Warming up one's Prius

In SF Bay Area, using standard ICE vehicles (pick'em up twuck and wagon), I warm the vehicles up for more than 30 seconds under the following conditions:
1) frost on windhield.... warm long enough to be able to see.
2) fog on interior windshield, warm long enough to see....

otherwise, it's start, acheck mirrors and go.

Sounds like my ordered prius will be fine under that usage model.

cas (wagon going away at months end for '04 Prius :mrgreen: unless dealer's shining me on )

 

I'm going to miss the temp gauge. I currently have a 2000 VW GTI and I live in Washington DC, in Capitol Hill, and work in Tyson's Corner. I play a little game on my way to to work every morning. I try to get to the Pentagon before my temp guage says I fully warm. I hope there are enough toys on the Prius to keep me occupied!

P.S. on one very cold morning, with no traffic, I got all the way to I-66 before I was fully warm! :mrgreen:

 

... Unless the car is covered with ice.

In that case, I let it run with the defroster/temp on high for about five minutes while I scrape the windows. Much much much easier to scrape the windows when they're warm. It's worth the extra five cents of wasted gas to spend fewer minutes scraping ice outside in the cold.

But otherwise, a Prius that's been run in the past 24 hours (or even more than that) warms the engine automatically with hot coolant -- I presume during the ten seconds before the ICE kicks in.

 

While I concur with everyone who points out that there is no need to warm up the engine on a modern car, and even less need on the prius, where the computer is smart enough to shift the load to the electric motor when the engine is cold, it is indeed possible to do:

Here in Fargo, when the outside temperature is colder than about 15 degrees below zero, I cannot stand to get into a cold cab, no matter how bundled-up I am. When it is that cold I start the car and turn the heat on full-blast, maximum temp, and recirculated air. The engine will run as long as there is a demand for cabin heat. Even without the demand for cabin heat the engine will run until it is warm. I leave the fob in the car and lock the door with the mechanical key and return to my apartment for 5 minutes, at the end of which time the cab is tolerable.

If the temperature is warmer than about ten below, I just get in the car and drive normally. In less than 5 minutes the cab is warm enough.

Your gas mileage will be around 25 mpg for those first five minutes of warm-up with the heat on full blast.

That's a myth about the gas engine not kicking in until 15 mph. It depends on many factors. State-of-charge of the battery, engine temp, outside temp, demand for heat or AC, and how hard you step on the pedal. With the heater on full blast the gas engine almost never shuts off. That's the case for most of the winter where I live. But under the right conditions, with the heater off and the engine warm, I've had the engine shut off at 35 mph for several minutes at a time.

 

Lots of toys, even on the basic model. But the BC has the most. Energy screen, Consumption screen, NAV, voice recognition, Bluetooth phone, 6 CD changer w/cassette, steering wheel controls, etc., etc., etc.

Then there's the video game appeal of trying achieve your best mileage, trying to go the fastest is stealth, trying to get the most regen symbols, trying to get all of the battery charge bars in the green, etc., etc., etc.

Can you tell that I absolutely love commuting to work now?