstances that the engine will start up even though there is SoC left in the traction battery, such as the use of defroster, or heat at low temp 14F or below, or other reasons.

 

Okay that is what i was looking for, thank you! So, lets say you have enough charge on EV mode and it doesnt do the warm up cycle upon startup, but your drive is longer than EV range. will it do a warm up in between the transfer from EV to HV mode, so it doesnt just demand lots of power from a cold engine? Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I want to understand it more

 

I've found that turning on the windshield defroster or creating the need for more power (accelerating. steep hill, etc) will cause the ICE to engage.

 

It has enough reserve amount of traction battery SoC left when the EV range depletes, so when the engine kicks in after reaching EV range depletion, the car goes thru the warm-up cycle while still driving mainly on EV mode using the traction battery. However, the car indicator will show no "EV" during this time. For most driving conditions, you do not have to worry about this transition, and switching over is very smooth. But if you are on the highway say going 70mph on EV mode and know you are going to deplete EV range, many of us try to "warm-up" the engine before going on to the highway by manually switching the EV mode to HV mode at a lower speed.

 

okay that makes sense and happy to hear its a smooth transition. overall sounds like another great prius

 

Never driven Gen2 Prius, but from Gen3 Prius, the PP is leaps and bounds better car. And at the time I purchased PP, was cheaper than Gen3 base trim I was driving. But if you are thinking of switching in a couple of years, there will be Gen5 Prius and Prius Prime that may be even better, I hope.

 

i do love my gen 2 but sometimes the engine kicking on mid driving or during the warmup cycles will be a little wild. only got 85k miles tho so it should last until those priuses come out that you mentioned

 

Now that Winter is here again, I am getting experienced in warmup cycles. I have noticed the following:

1. In warm weather, the engine will run a short warmup cycle
2. In cold weather, if first is triggered, the ICE will stay on after this warmup cycle until it reaches operating temperature
3. In cold weather, if using cabin heat, the ICE will stay on until it is able to provide that

All of these steps can be expedited by demanding more power from the engine. I try to be gentle with the accelerator for the first minute or so. Sometimes I put it in CHG mode (if moving slowly or stationary) to get up to temperature faster, though I am unsure how much this helps.

I also felt my previous gen2 was quicker with the initial cycle, but then again it didn't start out in EV mode.

 

I’ve done this a couple of times and yes CHG mode helps on the rare occasion when I’m out or almost out of EV. The engine has to dump its heat somewhere and when its really cold, CHG mode warms up the cabin heat faster as well as making the heat pump work better when I snapped it back into EV mode.


iPad ? Pro

 

These days, my Prime's ICE starts when the traction battery indicated charge is around 10 to 7% mark. It WILL start when i click on Defrost and it WILL start when really cold outside!

 

I have similar related questions here:
Prime (2021) warm-up while driving