Temperature and efficiency

[mark_rivers19]

It's 40ish here in SoCal.
In addition to the seat warmers, here's what i did.
Set temp to 80F, Normal mode and vent straight to my face.
The cabin heated up in less than 2 minutes.
After 5-10 minutes in that setting,
I dialed it down to Eco high...and then Eco Lo

 

[longrangeview]

And when I set the climate control to 65 degrees AUTO. Nothing happens. It is cold in that car. I can get the seat warmer to work. That is it. What gives? The manual just says 'set Auto on'..

OK. At 5:56 AM 32 F I set it to Normal, A/C OFF, Recirc, 70 then 75 F, Vent Mode(Arrow pointed at the head of the figure). Recirc. air. Blower HI. Repeatedly turned off A/C and reset settings. Cold air was still blowing thru driver side vent and center vents. At 6:05 AM I gave up and logged in this message. I will go to repair shop.

Other: GOM said 100 mi. Car was charged last nite on extended charge. Only one bar shows on extended charge indicator.

Thanks for your help everyone!

 

[AvLegends]

It's 40ish here in SoCal.
In addition to the seat warmers, here's what i did.
Set temp to 80F, Normal mode and vent straight to my face.
The cabin heated up in less than 2 minutes.
After 5-10 minutes in that setting,
I dialed it down to Eco high...and then Eco Lo

Yup... that works for me too. I also make sure the "AC Off" is displayed.

 

[Incredulocious]

It's 40ish here in SoCal.
In addition to the seat warmers, here's what i did.
Set temp to 80F, Normal mode and vent straight to my face.
The cabin heated up in less than 2 minutes.
After 5-10 minutes in that setting,
I dialed it down to Eco high...and then Eco Lo

Yup... that works for me too. I also make sure the "AC Off" is displayed.

My heater is still working, so, for what it's worth, I can set it to 75 and Auto Eco Lo and in about a minute or two (after warming itself) it will crank up the fan automatically and start blowing plenty of warm air without having to mess with anything. Note again that this is "Auto" mode, not just on. Which means that if you last had climate control in Eco Lo and now it's off, you need to tap the Auto button to turn it back on in Auto Eco Lo. Tapping the Eco button will turn it on but advance to the next setting, Eco Hi.

Just reporting this so folks know it can work properly (and automatically), even on Eco Lo. I haven't yet seen why I would need Normal mode... perhaps on super hot days to keep up on cooling? Don't know yet, just got it at end of October.

Anyway, it's certainly working better than my 2011 LEAF which would not properly wait for the heater to warm up and so blow cold air for many minutes. It's also nice to have a larger reserve of kWh's and not have to avoid using the heater!

 

[longrangeview]

It's 40ish here in SoCal.
In addition to the seat warmers, here's what i did.
Set temp to 80F, Normal mode and vent straight to my face.
The cabin heated up in less than 2 minutes.
After 5-10 minutes in that setting,
I dialed it down to Eco high...and then Eco Lo

With 32F outside, I tried one more time today at 8am: set it to normal at 80 degrees Fahrenheit with vent at my face A/C off...and the cabin heater blew in warm air after two minutes! Why that did not happen at 75F I really don't know. Thank you Mark and all others with this approach. Problem solved. Warm at last!

 

[snoltor]

Since the temp has gone down into the 30's and below, 28 this morning, I notice a new weird little thing. My car's in the garage overnight and the wife is away on business so I'm driving with a good winter coat and no heat. This morning the car thermometer said 43 degrees when I got in. So everything is turned off, no heat, no fan, and air vents are set to recirculate. But here's the weird thing: as I'm driving the car automatically switches over to fresh air from outside, it'll do that about twice each trip. This is new little quirk, never happened before, and not exactly what I want when driving around in cold temps. Anybody else notice that?

 

[fusiondynamics]

Since the temp has gone down into the 30's and below, 28 this morning, I notice a new weird little thing. My car's in the garage overnight and the wife is away on business so I'm driving with a good winter coat and no heat. This morning the car thermometer said 43 degrees when I got in. So everything is turned off, no heat, no fan, and air vents are set to recirculate. But here's the weird thing: as I'm driving the car automatically switches over to fresh air from outside, it'll do that about twice each trip. This is new little quirk, never happened before, and not exactly what I want when driving around in cold temps. Anybody else notice that?

Mine does the same thing and it's so annoying.

 

[Incredulocious]

This morning the car thermometer said 43 degrees when I got in. So everything is turned off, no heat, no fan, and air vents are set to recirculate. But here's the weird thing: as I'm driving the car automatically switches over to fresh air from outside, it'll do that about twice each trip. This is new little quirk, never happened before, and not exactly what I want when driving around in cold temps. Anybody else notice that?

Mine does the same thing and it's so annoying.

From the user manual, page 287:

Outside/recirculated air mode may automatically switch depending on the temperature setting, the inside temperature, the outside temperature and humidity. Also, outside air mode may be automatically switched to when the outside temperature is low.

 

[snoltor]

Thanks! My Prius will occasionally switch but under circumstances when it makes more sense.... say when the cabin is very warm from sitting in the sun and outside it is a comfortable cool, say 60s or 70. But not when it is 30 outside..... peculiar!

From the user manual, page 287:]

 

[ufojoe]

My bi-monthly round trip from Corona del Mar to Oceanside finally provided some range anxiety for me.........On average, I have around 20-25 miles remaining on an extended charge, today I squeaked home with under 5 miles left on the GOM. Temp averaged around 50-55 degrees.....I did not use the heater as I had preconditioned the car before I had left while it was still plugged in, and used the seat-warmer occasionally on low.

 

[TonyWilliams]

... today I squeaked home with under 5 miles left on the GOM. Temp averaged around 50-55 degrees.....I did not use the heater as I had preconditioned the car before I had left while it was still plugged in, and used the seat-warmer occasionally on low.

Even if you're not using the cabin heater, that battery heater is still chugging along !!!

Plus, cold air is more dense than warm air at the same elevation, therefore it takes more power to propel the car at the same speed when the air is cold. The tires also have some amount of increased rolling resistance when cold, and significantly increased rolling resistance with "contanimated" roadways (standing water and snow).

 

[snoltor]

Been good and cold here in Davis, below freezing most mornings...... feels pretty much like a typical northeast morning. Wife's away on business so I'm driving like a fool without the heat on.... this way I can isolate the impact of the battery heater alone on efficiency. While the battery heater is on, the miles per kWh efficiency drops roughly 40%. But that only lasts about 5 - 10 minutes, after the batteries reach operating temperature the car runs at near normal efficiency. On most morning I have about 5 - 10 minutes at reduced efficiency followed by another 20 minutes at normal efficiency so the overall reduction in efficiency for me has been about 10% the past week. Again, haven't used the heat, or seat heaters yet but that will start soon when my better half gets back. Got her this electric vest to see if that will help:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003VWCMW8/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1