Air Conditioner on while charging question?

This thread made me think about using the Traction battery Cooler function in PP. Living in the northern climate where hot summer temp rarely exceeds 90F, I have seen the traction battery cooler pop-up window after you switch off the car only 2-3 times in my now 4+ years of PP ownership. Since I did almost all of my charging at home during the night, the traction cooler function was never needed. That is until recently I started going back to work for commuting.

Our workplace recently installed 240v L2 charge stations for employees to use. The time slot I would most likely use this at work is afternoon between 2pm-4pm right before I leave work. It is located at an unshaded outside parking space. From my past experiences, during a hot sunny summer day, the inside cabin temperature can get up to 110F even though the outside ambient temp is much tolerable level. In this situation, would I have a way to turn on the Traction Battery Cooler function during charging? The point is, when I park my car at the charge station, I will not see the traction battery cooler pop-up window, because the cabin temp is not that hot at that point. If I can not choose the "Yes" on that pop-up, would the car default to not using the traction battery cooler?

 

From what I've observed, the traction battery use of AC question only pops up when the battery pack is too hot during shut-down. I've driven home in 100+ degrees heat, where I've been on ICE for the past 30 miles (pun intended) - didn't get the AC question on shut-down. Other times I'm traveling in just 70 degree weather and burned the battery down to 2% (on the highway, fast discharge) and got the AC question on shut-down. That's why I think it's a battery pack sensor that triggers the question. 90% of my charging happens on a schedule, at night - that's part of the reason I leave my rear windows down about 1/2 inch, so the cooling fans can draw in the cool night air while charging.
If the battery pack was getting too hot during charging, and the fans couldn't cool down the pack enough - I'm pretty sure the software would slow down the charging rate to maintain pack integrity - otherwise Toyota wouldn't have stuck their neck out with a 150K mile warranty on 2020 and newer battery packs.

 

You are correct that the traction battery cooler pop-up only comes up if the traction battery is above threshold temp at the time of shut off. You are also correct that without the traction battery cooler enabled, the traction battery charge will slow down or completely stops if the traction battery gets too hot. AFAIK, the traction battery cooler A/C comes on only shortly before and during the active charging session. My question is this, is there a way to enable the traction battery cooler to function without answering the pop-up question window? As I said, I almost never see this pop-up window in my climate under my driving conditions. I never needed to have the traction battery cooler function for my nightly charging at home. But with my planned L2 charging during the daytime especially on hot sunny summer days, I would like the traction battery cooler to turn on even if I did not see the pop-up question when I parked my car. Is that possible?

 

@Salamander_King

During my (very small) amount of reading on PC of the Prime, I have not found this to be possible.
What gets me is that, not only is the cooling feature a user select "option", but in your case (as with many others)
normally NOT seeing it, you sorta have to look every time/or forget about it....so when it does pop up you
may not notice it....PLUS it defaults to NO, and you have to select with a "left" arrow to get to YES and then center button "enter"

All seems strange.

BUT, I think being that if you do not have the luxury of time on your hands, and you are limited,
then to get a full charge you may want to select "no" to get a longer charge rather than partial as
some have experienced in the 0% to 2% etc as above... when they were expecting more of a charge.

Then again, as mentioned, Toyo has the charging down pat to protect the battery.

Some owners that may have only 2 hrs to charge @ level 2 MAY be upset that they only
get a 50% charge every single time in heat/hot/summer if it were programmed to use AC for batt.

I suppose it being a customization (in settings or at dealer) would be the best scenario but does
the Prius ever supply anyone with everything?
In my case, no
lol, uggg

 

That was exactly what I thought. But I wanted to confirm from the rest of the community who needs and uses this Traction Battery Cooler function far more often than I have ever had a chance to use it, because I have never used it before.

I can see the rationale. But if the condition of the car is such that one needs a traction battery cooler functionality when the charging occurs but was never given a choice to pick the "Yes" on the pop-up window, then the car is going to protect the battery first rather than proceeding with the charging session. This means no charging will happen until the traction battery is cooled by itself naturally. So, in your scenario, the owner will be even more surprised to find out no charging has ever taken place because the traction battery was never cooled to the operational temperature.

Equally, mind-boggling is the fact that Toyota has built in the owner a customizable setting for the Traction Heater functionality. This function can be turned off by the owner setting. I don't know why any owner who lives in a colder climate would want to turn this function off. It would never be turned on in a warmer climate. Turning off this function would only stall the charging session if the traction battery temperature is too cold to protect the battery. But who would ever want that?