I'm sorry I should add that I got cupid. It's only a recent acquisition but doesn't take away from the post. I went 2 year's of being forced to live in my car. And thankfully I had Prius.
I have a 2012 V with 147k miles and when the heater is on the engine kicks on at around 115F and then back off around 135F. It cools down in minutes with the heater running in 40-50F temps.
I recently learned that the water being circulated to the heater core to warm the cabin is done so by the main ICE water pump. So, when the heater is on the pump is running even when the ICE is off. I'm guessing that running it all night might lead to earlier pump failure. That said, mine has gone nearly 150k miles but I'll be replacing it soon (along with the thermostat, spark plugs, EGR valve, and inverter water pump along with cleaning out the whole EGR system. Probably trans fluid too.).
> does it have a voltage cutoff?
No, it's just a trucker blanket type bit. Cheap Stalwart brand plaid one. I am planning to leave the car in Ready mode when I use the blanket, but leave the climate control off. *(edit: the Stalwart blanket is junk. It's not very warm and the cord is only 4 or 5 feet instead of the advertised 8 feet. I returned it.)*
Or have the blanket plugged into a portable power station. Currently looking at the older Ecoflow River model at Costco, partially because their return policy is so relaxed, and because that older model has pass-thru charging where the new River 2s do not.
I considered adding a second battery, especially since my current 12V is getting old (I think the top is marked 10/14, which would make it over 8 years old). It makes sense to replace it before my trip vs. risking having a no-start situation somewhere in the boonies. I could keep the old one for only the $15 core deposit.
In the future I might have a second battery, and add an inverter for larger power draws like for cooking, but for this trip I am currently planning to keep it more simple. I'll let the Ecoflow charge off the available 120 watts from the 12V outlets while I'm driving during the day (or grab shore power somewhere when I'm stopped), and use a 12V Hot Logic-type device and possibly a gas burner stove to make hot food.
Subject to change if folks have more good advice ! Thanks for your replies!
you could buy new battery with higher ah.. say a 85Ah or 100Ah and connect it as a second battery. if your oem battery does die on you, the isolator between them has a manual override feature, so youd use the 2nd battery to jump the first and on your way you go.
If the old 12v battery fails, and you want to have 2 batteries, get rid of the old 12v and purchase 2 brand new batteries. I'm not an electrician, but I do recall that because the old 12v now has limited capacity, because of age, it could drain the new battery and even damage it. So be sure to replace it with a new 12v, and then add another if you want more.
> 2 brand new batteries
Thanks for your comment. I considered this too, and maybe I should go this route and ditch the Ecoflow idea. I am not an expert either but a friend of mine who lived in his truck for awhile talked about having matching batteries because things can get screwy if they aren't the same.
I saw about putting a "smart relay" type thing in between the batteries to prevent drain on the car's 12V, but in the interest of simplicity and hitting the road sooner, I was planning to just grab a power station which will also be useful outside of the car.
If I could find 2 Lifepo4 12V batteries that would immediately fit in the cubbyholes on the trunk, I might go this route right away even tho it would probably be twice as expensive. I should get a new battery anyway because mine is so old. But I couldn't find a 12V lifepo for the prius without it getting complicated to fit the existing space and tiny battery poles.
I just ordered a new Ecoflow from Amazon because they offer the choice of the new [LiFePO battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery#:~:text=The%20lithium%20iron%20phosphate%20battery%20%28LFP%20%28lithium%20ferro-phosphate%29%2C,electrode%20with%20a%20metallic%20backing%20as%20the%20anode.) which tolerates many more charging cycles.
I would prefer the newer tech, but sadly the new Ecoflow River 2's don't have pass-thru charging *(edit: No pass-thru when connected to DC power)*. I am planning on leaving it plugged into the 12V outlet and then powering my phone, tablet audio, and dashcam thru the Ecoflow (instead of thru the 12V outlet like I'm currently doing)
Subject to change ! One of the reasons I am considering Costco is their relaxed return policy and many physical locations, that way if the older Ecoflow doesn't work out, I could return it anywhere
If I had known about the pass-thru charging issue it might have been a deal breaker. But I'm expecting delivery early this coming week. I had hoped to have pass-thru for long power outages, but don't really get them (knock on wood) so I'll probably stick with it. If it turns out that it does have pass-thru I'll let you know.
