Traction battery Cooler

After reading through this entire thread, I am still confused. Will I shorten the life of the traction battery by choosing no (in fact the system defaults to no, so it would seem not)? Will it lengthen the time to charge if I choose no? Does the system simply wait until the battery temperature drops below a set point before charging starts or charge at a reduced rate? It would use more electricity to charge if I choose yes (because additional electric power is used to power the a/c), so I'm inclined to choose no anyway.

 

In post #12 the Prime manual, page 128 is shown and says when charge now is implemented, the traction battery cooler doesn't work. I'm going to try that and see. I often charge now during the day because I use my car multiple times during the day. It makes no sense why the traction battery cooler wouldn't work under these conditions, when the battery is hot. When would it need to work otherwise? Certainly not at 4 in the morning when I have mine set to automatically charge when everything has cooled down.

 

Same here, after reading the long threads, I am just confused.

 

Well, I selected traction battery cooler to on, and then charge now. The air conditioning did not come on. Seems like a useless feature. When would it come on?

 

I agree. It seems that this feature is designed to work only when it is not needed. I assume that most people use the timer to charge in the middle of the night, and if the battery temperature is high enough then to trigger the A/C, you must be in Death Valley in the summer.

 

Okay newbie from Tokyo, owner of the ZVW52 Prius PHV (Prius Prime for some of you), since July who's been exposed to the same cryptic/confusing passages in the Japanese language owners' manual, who initially thought maybe you guys might have better insight.

I have been told by the mechanic at the dealership that when that message shows up after you power off you push the "<" button installed on the circular button array that's set into the right hand side of your steering wheel. Once you select "Yes" push the set button (that's the round button in the center of that circular array). Since the default is "No", and the message disappears quickly, you have to have fast reflexes to do all this quickly. This enables the fan to circulate cool air from your air conditioned cabin to the traction battery.

I wrote to Toyota HQ's customer help line to tell them that since climatically challenged summers are going to be the norm, and Li batteries are notoriously susceptible to heat why not make "Yes" the default mode so that the fan will kick in automatically after powering off (just like those European cars whose radiators keep screaming after the engine is shut off in hot weather). Their reply was:

「駆動用電池冷却」の機能について、冷却が必要な場合に
自動的に冷却を実施させる設定は、あいにくございません。

Translation: We regret to inform you that as regards "Traction Battery cooling" there is no automatic cooling-on setting when cooling is required.

Needless to say, I told them again that they should consider installing this as standard protocol and apply it to all ZVW52s on the market (a recall really). Shouldn't be too much of a trouble as I think it just requires a software fix.

 

Not quite. This screen comes up every time I shut my engine off, and it's visible for less than 10 seconds. I tried starting the engine and then shutting it off. It didn't work. I waited 30 secs and did it again, still nothing. Then I started it, put it in Drive, moved a foot or so, then parked it, then shut it off, and then this screen re-appeared.

It's hard to know if it's timing related or tied to having been out of Park. But just turning the car on and shutting it off won't bring this screen back.

Also, it's unclear exactly when the A/C actually runs. It does not come on immediately when the cord is plugged in. I don't sit there watching it when it's 100+ outside, so I don't really know. But I have come out to check on the car and opened the door to get it to display the time remaining and the car is noticeably cooler inside. But most of the time when I do that, it's actually WARMER inside than outside -- which is disturbing when it's 110 outside.

One time it seemed to be taking forever to charge. I opened the driver door an it was much hotter than outside, and the car said it was 105 outside. So I opened all the doors and let it charge. It went from an estimate of 1hr 30mins to fully charged in less than 10 mins.

So it definitely adjusts the charging rate based on various temps.

I just cannot fathom why there would be a setting to "opt-in" to have the A/C cool the vehicle when it's over 100 outside. Seems whoever designed it has never lived in a part of the world where this is normal for 4 months of the year. It's just stupid. If you don't pay attention when you shut the car off and manually select YES, its logic is to slow down the charge rate b/c it's too hot rather than turn on the A/C. DUMB!

 

I'm thinking this is a typical reply from a bot. They just report what's so, and give no indication that anybody is even thinking about what you said.

You can say, "I think the car should flash the lights and honk the horn" and you'll get the same sort of reply -- "regret to inform you that the system is not designed to flash the lights and honk the horn in this situation."

I don't think this mass adoption of bots to provide this level of non-service to customers is smart. Companies are trying to insulate themselves from customers. I wonder if any real people actually read any of the suggestions or complaints that come in?

Those of us who live in hot climates need to all submit requests to fix this. I doubt anybody in Japan ever thinks about what might happen if the OVERNIGHT LOW is 35C (95F). They cannot comprehend this. But it happens here in the southwest USA.

The car clearly detects it, because it reduces the charging current, which extends the charging period by quite a bit. I'd rather the car turn on the A/C and reduce the charging period the same way it turns on the heater when it's freezing outside.

Can you imagine the uproar they'd get if people had to manually select "YES" to warm the car up in order to charge faster? Why is THAT automatic, but not to COOL DOWN the car when it's hot?

 

It turns on the battery heater, not the cabin heater. There is no battery cooler so to cool the battery it has to cool the cabin.

