"Ready" mode camping for climate control

I haven’t camped, but I can tell you this....

The plug in, after the battery is depleted, acts just as if it was a regular Prius.

I am a delivery driver in the evening after my day job.

During the summer, sometimes I just in my car with the air conditioning running, with no orders to do. The Prius just cycles as if was a regular Prius, as mentioned above.


iPhone ?

 

your understanding is correct. even in the new prime, with force charging of the plug in portion of the battery available when driving, i dont think it would work in the 'ready' but sitting idle scenario.

 

Bisco is correct about the PiP, but mistaken about the Prime.Yes, charge mode works on the Prime while sitting, but the PiP has no such capability at all. Put the Prime in charge mode while at a traffic light and the ICE fires right up and the SOC increases. I tried it once just to see what would happen. But for camping, you'd have to wake up to do that, which is a little inconvenient. Depending on the A/C load, you might only have to do it once a night. Not sure. It's a pretty big battery. If you did that, it would charge the battery to 80% and then go right back to where you began, running off the battery till it got low and then running the ICE just enough to get the battery back up to regular HV level and then back to acting like a regular Prius (which ain't bad).

Back to the PiP. The PiP would get you quite a ways into the night if you started with a full battery, but probably not all night. It would not be hard to try it out, although it might make for a long night.

 

why cant you just leave it in charge mode?

 

Once the traction battery gets back up to 80%, it changes to EV mode. Charge mode is done till next time you ask for it. I suppose that keeps you from forgetting and it staying set like that since it's almost always less efficient.

A "Camping mode" would sure be cool, though!!

 

any idea how long the engine has to run to recharge the battery with the car in park?

 

I've never checked it. But I have read that while driving, it can charge in less time than the wall charger and that seems to jive with my brief tests.

 

it would be interesting to know. i thought it didnt work unless you were going over a certain speed

 

You put it in D and floor it while holding the brake, and it will charge the battery back into the EV portion. But it's noisy and wasteful, so not much point in doing it.

Also, you need the ICE for heat in these cars, the Gen 1 Plug-in has no other heat source (Prime has an electric heat pump).

 

I used to sometimes charge my PiP by something I call "stacking." While driving in HV, if you stop from highway speeds or even close, you can add as much as a half mile of EV range. Once stopped, put it into EV and then back into HV and that will lock in that new range that the car will try to keep. Do it a few times on a fairly long drive and it can add up to quite a bit. But of course, that's at the expense of more gas burned.

 

You're in a great stop for a plug in! Just remember to not charge it fully before you head down the hill. Gotta leave some room for all that charge to go as you drop.

Even though there's no need for AWD here, I would love one of the Rav4 Primes based on what I know so far. I wonder how they would work for camping.