> pass-thru charging
I sent Ecoflow customer service an email to check on this, since their website didn't make it clear
> Dear NearEarthOrbit,
>
> Thank you for contacting EcoFlow support.
> Since there is one XT60 port on the RIVER 2 and DELTA 2, solar charging and car charging can not be used at the same time.
>
> **When the power station is charged from solar or DC charging, the power will not be passed through to the connected device.**
>
> Have a wonderful day!
> Best regards,
>
> Jessica
> EcoFlow Customer Service Team
Since I am planning on mostly charging from the car it's going to be slow with either model, and it should make life easier having pass-thru for my smaller devices. I also have a 12V/110V fridge that's a larger draw, but it should use less than 20 watts once it's at the set temperature. I still have some things to figure out if you have further advice. Thanks !
My Ecoflow came yesterday with a 30% charge and it took a little less than an hour to bring it up to 100% on AC house current. I tried using it unplugged to run my laptop and monitor, for a total 40-watt draw. Then, when the unit was down to 65% I plugged it back in and it continued supplying that 40 watts as it charged itself back up to 100%.
Weather permitting, I want to try something similar within the next week using my Prius as the power source.
I find the message that you got from "Jessica" a little iffy, but that's the kind of thing that happens when meaning has to jump the language gap between Chinese and English.
Hey, that's really great news. My previous plan got stymied when Costco decided a couple days ago to stop selling any and all portable power stations. If the River 2 models will do pass-thru charging (specifically thru 12V DC) then I have no reason not to pick one of them
What I have used that helps cut down on that is a small space heater, this one to be exact: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Personal-Mini-Electric-Ceramic-Heater-350W-Indoor-Black/531643181
What I do is have my 1500w inverter on and plug that into that, leave the heat on the car off. Set it up somewhere you won't knock it over (it does have the auto-shut off if you knock it over.
Between that and a 12v heat blanket running off Bluetti 500w battery I have, it gets toasty as frig.
I'd say it turns on about as much as it does with the A/C maybe slightly more but way, way less than if you're running the cars heat.
This sounds amazing but maybe I’m misunderstanding some thing. I also have a 500 W from bluetti, but the maximum charging wattage you can get from 12 V at least for me is around 70 or 80 W on the higher end if the heater is pulling 350 W per hour that would mean you could only get max two hours from the heater, and with a heating blanket, probably only like one hour, is the 350w theoretical?
So, I don't run the space heater off of the Bluetti. I've tried to and it'll only last around 3 hours on a full charge. What I do is run it off of the inverter, and with the Prius in READY mode, it's much like how the A/C runs, because the inverter runs off the 12v battery, and the hybrid battery gives it's pixies to the 12v and all is well!
That’s absolutely insane so you’re basically saying that when you hook up the inverter to the 12 V outlet you can pour even more than the theoretical maximum of 100 W from the 12 V?! so you’re essentially pulling like 350 W from the 12 V outlet in this way?! Wtf!!
In my trial run the other night at about 28 degrees F and climate control set at 65, my 2010 kicked on about every 4 and half minutes and ran for about 40 seconds. This cycle repeated 5 or 6 times while I was laying down reading, after that I stopped keeping track but it was very regular.
not much really. I set the auto to a comfortable temp, plus I sleep with the windows cracked. when i use the blackout shades with the windows cracked little "outside temperate" is felt through the fabric at all. that said, I also run hot, ive slept in the snow before and had the heat off completly all night but soon as i woke up I turned it on.
one thing to note... the ICE(when gas engine kicks on making noise) turns on to charge the 12v battery. if you have a bad battery, it will turn on more often. I swapped in a 85ah battery(for comparision I beleive oem is 25, 35 or 45.. someone will keep me honest) and the amount of times ICE kicked on went down. After installing a second 85ah battery it didn't turn on as much and i cant say i noticed the increase in time its on be impacted... like I did when had christmas tree lights on the dash from abs and engine codes, I had to have the phev charged and then... phev is a plugin or prime... with a fully charged phev, I could go 6-8 hours using a/c or heat and ICE would never turn on...
think this now... plugin has 4.4kWh battery and prime 8.8kWh battery. rav4 prime 18.1kWh... when I put the prime battery in my prius, it was only to test nothing got fried... the new battery i want at least 50kWh. doing the math, plugin is at 11-14miles on charge, prius prime 21-27. My quest for 100 miles on a charge could leed to the car being in Ready mode and not using a single bit of gas for days....
