Can I use A/C when charging?

Check out what Scott did for the pacifica hybrid:
PacControl | 2017+ Chrysler Pacifica “camper mode”

 

Clever idea! Late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning I was driving long distance and needed to rest, so I found a charging station and plugged in.

From within the car (with the doors locked, it won't work otherwise), I pressed the "Auto A/C" button on the remote which ran the electric heat pump for 10 minutes.

After a while the cold woke me up, so I pressed the "Auto A/C" button again which took some of the chill off, allowing me to fall back to sleep.

This process repeated itself over the course of a few hours as the battery charged.

So, the Rasperry Pi idea would solve the sleeping in the car with climate control part of the problem (and, I happen to have a Raspberry Pi and an extra key fob!)

The other part of the problem is how to be productive while charging. For example, if I stop to charge during the day I would want to break out the laptop and make calls from the car using the hands-free. Currently, Toyota bans me from doing this.

I encourage all Toyota plug-in hybrid owners to call Toyota of North America Customer Service (800-331-4331) and tell them you want to be able to keep the ignition on while charging, just like owners of gasoline engine cars are permitted to do while fueling up.

 

Thanks for the tips... will experiment with the remote, door lock and settings suggestions.

I had the same problem last night at 3am in freezing weather in an airport cellular pickup lot waiting to pick up a friend who's plane was over two hours late. To complicate things, didn't have a warm enough coat nor gloves and found that the prius looses heat rapidly.

The early morning turned into a freezing pita.

Then, the prius threw another curve which I found out after going though multiple unwanted automatic shutdowns during the two hours in the lot.

When the audio system powered down, the bluetooth cellphone connection would stay alive long enough so that when my friend finally arrived and texted me, the text ringtone went to the dead prius audio system which added another ten min to my friend's already horrendus day.

Beverly Howard

 

I’m sure there is a legal reason to prevent a/c use while charging, but I mean, really? It is dumb. If a full 230V charge can take up to 3 hours then waiting in the car with climate control should be an option. Is anybody at Toyota listening?

 

The assumption is that you won't be in the car while it is charging.
On a charger that isn't free, you are going to pay for running the A/C at those high rates.

 

I really don't get why anyone would sit in a car for 2+ hours to wait for PRIME to be charged up just to gain mere ~25 miles of EV range. It is a PHEV, it can run without charging. EV range you gain is less than $2 of gas cost. Yeah, If you have some business where you have a charger available while you are doing other things, like shopping or dining at a restaurant, then charging while away from the car is fine.

On the other hand, if you have to park your car and wait for more than 2 hours for a friend to arrive, the best solution is to kee the car in READY mode, so that you have the climate control and all the other functionality available for you. Yes, the car will run the engine once the traction battery gets low, but so what. It is still far better than freezing while waiting in a car.

 

On long road trips I have the habit of stopping and sleeping in the car when exhaustion overcomes me. During those times I like for the climate control to run off the traction battery (silent operation) and not the engine. When the battery is low the engine will fire up which can wake me up. Therefore, plugging in and charging while sleeping is a no-brained for me.

 

Would other BEVs like Tesla, Leaf, Bolt, etc, let you do that? AFAIK, sleeping in a car that is akin to camping in a car is certainly not the normal use Toyota would agree to support. You are free to ask Toyota to accommodate such use, but I highly doubt they will go along.

 

Personal cars aren't designed to be slept in. Many of the rest stops on the way to my parents don't allow overnight parking.

 

Napping in the car is perfectly acceptable and the notion that anyone would even have an opinion about how anyone else uses his or her car is alien to me. Toyota, similarly, should not have an opinion one way or another. If there are legitimate safety reasons to prevent the a/c to run for longer than 10 minutes while charging then that could be the reason to limit the time, but I am not aware of any safety reasons. Just people’s odd distaste for anyone who would nap in the car in order to get where they are going.

 

You are free to use your car any way you please, but that does not mean Toyota needs to support your use of the vehicle. I just think the car is designed to be energy-efficient and it makes every effort to conserve the use of the battery, thus auto shut off function if the car is not in READY mode. Certainly preventing the car to go to READY mode while being plugged is a designed safety feature.

 

Not judging, just saying cars aren't designed to be domiciles.
When not in Ready mode, the Prius disconnects the traction battery for safety reasons. The 12 volt battery is not enough to run the A/C.

