Most decent way to run your 115V essentials out of Prius Prime

You are connecting this inverter to the 12v battery and keeping the car in READY?

 

Why "N"? What happens if you keep it in P?

 

Humm, I've never tried it myself, but I thought you can keep the car in READY indefinitely (until traction battery and gas runs out, that is) with the shit on Park. The power-saving feature is on ACC or ON mode. The car shut itself off after 20min.

 

That I know for sure that traction battery does charge the 12v battery when in P. I have been in a shelter in place for a few months now. I am not driving my car often enough, so I have a 12v battery monitor installed in my car now. I have tried putting the car in READY and PARK for 10-20min, it did charge up the 12v battery.

 

If you keep the car in PARK and READY, and open the driver's side door, then the car will beep. But IIRC, it peeps only while the door is open, once you close the door, it will stop.

 

In "N", won't it run only until the traction battery goes flat? Leave it in "P", and it should keep on going until the gas tank is empty too. Or longer still if you have a supply of spare gasoline.

 

If that is the case, OP would be in trouble. A Prime with a dead 12v battery and traction battery... but with full gas. Hummm, I don't want to try experimenting this on my own car.

 

I'm glad @fuzzy1 mentioned that. He beat me to it. In Neutral, the car does not charge the traction battery. So, the engine may start in N when the battery's EV range hits zero, but it will stay at zero. At that point, I THINK you'll quickly kill the 12V battery since there won't be anything going to it from the inverter. Or, worst case would be continuing to drain the traction battery and ruining your whole day.

As I understand it, Gen 2 was the last that didn't protect you from driving EV when out of gas till the traction battery dies, but this is a different case and I'm not sure what would happen.

 

OK, that's what I was trying to recollect. Something about "N" being special in relation to battery charging that I could not remember. Yap, that situation when you put the car in "N" during the car wash and blasting A/C and radio... at the end of the tunnel, car is dead.

 

No, its not the 12v battery. The car does not charge the traction battery with the shift on "N" even if the gas engine is running. In "N" all the electrical connections from the engine to regenerative motors are un-linked. So, when you run out of the traction battery charge, the car will not be able to use the gas engine to charge the traction battery. If this happens, you will have a dead 12v battery, and possibly a dead traction battery which will cost you thousands of dollars to fix.

As for your comment on not being able to keep PRIME in P and READY longer than 30min, that is something new I have never heard of, or I must have missed reading about that feature in the manual. IIRC, all of previous generations of non-plugin PRIUS were able to keep the car in P and READY to keep running A/C for camping. I assumed the PRIME would behaves the same way. But as I said, I have never tried it myself, so your observation proves my assumption wrong.

 

Does this mean the car won't run in EV with an empty tank of gas? If so, I think Toyota and I have different definitions of the word "protect."

 

I have not run a car out of gas since the oil crisis in the 70's, so I can't speak from personal experience. EV in a Prime is very different from EV in the regular Prius. The Prime "SHOULD" run in EV mode with an empty tank until the EV range is gone. Then it "SHOULD" coast to a stop after maybe another mile or two. You're welcome to experiment with that. I'm not going near it.