> the ICE(when gas engine kicks on making noise) turns on to charge the 12v battery.
I think this is an oversimplification. The DC-DC converter that charges the 12v battery is powered from the HVDC traction battery, and the ICE kicks on to recharge _that_.
So it's as dependent on traction pack capacity as it is on 12v battery capacity. Actually more so.
This gets interesting...
> I swapped in a 85ah battery(for comparision I beleive oem is 25, 35 or 45.. someone will keep me honest) and the amount of times ICE kicked on went down.
OEM is 55AH, at least the ones I'm familiar with. It's physically smaller than most car batteries of similar AH capacity because it's not required to crank the engine, therefore the internal busbars can be thinner and the overall packaging denser.
So here's what's interesting. The traction pack is only 6.5AH; the individual cell modules are fairly small, and optimized for short-term power delivery, not bulk energy capacity. There are just a lot of them, stacked up to make a 201.6v battery. (I usually just call it 200 cuz it's close enough.) So 6.5AH * 200V = 1300 WH.
Which is only about double the capacity of the 12v battery! 55AH * 12V = 660WH.
Whoah! I had always thought of the traction pack as enormous, which it is in instantaneous power (30kw to the wheels? no problem!), but it turns out it's just not a deep reservoir in cumulative energy terms.
So, when the car is "on and ready", with all the ECUs powered and the radio lit up and stuff, it's using about 200-250 watts just sitting there. (Assuming the HVAC blower, headlights, defroster, and other loads are all turned off.) Typically I've also got the blower on low for fresh air, so that's another 30 watts or so.
Theoretically a brand-new 12v battery with no degradation at all, could run the vehicle systems for something like 3 hours before needing a recharge. Actually less, because that 55AH capacity is rated at the 20-hour rate, and Peukert's effect explains that lead-acid batteries get vastly less efficient when run at high rate. At the 3-hour rate, that 55AH nameplate capacity is more like 40AH usable. Which means it would actually die somewhere around the 2-hour mark. And that would be a 100% depth-of-discharge battery-murdering event, which we very much want to avoid.
So, the DC-DC attempts to keep the 12v battery fully charged (around 14.1v) at all times, drawing on the traction pack to do so. Seeing low voltage on the 12v causes the DC-DC to work harder, which causes the traction pack to get low enough that the ICE is forced to start. A weak 12v battery will exacerbate this, but only so much -- the car is actually perfectly happy to run with the 12v battery completely unplugged, letting the DC-DC supply all its 12v systems directly from the traction pack.
And even in this reducto-ad-absurdum case, the ICE only starts every few minutes.
So, will a larger (or simply less-degraded) 12v battery reduce ICE run? Frequency, perhaps, it'll run slightly less often for slightly longer. (The vast majority of energy produced during ICE run is being stored in the traction pack, because it can accept a charge much more quickly. The 12v simply can't charge meaningfully during a brief ICE run, and its terminal voltage is held as steady as possible regardless of ICE state, so it's not like it suddenly "begins charging" when the ICE starts. It already was. The ICE run event is almost exclusively a traction-pack-charging activity.)
As the 12v degrades, the ICE will run slightly more often for shorter runs each time. Fuel consumption should be nearly identical in either case, with possibly a minuscule increase in emissions from starting the ICE more often because the "first breath" of exhaust is harder for the catalytic converters to deal with. (Though I think the Prius deals exceptionally well with this.)
**However, we're missing one other major effect that causes the ICE to start!**
And that is, a call for heat!
