keeping gen III running while in park with A/C on

Correct me if I'm wrong - while in park, you can press the gas pedal and this will force the engine on. However, as far as I know it will not charge the battery. Even though your battery shows 2 bars left, it really has somewhere around 40% capacity left. I say run your A/C how you want, don't worry about forcing the engine on, and let the car do your thing. My 2 cents.

 

Why are you worried about getting to 2 bars on your battery readout? Its not like the traction battery is actually drained, its still above 70% or so... It doesnt hurt a thing. I have left the thing running all night when I camped in it. All it did is screw up my mpg a little bit, but I actually more or less made it all back by the end of the tank.

This car is idiot proof. Just turn it on, treat it like any other car, and remember to turn it back off when your done.

 

Not true. Remember that one "person" who walked away from his prius after parking it in his garage, expecting it to turn off by itself without actually pressing the power button? lol

Don't worry about draining the battery... The A/C compressor runs on electric power, so it will get that power from the battery. Your car doesn't have an alternator, so the engine won't run the a/c to generate power. the way the car generates power is through the inverter.

and yes, everyone here is right. 2 bars means like 50%. Toyota isn't honda, they will never let you drain the battery to 0%. Hell, in the Gen III you can't even run on EV only once you run out of gas to save the battery.