I saw in another thread that EV mode will not work if the outside temp is 14F or below (-10 Celcius). Well it's colder than that for months here in Canada on the prairies. Should I still buy a PIP? It'll do great for most of the year but it's a little disappointing that I can't use EV at all if the temp gets too low.
If the pack is cold, you don't want to be using the battery. This is true of all electronics. Letting you shoot your foot off is not wise in a consumer appliance. If you are plugging it in, you should have a garage or something. Doubtful it will be that cold in the garage. For 75% of the year you get an electric vehicle. For the other 25% when you will be running your heater, you will get a gas powered hybrid with better fuel economy then anything else out there.
Well at home it will be in my heated garage in the winter. I usually keep it around +5 Celcius (40F). So in reality I probably will get some EV mode as soon as I leave until the car cools down when I'm out and about.
The car wont cool down that much as you drive around. The battery is in the cabin so unless you are driving with the cabin at -10C, it will be fine. Moving a car takes a lot of power, and the inefficiencies are made as heat. The pack will have little trouble staying warm.
Well you do have to ask whether the PIP is the car for you, in the same way a Ferrari would be no use if you lived in an area with unpaved roads etc.
Li-Ion draw is less in the cold, so you won't get the full EV... but you'll still get the benefit of having a plug. Also, don't forget that the act of recharging warms the battery. For me in Minnesota, leaving my insulated (but not heated) garage right after unplugging will provide a substantial MPG experience for the commute to work. Whether or not I plug in there after a sitting all those hours in the frozen lot is the unanswered question. That may not yield the results I desire. In fact, we know that the recharge speed is slower in the cold too. Then of course, there's the motivation for the act of walking out to plug in. 5 months from know, we'll have the answer. In the meantime, since it's really hot & humid at the moment, I can tell you to "chill".
John, I too am in the true winter weather zone in SE Wisconsin. But on average you are typically colder than us. It was something I thought of before the purchase but as my wife, who uses it to go to work, is only 1.8 miles away, we will still get the EV advantage. But time will certainly tell the story. We will need to compare notes in the coming months. Right now we are having record hot temperatures but something is telling me there is a good chance that winters are going to be much milder than we have typically known because of global warming. This could have a positive effect on our Plug-ins. By the way, we have 1068 miles on the odometer and we have only gone to the gas station once so far. Unreal. As Paul Harvey used to say, "and that's the rest of the story." That is what we will be saying this coming winter too. Cheers