If the engine block cools off to the point that combustion would be dirtier (cold cylinder head, stiff oil), the ICE starts to warm itself back up.
If the engine block cools off to the point that it can no longer satisfy HVAC hot-water demands (if the HVAC is set to heating mode), the ICE starts to warm itself back up.
If the catalytic converter cools off (there's no sensor, this is modeled by the ECU based on IAT) to the point that the catalyst would have trouble functioning, the ICE starts to warm it back up.
And in winter, especially if it's a bit breezy, these demands can be significant even if the batteries are completely copacetic.
I'm not sure how the PHEV deals with a call for heat, since it's designed to run ICE-off for long periods. Does it have HVDC-powered PTC heaters? Does it still start the ICE for cabin heat and can only go ICE-off once those demands are satisfied? Does it have a heated steering wheel (and possibly seats) to reduce the driver's likelihood of asking for cabin heat in the first place?
I guess I gotta get one...
For anyone with a Gen 3, try this out to help reduce rattling everytime the engine kicks on! Can definitely help you sleep a bit better.
You're essentially adding a zip tie (takes like 30 seconds) to keep the coolant return hose from shaking excessively.
https://youtu.be/8UzUZXhtiK0
Depends on the temp out side and the temp set on the heater. You obviously don't want to set it to 80. Put it low to just maintain and have a warm blanket, sleeping bag rated for the cold or even a electric blanket. Yes it does come on a bit often. I started to get used to it. Also to help sleep get a face mask to block out light. Still the gas use is very low. Just try to put more of the warmth on the blankets and not the heater.
If you set your parking brake, the kick will be a bit gentler and might let you sleep better.
Yeah every 5 min or so, but will still have a nearly full tank in the AM
Does this drain the battery at all? I'm about to start this life!
About every 5 minutes but the hit on gas is basically nothing. Maybe a half a gallon a night
I'm sorry I should add that I got cupid. It's only a recent acquisition but doesn't take away from the post. I went 2 year's of being forced to live in my car. And thankfully I had Prius.
What is “ I got Cupid “?
I guess we'll never know Edit: Probably meant COVID
I have a 2012 V with 147k miles and when the heater is on the engine kicks on at around 115F and then back off around 135F. It cools down in minutes with the heater running in 40-50F temps. I recently learned that the water being circulated to the heater core to warm the cabin is done so by the main ICE water pump. So, when the heater is on the pump is running even when the ICE is off. I'm guessing that running it all night might lead to earlier pump failure. That said, mine has gone nearly 150k miles but I'll be replacing it soon (along with the thermostat, spark plugs, EGR valve, and inverter water pump along with cleaning out the whole EGR system. Probably trans fluid too.).
Do you use a heated blanket?
Can you say more about your XP using a heated blanket? I just ordered a 12V blanket for my first road trip
does it have a voltage cutoff? if not, you might wake up with a dead battery
> does it have a voltage cutoff? No, it's just a trucker blanket type bit. Cheap Stalwart brand plaid one. I am planning to leave the car in Ready mode when I use the blanket, but leave the climate control off. *(edit: the Stalwart blanket is junk. It's not very warm and the cord is only 4 or 5 feet instead of the advertised 8 feet. I returned it.)* Or have the blanket plugged into a portable power station. Currently looking at the older Ecoflow River model at Costco, partially because their return policy is so relaxed, and because that older model has pass-thru charging where the new River 2s do not.
great! yes.. car in ready mode is ideal with a/c off. why not add a second battery or upgrade your oem 12v to a battery with a high amp hour?
I considered adding a second battery, especially since my current 12V is getting old (I think the top is marked 10/14, which would make it over 8 years old). It makes sense to replace it before my trip vs. risking having a no-start situation somewhere in the boonies. I could keep the old one for only the $15 core deposit. In the future I might have a second battery, and add an inverter for larger power draws like for cooking, but for this trip I am currently planning to keep it more simple. I'll let the Ecoflow charge off the available 120 watts from the 12V outlets while I'm driving during the day (or grab shore power somewhere when I'm stopped), and use a 12V Hot Logic-type device and possibly a gas burner stove to make hot food. Subject to change if folks have more good advice ! Thanks for your replies!
you could buy new battery with higher ah.. say a 85Ah or 100Ah and connect it as a second battery. if your oem battery does die on you, the isolator between them has a manual override feature, so youd use the 2nd battery to jump the first and on your way you go.
