Sweater, gloves required when driving Volt in cold

Since I have already done that with a PHV, you can see that the engine fired up at 50 MPH while I was accelerating hard up the ramp.

It's a hybrid style join in, just like you'd see with Prius normally but not until a faster speed. The electric motor is still helping to ease the burden, but the gas engine contributes its power pretty quick.
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Gas engine will blend in above 62mph depending on your acceleration. It will be in the blended discharge mode, continuing to drain the battery at the most efficient and long life rate with gas engine running at the most efficient RPM. If you slow down below 62 mph, gas engine will stop and return back to EV mode again as long as the battery charge remains.

 

Thanks for the video.
On a cold morning though, the engine would still not have a chance to warm up before being faced with highway speeds (high torque, lots of mechanical friction and wear when engine oil is cold). Right now, with my Corolla, in my one mile drive before the highway on-ramp, my engine has a chance to get some heat into the engine oil before being faced with the high torque experienced on the highway. In Spring, Summer, and Fall, I'm not too worried. But on cold winter mornings (here in Southern California we have about 2.5 months where it gets down to about 40degF), I don't want to subject my engine to extreme friction and wear when the engine oil is cold. I'm sure Toyota engineers are very well aware of this concept. I hope they come up with a solution. I really want to buy a PHV Prius, but this is a concern of mine. My Corolla engine has 160,000 miles on it and runs almost like the day I bought it brand new. This is because I have taken very good care of it, and always being very easy on the accelerator until the engine warms up and never going on the highway until the engine is warm. :car:

 

How's that much different from what I've been doing with my Prius for the last 10 years? The video starts just 2 very short blocks from my house. There's barely any time for any warm-up. Being hard on the Prius like that is why I've been able to endorse it so strongly.

Look at it this way, the PHV will be able to offer more electric motor assistance to the engine than it does now.
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Awesome. That means a lot to me. I know from my 160K mile experience with my Corolla that Toyota cars have excellent durability. If you have been experiencing what you state above with your Prius, then I'm hoping the engine will hold up.
(physics is still physics though; mechanical friction and wear)
I don't know much about winter grade oil because I live in Southern California, but would it help? I drive 48 miles on the highway each way - engine is well up to temp.
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The car will be fine at your "low" temperatures. There are at least 3 months of the year where the high rarely ever gets above 40F. 9 months of winter, and 3 months of summer. Nothing inbetween around here.

Toyota's are built well and hold up to this sort of thing. With an EV (or any PHV conversion or otherwise) it seems easy to add an engine block heater so while it charges, it maintains your engine temperature.

 

With a stated 85 miles range remaining, 2 degrees outside, climate set to 20, the leaf said the difference was 8 miles. Nice to have the info and the choice, and in the prius i do in fact wear a hat and gloves and don't use the heater on short trips, i'd probably be more inclined to use it on the leaf.

 

As a Prius Chat reader I am really ashamed of thi type of post
After all the years of dealing with ignorant issues such as 'the Hummer is better environmentally than the Prius' and 'The Prius turned Sudberry(?) into a toxic moonscape', some are spreading the same FUD about other cars and even other TYPES (EVs in this case) of cars.

Waste heat from an ICE is just that. Waste. Just how efficient do you thing an ICE is while it is warming up? 15%?? Then most of that waste heat is going to heat up the engine itself, the air around it' and some to the cabin.
Once your car has heated up, the ICE still generates the heat, so more ofbit is wasted.

EVs heat up just fine. Yes, it shortens your range, but heat works.
Now, if GM screwed up how the fans work, or something else about the heating system, fine be critical all you want. But don't imply EVs can't warm up their occupants.

 

EV's can, the Leaf works great. in the end i turned the heater off because it was melting my face.

The volt is not an EV.

 

Unless of course your power provider uses wind, supplemented by your own rooftop solar array....?

www.ecotrcity.co.uk

www.isis-solar.com

Then even a crappy electric heater is better than burning dino juice.

 

I wish we were closer to solar power. I am not frankly sure I have enough space on my roof even if money was no object and I covered the entire thing in solar to heat my house and power EV cars. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't have enough. I might be able to do it with the entire thing covered and a couple of beefy wind turbines, but I bet my town wouldn't let me put them there and the neighbors would hate me for it

 

Exhaust heat can be recovered to heat the cabin or the gas engine (faster warm up cycle). It also keep the gas engine warm longer when it is not running.

Exhaust gas can be recirculated to improve MPG by reducing pumping loss and prevent fuel enrichments.

How Stuff Works has an article with great explanation. Volt is missing this plugin hybrid critical feature. It is probably why Volt's gas engine takes 10 minutes to warm up. Prius PHV and even a cordless Prius has this cool technology and the warm ups are just about 1 minute. This shows Gen3 Prius was redesigned with plugin in mind.

Just like regen braking, if you can recover the energy before it goes wasted it is not a waste.

 

Yep. The Volt DOES at least get better mpg's than any other PHEV achieving an epa of 37mpg and below. There are hundreds of aftermarket/converted PHEV's doing way better than the Volt. And, there are hundreds of factory Prius phev's running around the landscape that get around 50mpg though the epa exact # has not yet been revealed. Who knows . . . even the final size of the PHEV traction pack may be increased prior to epa #'s being anounced. Either way, I'm glad Toyota isn't "over-promising" their final numbers the way GM did. 230mpg . . . . boy that sure came back to bite 'em.

 

Perhaps the term "ICE" is appropiate?

 

Ahh ..... if only we could all be Californians .... and southern Californians would be even better. No concern for anyone else's weather; no thought that many live where it is frigid longer that the one season spoken of.

 

We'll find out how Volt's AC works in the summer then.

 

I actually moved down here just so that I could get better MPG year-round.

I heard that as gas prices continue to increase, more and more Americans are moving south to enjoy basking in the warm, year-round high-MPG weather.

*** On a serious note, I keep seeing more and more threads and posts on these forums from people that live up North that just keep bashing electric cars. Yes, electric cars are not for everyone. Perhaps electric cars, such as the Nissan Leaf, Volt, and Prius PHV are not for people that live up North. These forums on some days seem to be more like "let's bash electric cars" forums. TOYOTA makes many different models of vehicles. Choose what works best for you. I'm planning on buying a Prius PHV because I think it will be best for me. The Prius v is not best for me. Am I posting over and over bashing hybrid station wagons that only get 40mpg? No.

 

It will make you laugh like crazy :lol: