Possibly looking to car camp overnight and would have access to an outlet. Is it possible to charge the car with a prolong or similar charger while the car is running? Obviously not looking to drive the unit while plugged in, only looking to have the AC running if its a brutally warm night down here in the southern USA. My thinking is that this way the conventional engine wouldnt need to ever turn on to replenish the hybrid battery.
unfortunately, no. everyone just leaves it in ready. annoying when the engine kicks on, but no harm to the car, that's what it was designed for.
Never say never... but there is not a quick, convenient, easy or inexpensive way to do this. Part of the problem is that a Prius air conditioner can use more power than a household outlet can deliver. It would cost less to adapt an ordinary air conditioner appliance.
The variable-power A/C compressor can run at anywhere from about 250 watts to around 2500 watts depending on how much cooling is needed. From the roughly 202-volt battery, that's from around an amp and a quarter, up to around thirteen amps. (Plus the rest of the car in READY mode, which will draw a couple of amps or more.) A charger like a Prolong, made for grid charging, normally supplies a lower current than that (if I'm not mistaken; I haven't got one), so even if you could rig it to operate in parallel with the car in READY, it wouldn't be supplying enough juice to keep up. You might, instead, try to rig some larger, higher-current (probably more expensive) 220 VDCish supply. Say you found one that supplied less than ten amps. If you got it working the way you want, it could keep the engine off forever when the total draw is within that budget, and it would at least extend the time between engine starts when the load is higher than that. You'd just be kind of on your own to get it designed and working, and see how much it confuses the car's battery management.