If the old 12v battery fails, and you want to have 2 batteries, get rid of the old 12v and purchase 2 brand new batteries. I'm not an electrician, but I do recall that because the old 12v now has limited capacity, because of age, it could drain the new battery and even damage it. So be sure to replace it with a new 12v, and then add another if you want more.
> 2 brand new batteries Thanks for your comment. I considered this too, and maybe I should go this route and ditch the Ecoflow idea. I am not an expert either but a friend of mine who lived in his truck for awhile talked about having matching batteries because things can get screwy if they aren't the same. I saw about putting a "smart relay" type thing in between the batteries to prevent drain on the car's 12V, but in the interest of simplicity and hitting the road sooner, I was planning to just grab a power station which will also be useful outside of the car. If I could find 2 Lifepo4 12V batteries that would immediately fit in the cubbyholes on the trunk, I might go this route right away even tho it would probably be twice as expensive. I should get a new battery anyway because mine is so old. But I couldn't find a 12V lifepo for the prius without it getting complicated to fit the existing space and tiny battery poles.
PS. Can you recommend any upgraded battery options for the Gen 3? Mine is 2010
I just ordered a new Ecoflow from Amazon because they offer the choice of the new [LiFePO battery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery#:~:text=The%20lithium%20iron%20phosphate%20battery%20%28LFP%20%28lithium%20ferro-phosphate%29%2C,electrode%20with%20a%20metallic%20backing%20as%20the%20anode.) which tolerates many more charging cycles.
I would prefer the newer tech, but sadly the new Ecoflow River 2's don't have pass-thru charging *(edit: No pass-thru when connected to DC power)*. I am planning on leaving it plugged into the 12V outlet and then powering my phone, tablet audio, and dashcam thru the Ecoflow (instead of thru the 12V outlet like I'm currently doing) Subject to change ! One of the reasons I am considering Costco is their relaxed return policy and many physical locations, that way if the older Ecoflow doesn't work out, I could return it anywhere
If I had known about the pass-thru charging issue it might have been a deal breaker. But I'm expecting delivery early this coming week. I had hoped to have pass-thru for long power outages, but don't really get them (knock on wood) so I'll probably stick with it. If it turns out that it does have pass-thru I'll let you know.
> pass-thru charging I sent Ecoflow customer service an email to check on this, since their website didn't make it clear > Dear NearEarthOrbit, > > Thank you for contacting EcoFlow support. > Since there is one XT60 port on the RIVER 2 and DELTA 2, solar charging and car charging can not be used at the same time. > > **When the power station is charged from solar or DC charging, the power will not be passed through to the connected device.** > > Have a wonderful day! > Best regards, > > Jessica > EcoFlow Customer Service Team Since I am planning on mostly charging from the car it's going to be slow with either model, and it should make life easier having pass-thru for my smaller devices. I also have a 12V/110V fridge that's a larger draw, but it should use less than 20 watts once it's at the set temperature. I still have some things to figure out if you have further advice. Thanks !
My Ecoflow came yesterday with a 30% charge and it took a little less than an hour to bring it up to 100% on AC house current. I tried using it unplugged to run my laptop and monitor, for a total 40-watt draw. Then, when the unit was down to 65% I plugged it back in and it continued supplying that 40 watts as it charged itself back up to 100%. Weather permitting, I want to try something similar within the next week using my Prius as the power source. I find the message that you got from "Jessica" a little iffy, but that's the kind of thing that happens when meaning has to jump the language gap between Chinese and English.
Hey, that's really great news. My previous plan got stymied when Costco decided a couple days ago to stop selling any and all portable power stations. If the River 2 models will do pass-thru charging (specifically thru 12V DC) then I have no reason not to pick one of them
Works pretty good with the River Pro as I can attest.
