Takes 10 Minutes Longer to Charge Suddenly

could be the colder weather

 

I'll 2nd what @bisco said. Also if the battery temp falls under 32 F the battery heater will come on and if I'm not mistaken it uses around 100 watts or so...don't hold me to the exact consumption. Point is, li-ion do not like charging at fast rates in cold temps (but what battery does?), same with output, ICE will start if you put too much foot into it, same with regen braking, ICE may start if you're braking down a hill.

 

My L2 at home will charge my Prime from about 3 miles left to full in 1:55 in moderate weather. Takes 2:05 in hot weather and ~ 2:12 in colder weather (32 F down to about 15 degrees). I've come accustomed to those times being normal under the temperatures conditions.

I've also got used to the fact I'll get only 16-18 miles of EV usage in Chicago winters and 30-35 miles at temperatures from 60-75 F.

 

One thing I have found with the cold snap the past few days and assuming your commute is long enough for this, if you're looking for efficiency and to try to boost your range. Drive in HV mode until the ICE is warmed up. This helps with 2 things, helps warm the battery up a little and the climate control does not use the heat pump for heating the cabin. So when I hit about 10 miles of my 18 mile commute I switch to EV and the car stays warm without the heat pump and then in the afternoon when it is warmed up a little bit and the sun has the cabin warmed up I just drive in EV mode all the way home.

Of course I only have 3 traffic lights and 2 stop signs on the way to work and the speed limits are 45 and 55 on my commute, so your results may vary. I usually pull out and accelerate to speed before initially switching to HV mode, since the ICE pretty much just dumps gas when it is that cold. Anyway, seems to work for me fairly well so far...I'll know more when January hits as it will be the coldest, but I do see that averaging 100 MPG will be tricky.

 

I also have a 2017 Prius Prime that I bought in 2018. Since I bought it, a full charge has taken 2 hours (with a 240V, 30 amp charger). However, yesterday for the first time, it took 2 hours and 30 minutes. It isn't the temperature; it hasn't changed much and it almost never goes as low as freezing here. Today, I didn't need a full charge, but it said it would need 2 hours and 20 minutes; it should have been about 1 hour and 50 minutes. It's weird that it would change from one day to the next; it was fine on Wednesday.

 

Could the line voltage be down a bit? Sometimes ours is as low as 116v or it could be as high as 124volts (then double those for the 240 service).

 

what it says and what it does can be very different