Prius Prime: detail about Charge-Mode

Please let us know if you have worked on this further. Thanks!

 

To update my thoughts about idling. In July 2021, I kept my 17 Prime in Ready mode for 27-3/4 days on a "Prius camping" road trip. I only turned it off while refueling. And actually, I often left it on even for that, just in EV mode to keep the engine from kicking on. A couple of times I shut it off to check the oil. There was zero oil consumption on the 8000 mile trip, with the car on almost 700 hours.

I slept in the car 25 of the 27 nights. 17 days of it was in Quartzsite, AZ with temperatures typically 110F, and often 115-119F. I kept the car on continuously so that it was constantly a comfortable temp inside, both for sleeping at night, and for having a comfortable place to retreat out of the heat during the day. I also kept a 12V freezer at 0F the entire time, and in fact brought an ice cream cake from NH to AZ without it melting.

Idling just to use Charge Mode is wasteful, but works. It's most efficient to plug in, and next most efficient to use Charge Mode while already driving, if you need to charge up without plugging in.

 

Charge Mode while idling isn't the most efficient, same as idle and not moving at all efficiency. Still, 88 minutes is still faster ( or about the same amount of time as to ) 80% SOC with L2 ( 240 volt ) plugin charging. It's true that given the right conditions Charge Mode will take the traction pack for 0% to 80% SOC in about half of that 88 minutes so considering normal idling efficiency 88 minutes sounds pretty good to me.