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Complicated time-of-day charging?

Discussion in 'Prime Plug-in Charging' started by Dick King, Feb 3, 2022.

  1. Dick King

    Dick King New Member

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    The delayed charging feature on the 2022 Prius Prime has an abstraction of "charging events".

    That seems to me to be unnecessary complexity for a very common use case, which is that my local electric company offers time-of-day pricing. What I really want to say is, "charge any time the car is plugged in, except 7AM-9PM weekdays". Easy peasy [for whatever schedule your local utility offers].

    Does anybody have an insight why they don't offer that, and only offer charging events, with start times or end times, instead? I'll find myself setting start times of 9PM every day, and end times of 7AM each day [to catch late homecomings], and a few scattered start times on weekends [to catch multiple trips with charging between the trips on a Saturday].

    -dk
     
    #1 Dick King, Feb 3, 2022
  2. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    Unless you’re travelling at night, you can forgo the 9pm start schedule and simply just use “depart by” 7am schedule (or 6:55am if you want to be absolutely sure it ends before 7am).
     
    #2 Tideland Prius, Feb 3, 2022
    jerrymildred and Ovation like this.
  3. schja01

    schja01 One of very few in Chicagoland

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    Perhaps a mechanical timer on the outlet that only energizes the charging cable 9pm to 7am?
     
    #3 schja01, Feb 3, 2022
    Tideland Prius likes this.
  4. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    What @Tideland Prius said. Just set it for departure at some time before 7 AM (6:30?) to give you a little buffer. Then, if you come home and won't need to drive again that day, just plug it in and it'll be done before the silly rates go up to criminal levels.

    Of course, if you come home at 5:30 PM with depleted EV range and have to go someplace that evening, you'll need to decide if you want to drive at Portland gas prices or Portland electricity prices. If you choose the latter, just plug it in, pull the plug out of the port within about five seconds and plug it right back in. That'll bypass the schedule and charge immediately.
     
    #4 jerrymildred, Feb 3, 2022
    Tideland Prius likes this.
  5. Dick King

    Dick King New Member

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    Hmmm...

    You never want to charge at Portland's peak time [5PM-9PM, weekdays] at current rates.

    $0.306/KWH / 2.2 mi/KWH = about $0.12/mi
    $5/gal / 50mpg = $0.10/mi.

    In addition, if you do end up using gasoline the heat comes for free.

    Furthermore, if you decline to charge you don't have to guess how much electricity you will consume before the next charge. You'll use all of your cheap electrons and won't pay any penalty until the car actually drops out of EV mode. If you charge at $0.30 and then don't use all of those gold-plated electrons you will have left money on the table.

    -dk
     
    #5 Dick King, Feb 8, 2022
  6. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    If you are driving your PP at that low EV efficiency of 2.2mi/kWh, then you will likely not save much by avoiding the peak rate... 2.2miles/kWh is almost half of EPA-rated efficiency ~4miles/kWh for PP. I am currently getting 5.1miles/kWh from my PP. That being said, if you are really paying $5/gal for gas, then well, EV or HV no matter which way you go, your driving is going to be super expensive.

    As far as charging goes, as others have commented, if you are never going to charge your PP between 7AM-9PM on weekdays, then all you have to do is to set the schedule to departure at 6:30AM or to start the charging at 10PM daily for M-F, and just plug your car when you get home and forget about it. It will be always charging between 10PM to 6:30AM.
     
    #6 Salamander_King, Feb 8, 2022
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