Second start of the day in summer vs. winter

So I feel as if there should be a discussion about this somewhere. Say that I start my hybrid first thing in the morning, travel 2 miles, then turn off the car and go to wherever, maybe the supermarket. During that first trip, the battery gets used because of the warm-up cycle... more so in the summer than in the winter, since I see the battery deplete a bar or two. Why is that?

Anyway, I come back after maybe 20 minutes, turn the car on for the second start of the day, and take off. In the summer, the second warm-up cycle is much longer and I often find myself depleting the battery to 2 bars... after like another minute, finally the engine kicks on, roars, and starts recharging the battery. Why is the hybrid designed to do that? I just feel like I would get much better fuel economy just waiting the extra minute until the generator kicks in, so that I'm not draining the battery. Whereas in the winter, the battery usually stays around 6 or 7 bars and never drains, and the engine never has to roar. Why can't the hybrid just do that in the summer as well?

 

I'm referring to the first minute or so after you start the car, the engine turns itself on, and just stays around 1280 rpm, that's the initial warm-up.
Like the second time I start the car, during the initial warm-up, I can hit the gas and go but if I do it in the summer, the car just uses up battery and it drains down to 2-3 bars, whereas in the winter, the car uses both some battery and the engine so the battery doesn't go below 5 bars. Why can't the car just do that year round? What benefit is there?

 

I am confused. The car should be able to prepare the right conditions for the right emissions anyway. Like if it's the winter and I hit the gas to maybe 3/4 green, during and just after the warm-up cycle, the battery stays around 5-6 bars, and the engine stays below 2000 rpm. But if it's summer, the battery depletes to 2 bars (contrary to your expectation) during the warm-up cycle because it won't use the engine like it did so conveniently in the winter warm-up cycle, then the engine blasts up to 3000 rpm to waste more fuel to recharge the battery. How is that cycle supposed to be any better than in the winter? That's what I don't get. To me it feels like, compared to the winter cycle, the summer warm-up cycle (1) depletes the battery just to recharge it, which seems pointless, (2) uses so much more gas to recharge, which wastes more fuel, and (3) puts more wear on the engine because of the higher rpms during recharge. So, what's the logic for two different types of recharge cycles? How is that the "right conditions for the right emissions sooner"?

 

Alright try this:
1. In the summer, go to some local place, maybe travel for 1 mile.
2. Restart the car.
3. Take off going uphill during warm-up cycle filling green arc for 30 seconds. (In the winter, this doesn't happen.)
4. The battery will deplete in the summer.
No one else has seen this?

BTW: I'm using this as just one example, since many people don't have a Scan or UltraGauge, but it's really when you start the car and the coolant temp is like 100-130 or so on a second (or third, fourth, etc.) start.

 

[3 weeks later]

Well, anyone?

 

Nevermind, this is going nowhere. I just expect that the summer warm-up cycle should be more like the winter cycle. That MauroneRelax experiences more battery drain in the winter than the summer whereas I have always experienced the opposite during warm-up is even more perplexing to me. Not to mention in the dead of winter I've never seen it go below 5 bars anyway.

All I've learned from this thread is somehow the engineers have some mysterious logic along these lines: "it's more efficient to let the battery go down from 6 to 2 bars in the summer warm-up cycle when they gun the gas so that the engine can then rev way the freaking hell up to 3000-4000 rpm while the throttle persists after the end of the warm-up cycle thereby wasting more fuel, but let's make sure that doesn't happen in the winter so the engine stays around 2000 rpm for the same amount of throttle so it's more efficient," yet I still don't get what that logic is, the hobbit stages discussion that I've seen didn't explain the logic, it's the same behavior with nearly every single Prius c out there on the road today, and yet no one here seems to know what I'm talking about. This is going nowhere so just forget it.