Charge or Not to Charge?

Cold days are fine. As long as it isn't like -40F/C out which I believe the owners manual states. -22F (-30C) is probably the safe cutoff.


Unsupervised!

 

you don't have to worry about the gas, the engine runs every 200 miles. if you go 6 months without refueling, okay, start worrying.

 

You just want to avoid baking hot, that's all.

 

So...for those of us who don't have a garage but live in a state (Maryland) where it can get brutally hot in the summer, what would be your charging strategy? I'm thinking of charge nightly, starting at say, 2 am for the next work day but not charging on weekends if I'm not going out early. I'm planning to get a prime soon and will deplete most of the battery on my morning commute of 20 miles. While I have garage parking at work, I won't be charging there because I refuse to pay the high fee. I won't mind only using gas one way!

 

Don't forget you can precool the car before or after charging. If you are going to charge your car during a hot day, also consider charging it with the windows rolled down and, hopefully, in the shade. Sometimes my garage is hotter in the summer than outside, so with a 25ft cord on my EVSE I'm not above charging my car outside. You might even consider charging it a little bit early Saturday morning for an hour and use that to precool the car before you charge it to use.


Unsupervised!

 

Sounds like a perfect plan.

 

i would charge my car outside in the hot sun and not think twice about it. but i wouldn't let it sit there full all day.

 

Thanks for the replies. This idea of having a fully charged battery on a hot day and not using it sounds a little scary. I suppose I'll need to pay closer attention to the weather before I plug it in!

 

The early Leafs that had capacity loss from heat were mostly in Arizona or similarly hot state, and kept fully charged in the garage. The passive cooling system use may have worked better outside.

Your plan is fine, the car will get great gas economy if it happens not to be charged, but the Prime isn't a BEV. Hybrid batteries count as part of the emission system, so they are covered under a federally mandated warranty of 8yr/100k miles, which can be better in a CARB state. As a PHEV, the Prime is going to have more buffer capacity in the battery than a BEV could to reduce the risk of needing replacement under that warranty. So the risk of sitting fully charged in the heat is lower than it was for those early Leafs, and I wouldn't be worried about it.