is there any available hack to prevent the car from charging fully via the charge port? I as well live on the top of a pretty steep hill, and it's pretty frustrating to see the engine kicking in during my short 5-mi round trips. Feels like it almost defeats the purpose of having a plug-in sometimes! The a/c + headlight trick works sometimes, but isn't foolproof for me.
My down hill run is ~1.5 miles. The EV drops .4 to .5 miles by the time I reach the hill. As I descend I turn my fan on (without AC) once my EV range is .1 mile from my est. EV after my last full charge. I do (should) not turn off the fan until I come to a full stop at the bottom of the hill. I typically gain .2 to .3 EV mils using this trick and so far the ICE does not trigger. If you have a 5 mile decent you might reach the battery charge limit before you reach the bottom. Try the following: User the timer to finish the charging at least 30 to 40 minutes after you normally leave for work. Your goal is to leave enough space in the battery to top off via regen as you go down the hill.
My downhill is about a mile. I have calibrated how far I can go before the ICE kicks in so I shift into neutral before that point. With a little breaking I can keep near the speed limit. Its a city street. Fortunately for some trips there is a route down that doesn't over charge.
If you leave the same time everyday figure out when to do the charging using the start timer instead of the finish timer and just leave enough room left so that the ICE doesn't start. (save just a bit of electricity too)
The suggestion to time the charger so that it doesn't finish before leaving for work in the morning is a good one, but it doesn't work for all the other times I go out during the day and also on weekends. Ah well...
Thank you Chesleyn and CaliforniaBear. I keep forgetting to come back here and post an update, but the combination of putting the fan on high and the headlights on does the trick for me!