Engine block heater with Hymotion testing

[PeakOilGarage]

Toyota Prius Engine Block Heater Peak Oil Garage

I have installed an Engine Block Heater on my Prius. I have plugged everything in and placed a programmable timer and an energy meter on the outlet.

I am going to be tracking this data to try to determine the value and also determine the impact this has on the Hymotion battery system. Will it improve the performance even more by getting into EV mode more quickly? If so, how much improvement.

I will try to track it here and on my website.

If you have any experience or tips to share that might help with this evaluation, please let me know.

Thanks

[max9952001]

I absolutely can drive off in all electric with the hymotion in the morning thanks to my ebh. Also, I had the ebh before hymotion and it had doubled my mpg for the first 5 minutes of driving. I think you will see the value.

[PeakOilGarage]

Originally Posted by max9952001

I absolutely can drive off in all electric with the hymotion in the morning thanks to my ebh. Also, I had the ebh before hymotion and it had doubled my mpg for the first 5 minutes of driving. I think you will see the value.

I just checked the energy meter. It has been running for 1 hr 20 minutes and it has drawn about 0.54 kwh. It draws approximately 400 watts while it is on. So it will likely be just under 1 kwh for a 2 hr preheat session each morning.

For most people in the USA, that would be about 10 cents. Here in the Pacific Northwest it is about 8 cents of hydro power. In southern Califorina it might be 12 cents to 30 cents, depending on the crazy rate codes I have read about.

[efusco]

I'd suggest a full 3 hour pre-heat...it seems be be the best compromise of ICE temp vs. time/energy needed.

[NoMoShocks]

Welcome to Peak Oil Garage. Pacific Nothwest is my home too.
And I have a serious case of Hymotion Envy.

It is about time for me to break out the old extension cord for my EBH. Well, a new one actually. Last year's extension cord was old when I started and didn't take well to extreme temperatures so I have a nice new thick one.

[PeakOilGarage]

After the first day of driving the Hymotion Prius with an engine block heater, as expected it definitely did improve my results. The gas engine did not come on nearly as much during the early periods.

I am still learning my SGII, so it is really tough to quantify these results so far. The temperature outside this morning was 40 degrees F, so it was a very valid test. My car is garaged, so it doesn't take much to preheat it.

To properly evaluate the difference, I really should drive a few mornings without the EBH and gather data. The problem is, I don't want to. :-) It really pains me to waste the gasoline. I want my consumption screen solidly at 99.9 for this entire tank of gas and I want to put up a crazy number of miles driven when I refill.

I am at 140 miles on this tank and it still shows a full tank with 10 bars.
I don't think I set the SGII properly during the refill though.

Anyone who has a Hymotion battery, these are two must have items.
1) SGII
2) Engine block heater

The SGII has easily improved my performance by 20%. Just having the knowledge of when the RPMs are running is the key for me. I cannot always feel it with the road vibration at 30 mph to 35 mph when the engine turns on. The RPM number is critical to helping me keep it in EV mode and just under the ICE threshold speed.

With Hymotion the engine only idles during warm-up, the wheels are powered pure EV.
For a rough estimate, when idling, the Toyota Prius is drawing about 0.30 gallons per hour. So if the ICE needs to run 6 minutes to warm-up during early driving, then the gasoline consumption is about 0.03 gallons. At $3.00 per gallon that is about 9 cents of gasoline.

The energy meter told me that for 2 hours the EBH draws about 0.8 kwh. I pay about 9 cents per kwh. So that is about 7 cents of electricity.

9 cents of gasoline vs 7 cents of electricity

So financially it is not not really worth it.
From a satisfaction standpoint and to really push my efficiency to a new level, it is worth it.
If given a choice, I would rather use electricity for everything.