This may sound like a stupid question but how do you preheat the car in cold weather? I have been able to use the remote start function in the app and then set the vehicles interior temperature using the app and this worked for warming the interior once, but on several occasions it would not work because the battery was under a certain percent it said... Very weird to me that remote start can just not work but I can go outside and start the car no problem. If the battery is ok to start the car why is it not ok to remote start it? This is a fault for sure. On my last car I just set the temperature dials before leaving my car the night before, then the next morning would remote start the car and in 15 minutes everything was toasty and ready to go. And I am not only talking about warming up the inside of the car. I want to know how you can warm the motor? When the vehicle starts, it starts in EV or HV mode but either way, it uses the electric motors until it starts moving. So this means that your motor doesn't get any time to warm up and cycle oil before you are already moving. This is not good and I feel like there must be a solution that I am just unaware of because otherwise it is another terrible design fault. Its easily -30 on most days during winter where I am and iI get on the highway pretty quickly after leaving my place. i need to be able to warm the actual motor before driving. Any insight would be appreciated.
What's your parking situation like? Is it in a garage? If its on the street, do you have electrical access for it? An engine block heater will allow you to heat the interior of the car much faster once the engine is running. But because Toyota sucks at software and pretty sure will eventually charge you a fee for remote start options I'd encourage you to work with using a standard outlet-based power cord to use electric blanket style warmers around the high voltage battery pack and control/monitor the system via bluetooth or wifi. Lithium batteries are at their best around 38 degrees Celsius and keeping them near that temp when you're ready to drive in cold weather will easily make the cabin warm enough to get in and drive if you're willing to do it DIY.
