This may sound like a stupid question but how do you preheat the car in cold weather? I have been able to use the remote start function in the app and then set the vehicles interior temperature using the app and this worked for warming the interior once, but on several occasions it would not work because the battery was under a certain percent it said... Very weird to me that remote start can just not work but I can go outside and start the car no problem. If the battery is ok to start the car why is it not ok to remote start it? This is a fault for sure. On my last car I just set the temperature dials before leaving my car the night before, then the next morning would remote start the car and in 15 minutes everything was toasty and ready to go. And I am not only talking about warming up the inside of the car. I want to know how you can warm the motor? When the vehicle starts, it starts in EV or HV mode but either way, it uses the electric motors until it starts moving. So this means that your motor doesn't get any time to warm up and cycle oil before you are already moving. This is not good and I feel like there must be a solution that I am just unaware of because otherwise it is another terrible design fault. Its easily -30 on most days during winter where I am and iI get on the highway pretty quickly after leaving my place. i need to be able to warm the actual motor before driving. Any insight would be appreciated.
What's your parking situation like? Is it in a garage? If its on the street, do you have electrical access for it? An engine block heater will allow you to heat the interior of the car much faster once the engine is running. But because Toyota sucks at software and pretty sure will eventually charge you a fee for remote start options I'd encourage you to work with using a standard outlet-based power cord to use electric blanket style warmers around the high voltage battery pack and control/monitor the system via bluetooth or wifi. Lithium batteries are at their best around 38 degrees Celsius and keeping them near that temp when you're ready to drive in cold weather will easily make the cabin warm enough to get in and drive if you're willing to do it DIY.
From a different thread: "The simplest solution is usually the right answer. Just found out the engine will start in Park, start button depressed (ready , HV mode and the accelerator pedal slightly depressed). It then continues to run for a few minutes completing it's warm up cycle before shutting down. You can get out of the car, with or without the key for that warm up cycle." Also, my car has a Charge Mode so if the traction battery isn't full just pressing the Charge Mode button will start the engine to charge the battery That doesn't help you with the remote start problem or warming up the interior but it will warm the engine up before you race down the highway (note, I have a 2024 Prime ). KH
You could try a block heater. It's a low-tech option available for any car with a gas or diesel engine. Figure a couple-three hundred bucks installed. It's just a simple resistance heater that attaches to one of the coolant ports on your engine block. The idea is that you plug the heater into a mains power circuit at your parking space, and the heater will warm up the engine without burning any fuel at all. You can connect them to simple on/off timers so that the engine is pre-warmed every morning. I figure if you're already plugging in the car for traction power, it won't be a big deal to plug it in twice so that the heater can help you. Many Canadian mechanics and auto dealers are familiar with these accessories, it should not be hard for you to get set up.
There seems to be some confusion here on if you want to cold start the engine or pre-warm the interior??? The PHEV does not start the engine to pre-warm the interior; it uses a heat pump that has a low temperature operations limitation. That's why the app is telling you to manually start the car. The air temperature is beyond the heat pump's capability to warm the car's interior. When you manually get the car into "Ready" and demand cabin heat in the above described conditions - the engine will start, since the heat pump won't operate in those conditions. I believe all that is outlined in your OPS manual..... If the goal is to pre-warm the engine; @Leadfoot J. McCoalroller above suggestion. Hybrids operate differently from ICE only cars. PS you can force the ICE ON by hitting the windscreen defogger button - you'll get more heat, faster; but it will impact mpgs or in your case liters/100km......
As pointed out, the app doesn't do a remote start of the car, but just cabin preconditioning. It is a safety call by Toyota. Neither the app nor car knows if it is parked in a poorly ventilated garage or not. To prewarm the engine, you need to do it manually, use a block heater, or find some other remote start option. Toyota has been making hybrids for some time now. The system program does not put a heavy on a cold engine. After the engine first starts, the car is still mostly using electric power to move until the engine finishes its warm up cycle. It can get to over 80mph in EV mode, so the engine cold starting on a highway isn't an issue.
Install the block heater, and start it heating at least 4 hours* in advance. Start the car in hybrid mode. * With older-style Toyota block heater, 2 hours would be enough to warm it quite well. There was apparently a fire risk though, and a recall, so dealership replaced ours. The fix appears to be a drastic reduction in wattage: now it takes 4 hours to get tepid. Anyway, better'n nothing.
