Purpose of AC FOB Button...

I get my Prius Thursday morning, so this may be all wrong. My understanding is it lets you begin cooling a car that's been sitting in the heat as you're walking to it.

 

The AC runs off the hybrid battery and without the car being "on" (in ready mode) there isn't a way to recharge the hybrid battery as the solar panel just runs the air vent. So if you press the AC button on the key fob it will only run for 3 minutes max or until the battery is at a minimum percentage (whichever comes first) so it doesn't drain the hybrid battery down to nothing. If the hybrid battery gets down to nothing you need the car towed to a dealership.

As for why it runs the AC and not the heat, I don't know. My speculation is that running the heater consumes more energy than running the AC.

 

They only way you get heat is from hot coolant, hot coolant comes when engine runs.
No electric heat!

 

Well, I wasn't entirely wrong, it would consume more energy.

The only way to run heat then would be to have remote start.

 

And then you kill mpg, especially if you have to run it long enough to get the coolant hot first. Even though I live in Phoenix, the ICE running the heater in the Accord was another negative for it. The reviews I read say mpg drops well into the 30's in the winter up north.

 

This is why I went with remote start.

Blow MPG. The reason you have it is to heat/cool the car before you get in it. If it's hot enough or cold enough that you want it done, you'll eat the gas impact GLADLY. FWIW, I think the remote start is 12 minutes, max. It does it's best work when you need to heat the car to help defrost the windows so you don't spend 10 minutes in the cold trying to chip it off with the car door open.

 

I've never had remote start, couldn't ever get it as I always drove a manual transmission car, but I don't think that's important to me. It doesn't take that long for the heat to warm up and that's what coats are for. Then again, I park in a garage and it doesn't get overly cold here. I think last year we saw 8 degrees once over night but it's mostly in the 30's during the winter months.

 

A nice feature that I have on my other car is the ability to remotely lower all four windows. A typical example is opening the windows when I'm paying the bill in a restaurant, giving the car a few minutes to air out before I climb in.

Would be a nice thing for Toyota to add.

 

With the solar panel option this would be handled for you without the need to even push a button, you could turn the AC on for those couple of min between paying the bill and getting to the car.

 

I prefer the open windows--totally free initial cooling.

 

Exactly. I love my mpg's but refuse to be anal retentive enough to suffer for a car I paid 26k for. Sometimes we border on obsessive behavior here. I drove mine like it was some sort of a contest for about a month and it is now out of my system.

 

Unless the ICE comes on, you will NOT get any heat from the A/C. With remote start, you do. I'm not sure if higher temp would matter. Remote start runs for about 12 minutes before shutting off. I've been set for 72 year-round with no issues. The most I do is ensure my vent setup is to the defrost configuration before I power off. The A/C has no way of knowing I want to defrost the windows when it's cold out and the system's set to AUTO.

The remote A/C is electric only. You can't get heat from it. It's why I killed the idea of buying a Prius 4 for the feature and decided to spend $850 on the remote start for a Prius 2. Even if I went with a Prius 4, I would still need the remote start to be able to heat the car remotely.

 

That'd be nice, wouldn't it. Unfortunately it wouldn't be able to do that. The solar panels wouldn't not be efficient enough to charge the hybrid battery. From the way I understand it, it takes large panels a long time to absorb enough solar energy to convert to kWh and when you start talking larger solar panels you start talking more weight which means decreased fuel economy, thus defeating the purpose of the Prius.

Solar Roof to Recharge Battery | PriusChat

 

Yes, the remote a/c is for those of us in warmer weather. It also runs the a/c on full blast independent of how high the fans were manually set to. I don't believe it turns on the ICE, but I can definitely hear the loud hum of what is likely the a/c compressor something. You can actually sit in the car when it's off and activate the "remote" a/c to see what settings it runs at.

 

I love the solar panel feature, it really helps with this southern heat and humidity, especially with a kid, his car seat is like an insulator of heat for him and the slight temp difference when getting in the car helps.

 

Yeah, I don't actually use the remote a/c feature much. The summer heat is feeling like something sustained like the solar panel ventilation (my brother got one recently but he's down in San Diego and I've not seen or tried it yet), or even remote window roll down would be much more effective at rapid cooling. The 3 minutes on remote a/c doesn't seem like it'd be sufficient other than perhaps in getting the cabin temperature to reach about the outside temperature, which could be achieved much more effectively and efficiently by just remotely lowering all windows a la 1-touch down.