ICE comes on anyway

Aw, they'll be so happy for your recognition!! But maybe I won't tell them; I'd hate that they might ask for a pay raise ($0.00 to ??)!

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No one stops you from asking; it's the reply that might disappoint!!

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Think about all that SATISFACTION you get from sharing that wealth of knowledge you've amassed over the decades!! It's like me, as a musician, the club owners tell me, why do you need to get paid to perform; aren't you satisfied just to play for the JOY of it??!! My reply, no sir, Joy left town and she didn't pay my bills!!

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Know that feeling. "We passed the hat around, but the hat is missing".

 

Here's the latest & greatest... my commute to work yesterday:

Lesson learned was to plug in the USB cord if you are pushing it with the battery... or just don't broadcast live video via Wi-Fi the entire duration. Duh! Oh well. The quality of the dash video has clearly improved, despite the minimal setup now.

This particular drive was to avoid the highway entirely, taking the longer & slower route. It's a pleasant drive and the preferred alternate when traffic gets crazy. That can actually take less travel time when the weather is really bad, since it doesn't get congested with lots of stop & slow driving. My goal was capture real-world data of sub-freezing drives before the extremes of winter arrive.

19.1 miles were driven using electric-heat set to 65 ECO with driver priority. 4.4 miles of EV were estimated remaining. Average temperature outside was 27°F. The Prime was parked inside the garage overnight plugged-in with pre-conditioning set on the timer, hence the warmer reading upon initial departure. The gas engine never started throughout that entire commute drive.

 

Neat video.

 

They can be powered by portable chargers. My USB brick works for both. You can plug into the car via 12-volt adaptor too.

 

Cloudy Cloudy! Could it be that simple?

 

Or high cabin humidity. One hypothesis is cabin condensation might trigger a false switch activation of the Front Defrost. That is why when it happened to me, I tried repeated ON/OFF activation of the switch but there was no change which was expected.

When I've accidentally activated Front defrost, the engine start appears to require a distinct cycle before it shuts off. My estimate a minute or so and then it shuts down the engine.

A hard freeze is expected in the morning, already 33F(1C) at the Airport. So I'll try to replicate the problem with a video recording. Then I'll try a brief ON/OFF and record the minimum cycle duration.

Does anyone know if the most recent MiniVCI+Techstream works with the Prime? The reason is I remember on the Gen-1 and Gen-3 it could report the shifter state. I never had occasion to see if it reported the environmental control state but this would be expected of a diagnostic utility.

Bob Wilson

 

Double check but I think when you press the button a second time, the light goes out but the operating state remains engine on.

This morning the IR thermometer reported the hood and windshield at 12F (-11C) and covered with a thin layer of ice. I used isopropyl alcohol which worked great until the alcohol evaporated and left a thin layer of frost/ice. Regardless, I did 4 miles with the heater set to 77F and the car stayed in EV the whole time.

When I got back, I started a new video recording and pressed the Front defrost. The engine came on and I pressed the button a second time and the engine stayed on. I was able to bring the ECO 'energy flow' up and was surprised to see no engine power flow but a constant battery discharge to the front wheels (car in "D" with parking brake set.) Huh? It didn't stop after a couple of minutes so I tried turning heating ON/OFF ... no effect on the engine. And it kept running.

I released the parking brake and while rolling around the block nothing changed until I turned the heater off and finally the engine went off and the car was back in EV.

There are more things going on in Front Defrost and the HVAC system.

Bob Wilson