Plug-In Prius: real winter driving

4kw? the useable kw of the PIP is only 2.7kw

 

I have a technical question. It makes sense to warm up your seats before you drive on a cold winter morning and to do that while the charging cord is connected. If you use the timer to charge your PIP and if completes the charge and shuts off will the charger begin again if you use the remote to turn on the AC (in the summer obviously) or seat heaters in the winter?

 

4 kW to maintain low speed. PiP battery has about 2.7 kWh usable energy. The max it can put out is 41 kW so it can be drained in about 4 minutes.

 

unfortunately, no. no provision was made to preheat the car before driving.

 

You/we are mixing two different terms here. The capacity of the battery back is measured in KW per hour, aka KWh. It's how much sustained energy it can provide for an hour. In the Prius' case, the total amount of KWh for the battery back is 4.2 KWh, of which we can use about 2.8 KWh. That means that it can provide 2.8 KW for an hour, or 1.4 KW for 2 hours, 0.7 KW for 4 hours, etc. When accelerating in EV mode, the car can use up to 38 KW. So it can sustain that level of use for about 4 minutes. Normal driving in EV mode seems to be around 8 to 12 KW.

 

sorry, I knew that, forgot the "h" in KW

 

nitpick: not "per" hour, but just hour. kilowatt-hour.

 

no. seat heaters are only on when the car is in READY mode. the car will charge only in ACC, ON, or OFF mode.
not sure about remote A/C, but this should work, because it definitely does that on the Advanced trim.

EDIT: I guess the seat heaters will be on in ON mode. however, the car will automatically shut itself off after a minute or two in ON mode, so you can't really preheat it. however, the seat heater on HI makes you pretty toasty in under 60 seconds, so I doubt it would be of much use.

 

Thank you for answering my question. Only two more days until I PU my Advanced, Lord willing. I have a Tundra and my seats warm up noticeably about the time I get to work (5min.). I'll have a lot of time to play with stuff in the car on my 800 mile trip back from the dealer.

 

You could just put a little space heater in there and start it up 20-30 minutes before you leave. Just make sure it is a newer, safe space heater....not those death traps of the old days.

 

Wow... are you in for a treat!
Enjoy the PIP....

 

Impossible to try and figure out the algorithm for EV mode. In September, I had 165 mpg. Now in November, as it has gotten cold, I am down to 80, same driving pattern.
Still good, but perplexing.
I guess that I would like on a 3+ mile trip that it use up all of the available battery capacity first.

 

Note that the battery has an optimal operating temperature range. If it's too low, that could cause the engine to start up.
There's an entire page in the manual devoted to conditions under which the engine might turn on even if you have sufficient charge for EV driving.

 

Don't forget to really clean your windows, it will eliminate the need for running the window defrosters in many cases.

 

GRILL BLOCKING: See post 36

 

A lot of people have a problem understanding this. (And people in the non-technical media are constantly using the terms incorrectly). If it helps, you should think of a kilowatt-hour as a kilowatt times an hour...or using a kilowatt for an hour.

Mike

 

And similarly, "per" means "divide".

 

was 32 degrees on my outside temp gauge in my PIP. Windows frosted, scraped them. Drove to work, all EV no ICE. I wonder what temp has to be for ICE to kick in.