Who wants A/C while charging?

Just curious- how big of a charger do you need to get that A/C while charging?

Generally speaking, a car air conditioner can demand more raw power than a 120V 20A circuit can deliver, so there would be nothing left to put into the battery, assuming that is how you are plugging in.

I didn't think a Prius was set up to handle more than a 240V 16A feed, and even that amount of supply would lead to fairly slow charging while also running AC.

The Tesla allows for higher voltage charging, so I guess it's just a question of making sure you are at one of those high voltage chargers when you want to charge & chill at the same time.

Anyone know the real performance limits on it?

 

The AC compressor works directly of the HV battery in de Prius and it is a surprisingly efficient unit.
Even with a non plugin version you can run the AC for quite some time when "idling" with the ICE off.

 

When I turn on remote climate, even on the max-AC setting, it still charges. Yes, more slowly, but it does still charge. The Prius’ AC is pretty darned efficient, from what I’ve seen! The fact that it has a very small space to cool helps too.

 

Well, I don't want or need A/C while charging my Prius PRIME. I never charge my PRIME on the road. No need to have A/C running while charging at home at night. Prius PRIME is a PHEV, not a BEV. I use a gas pump for anything beyond ~25 miles of EV range. Waiting a minimum of 2 hours in a car to just gain ~25 miles of EV range is never on my travel itinerary.

 

Remote climate/ pre-conditioning limits the power output of the AC system. It's briefly mentioned in the manual. So max AC on remote climate is not as effective as max AC in ready mode.

Depending on how hot it is, the AC can use between 500W to almost 3kW. In heating mode it sometimes uses more.

The traction battery cooler blasts the AC for 30 minutes. I don't think the power output is limited in that case. Most of the power comes from the battery, not from the charger, based on chargepoint graphs I've observed while it's running. The charging power drops to almost zero while the AC is working hardest. When I've let it run I usually only gain about 4% charge at a L2 charger in that 30 minutes. I've sat in the car while it's running, and it gets almost uncomfortably cold, so AC while charging just to keep the driver comfortable wouldn't need quite as much power.

 

I'll bet living much closer to the Arctic Circle than most - helps with not needing AC too ...

On a serious note, commercial Chargers (mostly powered from 2 legs of 3 phase) often only deliver 205 volts. Thus, you are already going to kiss off 15% of your charge time right there. Now if you get into a nice hot car in many Southern US states, the car will have to run hardest to get that substantial amount of cooling needed to unbake that 150° inside cabin temperature. Even a very efficient heat pump is still going to need around 1.2 KW when it's working hard. So what wirh an on-board charger that can only deliver 3 KW (when you factor in loss between the nozzle, conversion to DC, then re converting to usable AC) and between those 2 charge rate downsides, you just increased your wait time by probably 40% - 45%.
Using AC while charging on a car that charges slow? Show some mercy to that poor slob waiting behind you - for that 1 & only - stand alone charger already!

On a Tesla, even on a hot day, using 3kW for AC, while picking up a quick 150 miles of range at a Supercharger, might only be ½ of 1% of its allocation for charge time. Having had 2 Tesla's that both had free supercharging, I did notice a significant drop off in user's charge times, once free charging went away. After all, getting near the top, and you're only charging at 10kW, or less you just increased that last threshold by nearly 30% wait time. You wouldn't think that the extra AC cost versus getting out of the car would be a big deal, but it was noticeable .... whether it was because of longer charge times, or the extra deinimus cost.
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'don't think they get the idea of a bev at all'

they don't, obviously, since prime is not one. you are ripe for a tesla

 

Yea 60 amp is the highest I know of.
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The phase count and the service amperage aren't related in that sense.

Think about it: most recently built homes have 200 amp single (technically split) phase service.

Some (mine for example) include a 50 amp feed to a subpanel in another part of the house. I'm not magically making 3-phase out of single to do this.

 

I'm surprised you don't enjoy sitting in a metal box in direct sunshine on a balmy 108°F day while you're charging they way I do. It's even better when you have to decide between rolling down the windows for some ventilation and baking in direct sun, or rolling them up to get a little infrared shielding and bake in the new oven you just created.

All I can figure is Japan doesn't get that hot. The southern tip of Japan has a usual day time high of 90°F in August. They'd probably melt in Needles or Blythe with their not-unusual 122°F days.

 

i know i would