Florida - battery efficiency in the heat

Humidity - it's not going to notice (you will, though).

 

not much drop in efficiency, but lower mpg's with more a/c. the biggest issue with warm climates is heat soak in a parked car. shorter battery life, and if it is really bad, you'll notice battery protection kick in and reduced power, but it is pretty rare, and more likely with older, weaker batteries.

 

No. Not unless the battery cooling system is not working right.
OR unless it is just mostly a coincidence.
Approaching 9 years old and 100K miles, there is always a chance.

 

SouthWest Florida Owner here - I try to keep mine parked in the garage. As far as the humidity goes, try to dry out the evaporator after running the AC for the last mile of the trip before leaving the car sit for the night. I second the heat soaked car...after coming out of the car from work, it kills MPG until the car cools off.

 

Welcome to the armpit of North America.

I don't think the heat will be much of a problem for your battery as long as you son't leave it parked in the sun all the time. If it is in the sun, use at lease a windshield shade. A shade in the back will add to the protection.

 

Or at least a steering wheel cover - no matter what they're made of, they don't like heat/sun. But a screen shade would be better if you can.

 

Just wanted to throw this out there.... Florida doesn't really get crazy hot. It only feels "miserable" because of the rediculous humidity... And this does not effect non living things like batteries.
If heat caused problems with Priuses in Florida, every Prius in Arizona, California, and other very hot, but dry states, would die before those in Florida.

Btw, we have had a bunch of 100-113 degree days here on Sacramento already this year, but with a little shade and a cold drink, no problems Heat is easy to escape. Humidity is not.

 

Absolutely true. The other day, our reall temperature was only about 90F but the "feels like" was about 104. But ...
While FL doesn't get as hot as some other states (Shoot, it's been way hotter in Iowa!!) it's hot for a large part of the year and it is hot enough to be hard on batteries according to all the maps I've seen that show battery life by region. Here's one example.


In spite of the map's dire prediction, my batteries always seem to last at least four years, usually considerably longer.

 

Yep - cars still feel that it's 40°C. As does your house A/C.

But plants are the opposite - the grass says under it's breath - I'm sure I've heard it!! - "wow, some humidity, which I love, makes me grow, and I love to make him mow!!!"

 

We're in twice a week season here.

 

I'm in Saudi Arabia!! Where average noon temp in summer period is in the mid 40s (so say 110F for you).
The car wont switch to hybrid until the battery cools down when you first start it. That takes 5 minutes, easily more if the car was under the sun. That would butcher your mpg! For me it is an increase of 25-30% between winter and summer average.

I don't know about the life and efficiency of the battery, but I'd be surprised if it doesn't have a negative impact.

I'm still trying to improve the cooling of the battery. Hit me up if you have any ideas.

 

@Grit has a battery cooling mod

moto g power ?

 

I wonder if this has an impact on our Florida cars then. I thought the MPG increase was from the cooler air helping the fuel burn during the winter, but I get substantially lower MPG in the summer here.

 

I do best in the "spring" and "fall" when I don't need as much AC. The AC makes a smaller impact with the Prime than the PiP, but it's still significant. But even in a non-Prime, it's worse if you spend much time sitting at traffic lights burning electrons and not going anywhere. And "winter" here doesn't seem as bad as summer because the battery likes the more reasonable temperatures. If the car is heat soaked, the AC is blowing cool air but the interior mass is still radiating heat making the AC continue to work to cool the air. That apparently takes a surprising amount of gas.

 

Whats the mod?

 

Trying to keep the AC up with the heat is why I bought a white car. Tinted the windows dark with what was supposed to be 3M film, but I suspect I was duped as I feel the car struggles too much with the heat. Granted, the Prius has a lot of surface glass area to contend with.

 

I always wondered why Toyota just didn't route an AC Vent that dumps cool air right into the rear passenger footwell. This would cool the battery off in no time at all. The car could turn on the AC and only this vent even if you had the AC off

 

It's nice to see a fellow Saudi based Prius which I don't see on the road often .

A couple of things I try to do to prologue the expected life of the battery in such harsh hot environment.

First is that I try to park my car in the shade and if not possible at least have a front glass shade on all the time when the car is parked under direct sun .

Secondly is to do with AC so it directs cool air to the battery intake cooling fan area in the rear right passenger footwell.
To do this I make sure the AC is set to front vent and footwell vent and I usually set the temp to 23C and then hit the auto setting which controls the air speed and then set direction to front facing & footwell setting which will direct cool air to the front and the two back seats' footwell areas.

One important thing to note is to make sure the driver side only AC setting is switched OFF as with it ON it will NOT direct any air to the rear seat footwell vents .


Recently I did an 800KM journey where temps were over 40C most of the trip and the Prius got 4.5L/100KM on the way there which was mainly during the hottest part of the day and got 4.4L/100KM on the way back which was later in the day and night which I thought was good considering the environment. Speed was set to 110KM/H all the time .

 

Each rear passenger has their own footwell vent which will direct air straight to the battery fan area as long as the footwell setting is chosen on the AC controls.