Cold weather video review of Prius Plug-In

Cold? He didn't say where he was but there was California plates on the car. Up here in Canada we've got -20 Celcius and 8 inches of snow on the ground. Test it out here and tell me it's cold. I think the guy might have been half joking about it being really cold....???? He really didn't say much other than the EV range dropped. Which is no surprise.

 

Northern CA gets plenty cold but it did not look like it was there?

 

CA plates but it could have been in Siberia for all we know.

What I do suspect is it's no cooler than much of the north eastern US. 6 miles is egregious. This plug-in range is going to be seriously shameful unless the price premium for plug-in is very, very small (and it likely won't be). 13 miles is weak as it is, but many of us spend months of the year in cold weather.

It really makes me wonder if there is a truly a meaningful future in plug-in hybrids. Combining a complete internal combustion system with enough battery capacity to have a meaningful range is really difficult to do cheaply.

 

Doesn't the PHV keep the batteries warm when plugged in? At the very least, charging will warm them, and the climate control can be programmed to have the car warm for you, which will warm the batteries as well. However, I could still see people driving a mile or three, parking all day until the battery is cold and unhappy, and then driving a bunch more.

 

He stated that the car was warmed up while plugged in, so 6 miles is the best case in cold weather apparently. There is a reason all these EV and PHEV cars are first being sold in mostly milder climates!

 

I'm waiting until one of the forum members gets a chance at testing the plug in in the cold. The clip didn't show what the temperature was, he advised his EV mileage was down to 6 miles instead of 12/14 miles but he didn't advise if he left the car stood warming up. Am I correct in believing that the plug-in Prius heats the cabin with an electrical heater? If it does, then being stood for 10 minutes warming the cabin up will obviously eat the range. Now if you just jumped in and set off and let the car warm up as you drove, or had an engine block heater, would you get better EV range?

It was an interesting article but sadly lacking in so many ways - I have more questions than he answered!

 

If it uses an electric heater does it still use that when the ICE is running? Because ICEs give free cabin heat, it would be an awful shame if this thing used electric just so that it could have a warm cabin on electric if that meant the rest of the time the ICE is no longer heating it.

 

I dropped the suggestion about getting an opportunity for PHV driving during the dead of winter here. (It's -1°F here at the moment.) When I had one in the summer, it was winter operation that got asked about far more than anything else.

Since I jump on the highway just a few blocks from my home for my commute, warmth from the engine will be readily available. So, I'd see less of an electric heater impact. There may end up being a lower threshold available too, like how the coolant temperature cutoff is different in ECO than it is in PWR.

The purpose still holds, regardless of cold. The general expectation is a boost of about 25 MPG. And being able to leave home with the car preheated using electricity sure will be nice.
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Amen!

 

While he mentioned the cabin heating while plugged in, it is still important to remember batteries are not going to warm up as fast as the cabin. The batteries are dense as in high specific gravity and are going to take a long time to warm up just from cabin heat. Recharging now that twill warm them up a lot faster.

So if you charge overnight say and then only warm the cabin first thing before you leave in the mourning the batteries will have cooled off again once they are fully charged. The other option is to put the charging on a timer so they don't start charging till early mourning, and time it so they are just finishing the charge about the time you want to unplug and leave for work.

Since the batteries are in the cabin there is a benefit to heating the cabin , but don't forget the batteries are on the floor and thus have one side facing the bottom of the car where it will still be colder than the heated cabin.

If the Prius EV range dropped like that from cold imagine what the Volt will loose in EV (over 50% like the Prius did wow) range under similar cold conditions and if you live in the north east like i do possibly colder than the video. We are running in the mid teens most every mourning now already 12/18/10 and have been for almost two weeks.

Then there is the Leaf too?

 

Actually, a lot of the people that are driving the Volt in cold climate areas are reporting EV range from low to mid 20's! So almost half the 40 mile range GM is still insisting "most" will see!

 

Does anyone know if the Prius PHV (or Leaf ... or Volt) have (external) electric battery heaters?

 

I totally agree with you but i liked that video.

 

Another cold weather review

Toyota Plug-In Prius prototype: Cold-testing Toyota's socket-ready hybrid - National auto review | Examiner.com

Does anybody know if you turn the heater off, if you can go all electric in cold climate in a short trip(5miles)

 

The Toyota Plug-In Prius wasn't, one might assume, on Toyota's original to-do list. The Toyota Prius wasn't really designed for it. But when the Prius faithful kept making homebuilt conversions, well, what was Toyota to do?

Spin like that is getting old already. All along, it's been a "wait for a better battery" situation. The design has clearly supported it since the very beginning. Confirming the EV spin is easy too, just look for quotes like this one...

The current 2010 Toyota Prius II can operate completely on electric power up to about 23 miles per hour

As owners, we know quite well that the currently top electric-only speed is actually 46 MPH.

Question is, do misrepresentations like that matter? When a consumer reads those articles, what is their take on the plug-in model?
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The leaf stacks the deck in cold weather by using it's plug in status to electrically pre-warm the car. That's great for pre-planned trips and that may be the case much of the time. That being said, I'm sure Toyota can follow the same logic. Electrically pre-warm. How hard can that be for them to do?

 

They already offer pre-cool via the plug. Supposedly, there's a pre-warm too... but testing that in August wasn't possible.

You just press the button on the FOB (same as the current solar package) and it comes to life like a remote start but uses external electricity directly rather than the battery-pack.
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I'd almost not want to see a pre-warm of batteries. Prewarming the cabin is kind of a nice selling feature but I guarantee if you start talking to customers in a showroom about pre-warming the batteries for better mileage they're going to run for the exit as soon as they possibly can. Caveat its mileage to kingdom come and people will start to see it as a bit of a joke.