 

For little over a year of my Prime operation, I have not yet to see the pop-up message about battery cooler function. Our day time high rarely exceed 85F even in hottest month of summer. I guess, I don't have to worry about this.

 

And the traction battery cooler specifically only works when using the charge timer. It does not work when you do "Charge Now", which seems to me to me would be the obvious use case. Which means that the only potential users are those with high overnight temperatures.

 

I’ve heard the ac fans running in my advanced while it was plugged in the garage. I do not have charge scheduling set up. It doesn’t come on instantly, but after 30 minutes to an hour it was running under the “charge now” profile.

I think it just needs to build up some “reserve” in the battery before it kicks on “just in case”.


iPad ?

 

That is probably just the battery fan you are hearing. If it were the traction battery cooler, you would be hearing the a/c compressor, which is a buzzing sound.

 

I found that to not be true because I charge my car at my local charging station and I don't schedule or delay charging at all, it comes on sporadically at different times but always after I turn the power off to the car

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Comment from the north TX.
We always keep our Prime inside he garage and we have seen the temperature inside the garage even hotter than outside especially after we park our minivan in the garage after driving

Anyways, when we power off the Prime it asks is whether we want AC to cool the traction battery when charging. AC automatically comes on to cool down the cabin when this mode is selected and when Prime is connected to the charger and when it is hot enough to cool. So, it is not a battery cooler or anything like Tesla and others may have implemented. It is just AC kicking in to cool the cabin and to circulate cool air into the traction battery compartment. This will, however, further increase the temperature inside the garage if no sufficient ventilation is provided.

 

I tricked my car into running the traction battery cooler while I was inside. I'm not sure if tricking it was necessary, but it seems to try to prevent it from running when anyone is inside, since it shuts off when a door is opened, and I think the owners manual says not to let anyone stay in the car while it is running.

I just drove about 15 miles on electricity, so the battery was warm enough inside to trigger the traction cooler message. The temperature outside was 75 degrees F, and it was night, so the sun didn't contrivcon any heat.

When I parked at the charging station it asked if it could use the traction battery cooler. I used a public Chargepoint station.

Here's how I tricked it: I parked, opened the door, then disabled the smart key by pressing unlock twice while holding the lock button on the key fob. Then I plugged it in, locked the door with the button on the inside of the door, and closed the door.

After about 5 minutes the air conditioning started. It started at max fan speed, and after a few minutes it went to a medium fan speed. It got very cold (obviously), probably around 65 degrees F. It ran for about 30 minutes.

Chargepoint shows it was only intermittently using power from the charger during this time, which is weird. The AC ran continuously, so obviously it's able to run while the car is using power from the charger. Maybe the Chargepoint station isn't reporting correctly, but that would be surprising since it has to be correct for billing (although this one happens to be free). Or maybe it's just too hot to charge continuously, but that would also be surprising since there's no reason the battery would have been that hot. Chargepoint said it used 0.51 kWh while the traction battery cooler was running.

I was the only car at the station (and it's not a "shared power" station which slows down if two cars are using it), and I've used this station before without seeing weird behavior.

Any idea why it uses power intermittently with the traction battery cooler running?

 

I’ve also noticed this before. I think the dips are when the ac comes on.

 

I didn't notice any change in temperature that would suggest the AC was cycling on and off. Maybe it was cycling faster than the Chargepoint graph shows? The sampling rate is very slow on the graph.

The temperature was also relatively mild (night time and 75 degrees), so would it run the AC more in hot weather?

That's an average charging rate of 1.17kW, or a duty cycle of 33.4% if it's either using 3.5kW or 0W. Or 13.7 minutes at 3.5kW and the rest at 0.

 

This past weekend, temperature was 41 Celsius in my area. My prime plus is scheduled to charge at 7:10pm every day Monday to Sunday.

It is parked inside the garage everyday at home (no windows just a door to the house) backed in and it has an insulated (3x density) garage door as well.

On Saturday morning, I was using EV mode all the way to and back home, temperature was quite hot, AC has been used all the way. When I did push the power to off, I did see the traction battery AC display popped up but I was not quick enough to react and it disappeared. I tried to press the return button, couldn't bring it back. Even tried to turn power on and off, nothing. So I left it.

The next morning around 10am, I have noticed the battery still charging and have 10mins left. Usually it needs 5.5hours to charge on level 1 (should have been done by 1-2am). Wondering if the garage temperature caused the delay of the charge or forced it to use 8A?

Some questions that I'd hope someone can give me an answer (Assuming Fan/AC was set to on before turning Prime's power to off):

- If Fan/AC is on before power is off for pre-conditioning, will the engine comes on? (afraid dead air will go to the house if parked inside the garage)

- Since I am using level 1 at home, if Fan/AC is on before power is off (assuming this works, will it draw power from the wall or from the traction battery for pre-conditioning?). I have read somewhere if using chargepoint at home level 2, power will come from the wall but never found any information for level 1.

- I have also plugged in a public chargepoint level 2. while it is plugged to charge now instead of a scheduled one, why I cant turn on AC from my remote while it is charging and locked? I am sure when it is not plugged in, I can turn on AC while it is pressed on the remote.

Toyota should fix the traction battery AC display glitch to last longer or at the least to give us an option to make it default to "yes" permanently. I wouldn't mind to lose some mileage over the life span of the traction battery.

Thanks in advance.