Gas on to heat car - does it defeat the purpose

Your Ice anxiety obviously hasnt developed yet. When your disease progresses to stage 2, you will literally get angry and break out in hives when ICE turns on. Stage 10 is terminal. Lucky for you your still in stage -1, denial.

 

LOL Thats so true. I get so angry, staring at those red arrows on the energy monitor.


Is it a bad idea to restart the car in neutral while coasting? I have found this is one way to turn that sucker off. But I usually shift to park.

 

I usually restart it off when I park. Ill try neutral next time.

 

Coming from Gen2 Prius, I find PiP's ICE warm up so much faster. It also stops so smooth and it is undetectable, except from the very low sound.

 

usb, i just found out you got a pip! congrats and welcome to the club.

 

Got a great deal from a dealer in NJ. After cash bonus and tax credit, I got it for $25,232 (Blizzard Pearl) before tax and fees.

 

I agree with you that it doesn't matter, but I figured out a hack! So there is a way to start up and drive when it's cold, without the ICE starting up.

Even though it isn't a problem, we have a solution. Somehow, I don't think I'll get a Nobel for it, but human happiness has advanced. The world is now a very slightly better place.

 

Ummm - warm and cozy. This evening I took the PiP out in cool (41 degrees) damp weather. Kinda raw stuff. As I backed out of the garage - with a full charge on the battery - I turned on the heat and of course the ICE started. I also flipped on my seat heater - love that thing. About 45 seconds later my backside was toasty warm. I decided for the 15 mile round trip to let the PiP do what it was built to do - run efficiently - so I left the heater on for a cabin temp of 72 degrees. During my 15 mile round trip I stopped several time (3 I think) for about 30 minutes each time. The fabulous little PiP did what it was engineered to do - start the ICE when it need to in order to keep the cabin at 72 degrees and then shut down. I got back home with 1 mile of EV left - not bad.

The point - I let the PiP be the PiP and do it's job as designed - keep me warm and still allow me to use EV. The fact that I only had 1 mile of EV left when I got back home @ 15 miles later tells me it did it quite well and I was warm the entire trip.

The more I drive this car - the more I understand this car - the more I love this sweet little gas sipping, EV PIP'ing little machine!

Rob

 

This morning it was 38 degrees outside. I drove into town, plugged in and joined some friends for coffee and some business. It warmed up a little and I did a few more errands around town before driving home. 50 miles total, no gasoline. I did wear long sleeves though, with shorts.

 

John, I heard Volt's electric heater is anemic. 20 mins pre-heating with a plug raise about 10 degree F. Is that correct from your experience?

Obviously, using gas would heat the cabin much faster. Can Volt owner force it?

 

The cabin was at 72 before I got 1/4 mile down my driveway. I didn't pre-heat, maybe if it gets colder I will, the battery would have been pre-heated automatically. It seems the cabin's electric heater can draw a bit over 6KW if needed, so it could outpace the plug's 3.3KW.

I think the MY2013 drivers can force gas usage by kicking in "Hold" mode and reserving EV. I have the MY2012 which does not have "Hold" mode. There is some temperature at which the vehicle does kick in the ICE for heating, I believe 25 degrees F.

What is the basis for this statement?

Does the gas exhaust directly into the cabin? Can you pre-heat the cabin with the ICE using remote start or scheduled remote start?

 

I don't live in a particularly cold area (SF Bay Area), but I think the electric heater is fine. When talking with other owners who mention weak heating I often find that they are using "Eco" mode which restricts power to the heater rather than using "Comfort" mode when they need it.

I'm sure it isn't perfect but seems perfectly adequate. The pre-heating setup can also operate in either Eco or Comfort mode and they could improve the way it is configured to operate.

 

Ok so, the bundled 120V charger will only give half the heat. A fully charged Volt battery (10 hours) will be able to supply maximum heat, for about 1.5 hours.

I'd rather use the gasoline for heat and the excess energy would increase the EV range.

For PiP? I think the heated coolant from the gas engine and from the exhaust, heats the cabin. Like a normal car, you turn on the heat after you get in. I think there is a small electric heater so the initial air is not stone cold (gen2 had it).

