Engine runs most of the time 2012 PiP

duly noted your honor.

 

as i said, my engine never comes on if i set the term to 'low'.

any idea where the temp was set? was the 'auto' button depressed?

how is 'engine came on with 1.5 miles range left', normal?

 

I'm with Bisco. I always have my cabin temp set at "LO" and the fan off. I never use the "Auto" setting, even with the A/C. I guess I'm a bit of a control freak, but I like to set fan speed and temp myself. Even in our "cold" weather here in SoCal, my ICE never started, even with garage temps in the fifties or lower, and outside temps in the low thirties. Thank goodness we are back to normal temps now!
It's not that I never use the heater, which I do when the wife is with me, but then I know to expect the ICE to come on.

 

Ditto for me...but up here in colder Bay Area I see temps at least 2-4 degrees lower,

Mike

 

sure, rub it in.

 

Anyone see the irony in how we use ICE as an acronym for a heat-producing device?

(Yes, I am sure that this is ancient history. Sorry about that.)

 

When I want EV only, I turn heater off and use seat heaters. This works for me unless I go down a hill immediately after starting, or press the gas hard, or go faster than about 45 mph.

 

Leaving your temperature at 68° is the cause for the ICE turning on. The FAQ discusses this in pretty good detail. Am I wrong?

 

nope. the question is, i think, why wasn't the engine coming on with the temp set at 68 for the first (18 months?) of ownership?

 

But didn't the poster admit they may not have noticed the ICE running in previous years' cool season?

 

Open a window in summer; dress warm in winter. Problem solved for the mpg-obsessive.

 

i've lost track, but if true, problem solved?

 

me thinks so

 

if you re read the o/p, it says the car worked fine in montana at 15 below zero.

 

he does say, if it did it before, it wasn't as loud, so maybe he didn't notice it. maybe he's thrown an engine mount?

 

fair enough, but I don't get how you couldn't hear the engine warm up in Montana in the winter with the cabin heater on. I'm in Pittsburgh, and I can definitely hear the engine come on when you have the cabin heater on in single-digit weather. Maybe turn up the stereo.

 

Not likely. The electric seat warmers are very efficient and are very likely to be more efficient than "waste" heat from the gas engine. Even though the gas engine is "co-generating" power into the PiP battery, contributing to moving the car, and warming the cabin there will still be a lot of wasted heat escaping into the surrounding outside air. Also, the waste heat sent into the cabin is mostly wasted -- it is warming up the steel and plastic inside the cabin in addition to you.

This will almost certainly represent far more than the ~45 Watts cycling on and off that it takes to warm only your buns.

 

the problem with running the engine to heat the car is efficiency. for trips within ev range, there's a lot of warming up, a lot of pollution, a lot of very low mpg's and very little heat.