 

Just to add a bit of spice to this conversation (and hopefully a solution down the road) I too have noticed to much disappointment that you can’t run the car with ignition on while charging without it auto shutting off after a minute or two (and preventing users from using climate control while plugged in I stead of draining battery...).
BUT... the car DOES allow you to do it when it’s fully charged. So once you’re plugged in and the battery reaches full charge, then you can put the car into ignition on and it’ll stay there I definitely. Of course it doesn’t go all the way to “READY” but just to ignition on giving you full access to all of the cars systems (and for safety, because you’re plugged in and the system won’t go to ready, it won’t let you go into anything from P just to make sure you don’t accidentally drive away. So the system IS smart that way, and so I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t also allow this when partly charged during a charging session. The auto shut off seems completely useless if it is disabled when the battery is full (and since you cannot out the car I to drive no matter what...)
So if I can sit in a fully charged car, plugged in and enjoying my climate control (and even my seat warmers... hey it’s COLD where I live...) in a responsible manner without idling an engine, there should be no reason why I can’t also do it during the charging process... Toyota pls take note and fix... (and in the meantime, I’d like some input from some of you more intelligent than I folks on some insight why this might be and how to get rid of or disable it...

 

I think the car on Ignition ON mode still drains the 12v battery and will automatically shut off after a certain time albeit longer than for the ACC mode. If you overuse this feature, you will risk having a dead 12v battery and soon will be sweating not being able to start the car into READY mode. See the pertinent section of the manual on this topic below.

 

I always understood that relevant section to mean when you’re using your own “juice”. If you do it plugged in, with juice from the external source, the battery seems to be (I don’t know for sure) bypassed? Or maybe recharged? I’m no expert and my methods aren’t entirely scientific but when the reading light is used even in on mode, just like in accessory you’re draining from the 12V battery for sure. But as soon as the charger is plugged in, and you get external power, suddenly there is a perceived distinctly significant increase in brightness (and I’m guessing in voltage, causing the increased brightness) to the dome light (and in a very unscientific way it always feels very reassuring when that happens, almost like going from a brownout back to normal power level. I find it hard to think that I would get that if it were JUST running off of and draining the 12V...

 

While you are plugged in and charging the traction battery, there is a nominal amount of change happening from the traction battery to the 12v battery under the hood via a DC-DC converter. If you care to dig for this information from this long thread, you will find somewhat-scientific proof for this statement. 12v Battery Is Discharging, Re-Charge Now ! | PriusChat

The charge is not robust, and it is only meant to sustain the 12v battery at an operational level and it will not fully charge it. And this trickle charge only occurs while the traction battery is actively being charged. So, after the traction battery charge is completed, the 12v battery will not gain any charge even if the charging cable remains attached to a power source. I presume that the surge of power you were seeing on your reading light during charging while on Ignition ON mode is due to this trickle charge feature.

As far as I know, the A/C function does not run from the wall power even if the charging cable is connected. I think the traction battery is always supplying the power for it and if it is plugged in and A/C is used as in the case of climate pre-conditioning, the used charge from the traction battery may be topped off from the wall if the time allows. I have never tried using Ignition-ON mode while the charging cable is attached and the traction battery is actively being charged, but my guess is that it will still auto shut off after an hour as the manual says. Or, have you tried it and be able to use it indefinitely beyond this time limit?

 

Confirmed. When I use the remote to turn on the A/C while the car is plugged in (charging or not, as I recall) my wall meter goes to 0.58 A. Not even close to the power required by the air conditioner. When the A/C stops, the wall meter goes back to 16A. (It's a level 2 charger.) And it seriously lengthens the time required for charging.

 

No. I have to admit, I never lasted an hour... doubt about the 12V battery’s limited “juice” made me reluctant to try for that long...

 

Here is how you may allow the battery/Prius to turn on the AC itself rather than you having to hold the fob's AC button every ten mins.
Before reading how to do it, please read my disclaimer below:

Do I recommend staying in the Prius while it is charging? NO! For one the battery is blowing around its' exhaust and who really knows what chemicals you could be inhaling and what form of cancer that could give you. Secondly, DO NOT TAKE NAPS WHILE CHARGING!! I MEAN IT. If the car begins to melt something even the plastic rear seat bench you could suffocate from carbon monoxide inhalation. THE BATTERY IS EXHALING AND INHALING INTO AND OUT OF THE CABIN; HOW SAFE IS THIS REALLY?

1. Place car in park
2. Turn off Prius and make sure to click the prompt if it asks permitting it to turn on the AC while charging
3. Plug car in L2 charger
4. Roll up windows
5. Lock the doors
6. Wait about 3-6 mins and the Prius will automatically turn on the AC to the lowest setting on the highest fan blowing speed.

Bring a towel and a blanket! Not kidding you will both. Towel is for wiping your grossness off while sweating bricks, then the blanket is to keep you warn during Prius Arctic Winter Era.

Some things to take note of:

• Prius only prompts you after turning the car off if it may use the AC while charging so make sure to pay attention to the pop up
• Prius is in control and will cut off the AC when it feels the car is cool enough.
• Prius cut off the AC after 27 mins (I was freezing so thank goodness)
• If you press the start button or open any door you will not be able to restart the auto AC
  • Meaning PP will not start AC again because it needs you to first click [YES] to the prompt allowing AC while charging
  • To get the vehicle to auto start AC again follow the following steps:
    • Unplug charger
    • Turn car on drive forwards a bit then back and shut off Prius and click yes to allow AC while charging

 

The battery vents to outside.