PiP doesn't have pre-heat. I think the remote A/C just to cool it down.

 

Whole house residential electric furnaces are commonly 10-15kW and cycle on and off like forced air gas furnaces. If you ran the Volt heater constantly full blast you could use it to heat your entire house.

In reality, the full power is only used to quickly heat a cold car and then much lower power is used to maintain the temperature. That is why pre-heating while connected to the grid is an effective strategy. At 120V L1, the grid is only supplying 1.4 kW, so that works better with 240V L2 which is around 3.3 kW. If given the chance, the car may continue to pull power from the grid for a few minutes to backfill any power that it borrowed from the battery during pre-heating.

The Volt heating system has a valve which automatically redirects waste heat from the gas engine into the cabin heater core when it is available. Electric heating is only used when the gas engine isn't needed for other reasons unless it is very cold (this temperature point is configurable down to 10-15F or so in the 2013 model).

 

I rarely use heat.. Colorado Springs is not that cold on most days (65 and sunny right now). But when it does get cold it can be very cold. The Volt's heaters produce heat quickly and effectively even under EV. It heats up much faster than my honda ever did or my wife's subaru does.

In general preheating is actually not that efficient in any car -- it can heat the air in the car, but the large thermal mass of the vehicle can absorb that much heat energy quickly with only a small overall increase in its overal temp over the ambient. That is why some people feel that after a 10min remote start its not that warm. If you get in just as its finishing it will seem pretty warm. Let it sit for 10-15min extra and the heat from the air will be quickly absorbed by the rest of the car. Would not matter if that was a volt or an ICE. For an ICE, having the engine preheat while idleing get the coolant loop warm so the cars "heaters" are primed and ready for the occupant. Same is true in the volt if you use it right after preheating.

For short trips, I'd much rather just use EV heating (if needed) than burn gas just for a 5 mile trip.

 

I would agree with that. However, if you only make 5 miles trip, 16 kWh battery just a waste with extra cost and weight. The gas engine is there whether you use it or not, so you might as well use it.

Gas engine needs to run once in awhile anyway, so there is nothing wrong with using it when you need heat or extra power. In fact, you end up doing more with less. Having smaller battery increases gas mileage and interior space.

 

5mile trip, both ways is 10.. about the limit of the PHV which is why I used that example. I was agreeing with the premise of the tread-- forcing gas to provide heat for short trips is a waste.

If I said I'd prefer 18-20 (or 36-40) mile trips without needing gas, it would only apply to the Volt.. (36-40 mile a day on pure EV is actually what I do in the winter)

The engine being there is for protection in case of emergency and for long trips. Using gas just because it is there, is just silly. If I carry a gun for protection, and carry it around if I use it or not, your logic suggests I just I jsut start using it. You use something because you NEED IT,not just because you have it.

The gas engine needs to run for 2-3 min every six weeks to keep it lubricated. I guess using it for heat for that 2-3 min every 6 weeks is something I can live with.

Having a smaller battery decreases overall MPG, it just increases the MPG when you actually have to use gas but makes that happen (in general) far more often.

If you drive a PiP for a 5 mile trips in the cold you don't really need the ICE to provide heat. That was just toyota minimizing costs (maximizing profit), and wanting to not have to install a separate heating element. Nothing wrong with them maximizing their profit.. just don't confuse that with being more efficient.

 

I'm tired of all these PHV threads being derailed by Volt discussions. I don't care about the Volt's heater and I think that is off-topic.

 

To be fair, it is also a result of their overall choice of battery size. An electric heater like the one in the Volt or LEAF would draw 5-6 kW of power for an extended period of time while heating up a cold car. Battery performance is already weaker in cold temperatures. That much power is about what the PiP uses to drive around on city streets with climate controls off. Adding the power draw of an electric heater would be a significant fraction of normal EV power capability in the PiP and would make it more likely to kick in the gas engine anyway during modest accelerations. They may have decided that during cold weather the gas engine would have often started anyway during typical driving due to battery power limitations. The Volt and LEAF don't have that problem due to their larger battery packs.