Hello, I have a new PIP and a question I could not find by searching. I live in AZ and even in the middle of the night my garage is 100+ degrees. Is it safe (no long term issues) to charge in high temp with the level 1 cord? How about charging outside with a level 2 in 100-120 degrees?
Although, Toyota is renown for testing their vehicles in harsh climates, therefore I'm sure their recommendations for temperature limits are set within a wide margin of safety.
If an alternative is available, better safe than sorry, outdoors, charge in the shade if possible. Less heat and cool cycles will definitely increase the life of the battery. Significantly? Cant be sure.
Take it easy man. It was a mere suggestion about charging outdoors because direct sunlight is treeing the like a big oven and in the shade, its not. Also just thought of something, the battery shouldn't get any hotter than what it would get when operating.
The only real alternative I see is not using it as a PIP in the summer months just as normal hybrid. The real question is it a necessary move. After having the heat kill the pack in my Civic hybrid and putting my insight n the edge I have been pretty strict in only parking my cars in shade / garage and ensuring the AC is on and aimed at the intake vent for the battery, But grid charging is a new element to me,
I was making fun of the spelling mistake: "definitely" went through as "defiantly." I'd blame the auto-correct.
Heat might have been a factor in killing Civic Hybrid batteries, but I suspect overzealous Honda engineers were the main culprit. Regarding AC use, here's a sentence in Honda's Aug 2010 recall notice: Frequent stop-and-go driving with A/C use during warm weather speeds up the IMA battery deterioration.
I would do anything I could think of to cool the car / pack off some as it charges. There must be a reason why they are not selling in AZ so far. extreme heat and cold have much the same effect on the pack. And if you run a/c continuously while charging at those outside temps, from what I've noticed it would probably take 4 hours to fully charge the pack using a 240v and it might net ever finish using the 120v
I don't think Honda ever approached hybrids as anything other than a compliance tool, and they certainly didn't respect the early Civic Hybrid owners when the batteries started dying (not just in hot climes). That's why when I was looking at a Plug-In, I considered the Accord PiH, but couldn't get over how shabbily Honda treated previous generations of hybrid owners.
