I live at the top of a moderate hill, about 5+ miles long. My regular 2015 when leaving home is at the bottom of the gauge, [20?] and is more than charged about a quarter of the way down, and i turn on the heater, lights defogger in the winter. I understand that my current battery has a much less capacity. Our garage is detached and several dozen yards from the house. thanks
You don’t need to plug it in. It will operate as a traditional hybrid albeit with a larger battery which will charge via regeneration or Charge Mode.
You don't need a charger for a Prime; just a 120V outlet in your garage. It comes with about a 20' cord to plug it in. I live about a mile up a hill and then about two miles of a gentle slope into town. If I leave home fully charged it might show 26 miles available and when I get into town the same amount is still available. Not sure how much charge I would have if I left home with zero charge, but I would doubt it would be more than five miles.
You mean i don't need a 'charging' station? just a regular outlet? I'll still have to do it at the house i imagine, as have very low amperage down at the garage, BUT maybe i can plug it in at the house for a few hours, then take it down to the garage. thanks
1) You never need to charge a Prime, it can work like any Hybrid, that just fails to take advantage of cheaper electricity. 2) The 5 mile downhill may have charged the Prius all the way up, but the Prime has a much larger battery. You will still find benefit of charging part way up in the garage. 3) The supplied cord will fully charge in 5.5 hours at 12 Amps, you can set it to 8 Amps for a slower charge, 8.5 hours. (Again, you may only want to partially charge your Prime to take advantage of that hill)
You can partially charge it by plugging it in late enough that it won't be fully charged when you leave. You can do that manually or with the scheduler. Just figure out how long it takes to do a full charge and work backwards from there. And all it needs is a 15A 120V circuit that doesn't have any other loads on it. 15A is a normal circuit capacity. A 20A circuit is also pretty are common.
