Leaving hybrid system on for short trips..

Yes. If you need AC/heat/defrost/radio/etc, then you need to have the vehicle in 'ready' mode, otherwise you'll deplete the 12v battery.

 

Yes... And not just that, if you have a power outage at home you can hook up a 120v AC inverter to your 12v battery and leave the car on all night and use that electricity to power some lights and small appliances in your house till the power comes back on.

 

It's neither good nor bad.

It uses a little more fuel and provides a lot more comfort for the one waiting.

If that's how you want to use the car, go for it!

 

Just be aware, the normal operation mode when idle like this is for the HV battery to go all the way down to 2 bars (turns purple) on the center display, then the engine will start and recharge the hybrid battery to 3 bars (turns blue), then turn off again. It will do this as long as the car has fuel. If you get done shopping, hop in the car and drive away while the display is 2 bars, the car will act like a dog and feel like something is wrong. This is merely the car protecting the HV battery until it gets back into the blue range.

 

More like act like a cat... Dogs are usually pretty eager to perform for you, but a cat is like, "I'm here for the free food, warm places to sleep and scratches behind the ears, don't expect any more than that from me."

 

Be sure to put it in Park while waiting. Otherwise all good.

I have spent a fair amount of time waiting for the wife like this. No point wasting energy doing it though. If the weather is nice I also put the windows down and turn off the fan. If it is night time I would turn off the headlights (just remember to turn them back on again).

If the car is configured to autolock the alarm might go off if the outside person returns, reaches in, and opens the door with the handle. Personally, I think autolock is a terrible idea, and deactivate it on any car which will let me.

 

It's worth mentioning at this point if you upgrade to a Project Lithium battery pack upgrade and you do this kind of waiting instead of the car dropping down to two bars in less than an hour and then the engine starts up to recharge, with Project Lithium modules I've never had it get down to 2 bars to turn the engine back on even after 2.5 hours, but I suspect it would eventually get to that point. Obviously that's without heater or AC running. And as always, if you buy one of these packs with my affiliate link: https://projectlithium.com/?ref=9qLPw I'll give you a unlimited tech support and a discount on installation if you live nearby.

 

Do tell? Any 120 v AC inverter? Wattage? Hmmmm!!

 

Once you get above 1100 watts you're asking the sytem for too much... And some people on here like myself will argue that DC 12v to AC 120v inverter that's designed for 2000w will run most efficient/safest at 1100w or less. Also some on here will argue (not me) that a pure sine wave inverter (overly-expensive) is best as some things in your home won't start up without a clean signal. But I suggest that's no longer true as electronic advancements in electrical equipment has made this less neccessary.

And if you want to go all out, you can tap directly into your high voltage DC battery, which is more efficient, but way more expensive via this company: HOME | PlugOut Power, Generator for hybrid vehicles | United States

 

I guess that was my cue.

They used to be overly-expensive. At least, a decade or more ago, there was enough price difference between a sine inverter and an MSW "modified sine" inverter (a spin-doctor's name if ever there was one, if you looked at the wave on a scope you'd call it "modified square" if anything) to make you stop and think about whether you could get away with the cheaper one.

From years ago, I used to remember MSW inverter pricing as "about a dime a watt plus $10". Looking at choices over at The Inverter Store, I see that's gone down some but not drastically. So there's a bare-bones 1250 watt MSW inverter there for $115.

I can remember back when a comparable pure-sine inverter would be four figures, but those are the ones that have really come down. There's a 1500 watt one at the inverter store for $303, so about $180 more for pure sine (fudging over the slight difference in power). For me, that makes the MSW "not cheap enough to justify having to think about what I plug in".

That blade cuts both ways, because maybe the most noticeable of "electronic advancements in electrical equipment" is how much electrical equipment has turned into electronics. Most of the power tools I've bought in the last 20 years include electronic motor controls. I just had to repair my washing machine this week by replacing a cap on its motherboard. What used to be the simplest kinds of loads are turning into the kinds of loads that MSW inverters aren't recommended for.

Here's a Stack Exchange answer showing why it's hard to produce an MSW output that satisfies all the expectations different devices have for their power input, and therefore hard to get the harmonic distortion below about 35%. That is, you think this inverter is giving you 120 volts of 60 Hz AC, but 35% of its output is on frequencies like 180 Hz, 300 Hz, and other higher ones, not 60 Hz at all.

https://electronics.stackexchange.com/a/625091

Meanwhile, a lot of these modern devices include their own circuitry trying to make their input current follow their input voltage (normally sine!) as closely as possible (to meet regulatory requirements on power factor), as this article describes:

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/how-the-boost-pfc-converter-circuit-improves-power-quality/

The article describes a PI or PID control scheme being used to compare the incoming voltage and the current being drawn, and attempt to minimize the error. But with MSW it has to cope with an error the size of Vpeak four times every cycle, when the incoming MSW voltage abruptly switches levels. Maybe it copes ok, but this isn't really the situation these schemes are designed for.

We've got a thread for that, which does mention that company, as well as other options:

Electric power from a hybrid, connecting inverter to the high-voltage system | PriusChat