ICE comes on anyway

Got off work and it was colder than when I went in and its snowing. Temp is 33 via the prime. the prime sat outside all day at work and not plugged in. drove home all the way on EV. my top speed going home was only 45 this time because of traffic.

Next stage of my experiment, I left it parked in the driveway unplugged. its suppose to be in the 20's tonight. will report my finding tomorrow.

 

Well completed my next experiment. Left prime sitting out all night long, unplugged this time.

Today I was actually expecting my ice to fire up. It was freezing, cold, 24F, prime covered in ice and snow. Didn't run the heater until after the hill, but it punched it again and took it too 60. Ice never came on. I turned on heat to auto after that cause I was freezing lol. Still ice never came on.

So now I wonder just how cold does it have to be for the ice to come on?

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Below 14F if you want heat.

 

That's awesome and interestingly my Volt is 14F as well. But it doesn't matter if you have HVAC on or off or moving or sitting still. Once that temp display goes from 15 to 14 that ice fires up. So it's cool to hear that if I suffer freezing I could continue to drive gas free in the prime

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You can still have seat and steering wheel heat in the Prime below that.

 

Really? The manual says you can't.

 

You mean: warming to hear...

 

So I wonder just how cold can you get, even with HVAC off, can the prime go before it fires the ice

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I strongly suspect that will depend on how cold the battery is, not how cold the ambient air is.

 

I wonder what temp that would be

Man I so wanna take my car apart and look at the battery and see how they did things

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The ICE comes on in the Volt at 14F to protect the battery and keep its efficiency up.

 

in the pip, you can drive slowly on flat ground for awhile, the battery will warm and then you can drive faster and harder, even down to zero degrees in my experience. but if one little thing goes awry in the beginning, the ice fires. but it doesn't automatically come on, like the lift back.

 

Indeed I understand why and it didn't bother me that much and it wasn't that often it was 14 or below so it only happened to me probably 20 times turning the whole time I owned it.

But if the volt was doing it, why not Toyota. Also the volt had in my opinion a better battery management system with the liquid thermos. Now that there is all that. What does the Bolt do when it's 14F or cooler?

I would have liked to have an option if to run the ice or not on my volt at 14

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If you want to, just do like the guys on the Volt Forum do and fool the sensor.

 

Well glad it's working right. Atleast ya got something to compare with.

Also I didn't use the climate prep or anything. I went for worst case

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