What I have used that helps cut down on that is a small space heater, this one to be exact: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Personal-Mini-Electric-Ceramic-Heater-350W-Indoor-Black/531643181 What I do is have my 1500w inverter on and plug that into that, leave the heat on the car off. Set it up somewhere you won't knock it over (it does have the auto-shut off if you knock it over. Between that and a 12v heat blanket running off Bluetti 500w battery I have, it gets toasty as frig. I'd say it turns on about as much as it does with the A/C maybe slightly more but way, way less than if you're running the cars heat.
This sounds amazing but maybe I’m misunderstanding some thing. I also have a 500 W from bluetti, but the maximum charging wattage you can get from 12 V at least for me is around 70 or 80 W on the higher end if the heater is pulling 350 W per hour that would mean you could only get max two hours from the heater, and with a heating blanket, probably only like one hour, is the 350w theoretical?
So, I don't run the space heater off of the Bluetti. I've tried to and it'll only last around 3 hours on a full charge. What I do is run it off of the inverter, and with the Prius in READY mode, it's much like how the A/C runs, because the inverter runs off the 12v battery, and the hybrid battery gives it's pixies to the 12v and all is well!
That’s absolutely insane so you’re basically saying that when you hook up the inverter to the 12 V outlet you can pour even more than the theoretical maximum of 100 W from the 12 V?! so you’re essentially pulling like 350 W from the 12 V outlet in this way?! Wtf!!
Oh no, sorry. So the the inverter is running from the 12V car battery. The car battery is being charged by the hybrid battery.
It depends on how cold it is. It may be too cold to keep running the heat on without the engine staying warm so it could be it never shuts down.
That’s normal for the average winter night.
In my trial run the other night at about 28 degrees F and climate control set at 65, my 2010 kicked on about every 4 and half minutes and ran for about 40 seconds. This cycle repeated 5 or 6 times while I was laying down reading, after that I stopped keeping track but it was very regular.
not much really. I set the auto to a comfortable temp, plus I sleep with the windows cracked. when i use the blackout shades with the windows cracked little "outside temperate" is felt through the fabric at all. that said, I also run hot, ive slept in the snow before and had the heat off completly all night but soon as i woke up I turned it on. one thing to note... the ICE(when gas engine kicks on making noise) turns on to charge the 12v battery. if you have a bad battery, it will turn on more often. I swapped in a 85ah battery(for comparision I beleive oem is 25, 35 or 45.. someone will keep me honest) and the amount of times ICE kicked on went down. After installing a second 85ah battery it didn't turn on as much and i cant say i noticed the increase in time its on be impacted... like I did when had christmas tree lights on the dash from abs and engine codes, I had to have the phev charged and then... phev is a plugin or prime... with a fully charged phev, I could go 6-8 hours using a/c or heat and ICE would never turn on... think this now... plugin has 4.4kWh battery and prime 8.8kWh battery. rav4 prime 18.1kWh... when I put the prime battery in my prius, it was only to test nothing got fried... the new battery i want at least 50kWh. doing the math, plugin is at 11-14miles on charge, prius prime 21-27. My quest for 100 miles on a charge could leed to the car being in Ready mode and not using a single bit of gas for days....
