Officially joining the club

Yes, not a problem to do partial charges. In fact if you are going to leave it sit at high temperature it can be even better. Ideally you want it to finish charging just before you use it.
Of course you then risk not having a full charge when you need it.

 

The old Nickel-Cadmium rechargeable batteries had a problem with partial charges, leading to a "memory effect" and the advice to charge them completely. The Lithium-Ion batteries used in the PiP (and the Nickel-Metal-Hydrid batteries used in the standard Prius, for that matter), do not have this problem.

 

Leaving it at 50-60 percent for months is probably okay. 40-50% is the ideal long-term storage charge level for Li-Ion.

 

Approximately. I recommend you aim for 30min or even a hour before you leave in case something comes up and you have to leave early. Most important thing is not to charge when its really hot, so even if it finishes at 5am in Nebraska it should be fine till you leave in the AM.

 

Its all about the battery temperature. Air temp can get the battery hot, but so can heavy battery use. In generally best to charge when the air and the battery are both cool, since the prius does not have a liquid TMS as some others do. If one sets it to charge by early morning it will allow both air and th car/battery to cool. But all of this is a secondary concern for the Plug in Prius as the battery is small enough and if charging on L1 is slow enough that its probably not much of an issue. Temp induced loss was an issue for leafs, but they were L2 and QuickCharge users often going to 100% (prius protects it not letting people go to 100%). And even for those leafs it was an issue in AZ, with almost no measured impact in cooler places like seattle or even northern Cali. Canada.. you're probably cool.

 

30C is near ideal temps for LiIon -- more range fromt he battery with little risk to battery.
Don't think a few days of even mid to upper 30's C sort are a big problem, though best not to leave it with a full charge in the sun when in the upper 30s Its weeks mid to upper 40s's that really toasted the leafs in AZ -- air temps there are regularly 46-47 and a car on hot backtop can hit 50+ inside.

 

pip manual says to discharge to zero ev for long term storage. for short term. i leave it around 50%, that's when the level 2 evse is worth it, only 45 min. to top up.

 

Yes, it says to zero EV, which means about 20-25% actual.

Mike

 

right. but the only thing you can tell without a scan gauge is zero.