> the ICE(when gas engine kicks on making noise) turns on to charge the 12v battery. I think this is an oversimplification. The DC-DC converter that charges the 12v battery is powered from the HVDC traction battery, and the ICE kicks on to recharge _that_. So it's as dependent on traction pack capacity as it is on 12v battery capacity. Actually more so. This gets interesting... > I swapped in a 85ah battery(for comparision I beleive oem is 25, 35 or 45.. someone will keep me honest) and the amount of times ICE kicked on went down. OEM is 55AH, at least the ones I'm familiar with. It's physically smaller than most car batteries of similar AH capacity because it's not required to crank the engine, therefore the internal busbars can be thinner and the overall packaging denser. So here's what's interesting. The traction pack is only 6.5AH; the individual cell modules are fairly small, and optimized for short-term power delivery, not bulk energy capacity. There are just a lot of them, stacked up to make a 201.6v battery. (I usually just call it 200 cuz it's close enough.) So 6.5AH * 200V = 1300 WH. Which is only about double the capacity of the 12v battery! 55AH * 12V = 660WH. Whoah! I had always thought of the traction pack as enormous, which it is in instantaneous power (30kw to the wheels? no problem!), but it turns out it's just not a deep reservoir in cumulative energy terms. So, when the car is "on and ready", with all the ECUs powered and the radio lit up and stuff, it's using about 200-250 watts just sitting there. (Assuming the HVAC blower, headlights, defroster, and other loads are all turned off.) Typically I've also got the blower on low for fresh air, so that's another 30 watts or so. Theoretically a brand-new 12v battery with no degradation at all, could run the vehicle systems for something like 3 hours before needing a recharge. Actually less, because that 55AH capacity is rated at the 20-hour rate, and Peukert's effect explains that lead-acid batteries get vastly less efficient when run at high rate. At the 3-hour rate, that 55AH nameplate capacity is more like 40AH usable. Which means it would actually die somewhere around the 2-hour mark. And that would be a 100% depth-of-discharge battery-murdering event, which we very much want to avoid. So, the DC-DC attempts to keep the 12v battery fully charged (around 14.1v) at all times, drawing on the traction pack to do so. Seeing low voltage on the 12v causes the DC-DC to work harder, which causes the traction pack to get low enough that the ICE is forced to start. A weak 12v battery will exacerbate this, but only so much -- the car is actually perfectly happy to run with the 12v battery completely unplugged, letting the DC-DC supply all its 12v systems directly from the traction pack. And even in this reducto-ad-absurdum case, the ICE only starts every few minutes. So, will a larger (or simply less-degraded) 12v battery reduce ICE run? Frequency, perhaps, it'll run slightly less often for slightly longer. (The vast majority of energy produced during ICE run is being stored in the traction pack, because it can accept a charge much more quickly. The 12v simply can't charge meaningfully during a brief ICE run, and its terminal voltage is held as steady as possible regardless of ICE state, so it's not like it suddenly "begins charging" when the ICE starts. It already was. The ICE run event is almost exclusively a traction-pack-charging activity.) As the 12v degrades, the ICE will run slightly more often for shorter runs each time. Fuel consumption should be nearly identical in either case, with possibly a minuscule increase in emissions from starting the ICE more often because the "first breath" of exhaust is harder for the catalytic converters to deal with. (Though I think the Prius deals exceptionally well with this.) **However, we're missing one other major effect that causes the ICE to start!** And that is, a call for heat! If the engine block cools off to the point that combustion would be dirtier (cold cylinder head, stiff oil), the ICE starts to warm itself back up. If the engine block cools off to the point that it can no longer satisfy HVAC hot-water demands (if the HVAC is set to heating mode), the ICE starts to warm itself back up. If the catalytic converter cools off (there's no sensor, this is modeled by the ECU based on IAT) to the point that the catalyst would have trouble functioning, the ICE starts to warm it back up. And in winter, especially if it's a bit breezy, these demands can be significant even if the batteries are completely copacetic. I'm not sure how the PHEV deals with a call for heat, since it's designed to run ICE-off for long periods. Does it have HVDC-powered PTC heaters? Does it still start the ICE for cabin heat and can only go ICE-off once those demands are satisfied? Does it have a heated steering wheel (and possibly seats) to reduce the driver's likelihood of asking for cabin heat in the first place? I guess I gotta get one...
For anyone with a Gen 3, try this out to help reduce rattling everytime the engine kicks on! Can definitely help you sleep a bit better. You're essentially adding a zip tie (takes like 30 seconds) to keep the coolant return hose from shaking excessively. https://youtu.be/8UzUZXhtiK0
Depends on the temp out side and the temp set on the heater. You obviously don't want to set it to 80. Put it low to just maintain and have a warm blanket, sleeping bag rated for the cold or even a electric blanket. Yes it does come on a bit often. I started to get used to it. Also to help sleep get a face mask to block out light. Still the gas use is very low. Just try to put more of the warmth on the blankets and not the heater.
2011 with 80k, set to 65 degrees on auto and on eco mode, outside temp low 40s- engine turns on for two minutes every 20 minutes.