Hi everyone, I have a ~14 mile commute in Seattle city/freeway traffic and can only charge at work (apartment garage without outlets). From work I can get home with right around half of the EV charge left in normal commute traffic. In the morning everything goes well until the very last mile, which starts with a 230 foot hill that has been rapidly draining the charge going up it (35mph and enough traffic to not want to really crawl up it to keep the power in the blue band, and it has a sharp right turn at the base so no building momentum possible) such that the ICE kicks on for about the last 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile before I get to the charger at work. I have only had the car since Sunday so still new, any ideas on how best to manage this situation? I am thinking it can't be good to be running the engine for very short times daily, and it could make it by dipping into the hybrid portion of the battery but it seems to turn on the engine when the EV meter reads 0.0 and then eats into the battery more (running at a charge deficit until I park and turn it off). There is another way to get past that hill that goes up a more gentle slope but covers an additional mile. Until I can figure out home charging I might just drive in HV mode in the morning to avoid generating moisture in a cold engine on a daily basis if I am not otherwise driving it enough to warm up the engine.
welcome! unfortunately, you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. if i couldn't find a shorter route, or one slow enough to make more ev miles, i would pull out all the stops from the hypermiling book, pump up the tyres, drive like there's an egg between my foot and the pedal, coast where possible, trying not to use the brakes, throw all unnecessary weight overboard, and etc. if none of that worked, yes, i would resign myself to running the engine of a few miles on the way home once or twice a week. any chance you can leave earlier, and find a public charger to add a couple electrons?
The problem may self-correct during good weather as the tyres wear in a bit. For the other times I'd be tempted to start my drive home in HV until the ICE is warm and the HV SoC is nominal, and then switch to EV for the rest of the trip and the trip back to work. That way the single ICE warm-up is during the warmer time of day.
Is this an individual, private garage? If so, it's got to have an overhead light fixture and/or garage door opener so you have electrical access for level 1 charging. Just need permission.
If I couldn't charge at home, there's no way in the world I would have bought a plug-in. I'd figure a way to charge at home, move, or get a different car.
some buy them for how access, others, because they're a better deal than the lift back. and some even plug in!
I only cover 98% of my commute with free power provided by my employer, only got 86 miles out of half a tick on the gas gauge bringing it home, and only end up paying a couple thousand less than the hybrid only Prius with the tax credit: you're right, I sure botched this purchase since there isn't a HOV sticker in my state. (open stall garage without any power runs except for overhead fluorescent lights, but I got in to work today with 0.1 miles remaining so it is possible if there isn't much traffic coming home the night before... if there is I will just eat a warmup cycle in the morning starting out, come winter the waste heat will be nice anyway.)
It's best for a plugin to use up to a tank of gas within a year or so anyway. If you bought the Prime strictly for your commute, you may have been better served with a pure electric vehicle.
If you'll post two intersections close to your home and work, we can do a Google Earth and PlugShare analysis with some specific suggestions: routes to minimize load midway charge points CHARGE mode suggestions Bob Wilson
You could use evtripplanner for that too. I've used it to find routes that use as much as 20% fewer range miles as the routes I was taking previously.
I think that is a good practical approach, given that the gas needs to be used up periodically. Switching to HV about 10 minutes out should be enough to get the engine up to temp though.
Thanks, I was not aware of this site. I tried my old work commuting path but found evtripplanner was not quite what I was looking for compared to my earlier efforts: I think the author has more work to do. What I typically do is: Start with a view with all the streets, even neighborhoods. Investigate alternates to trade-off speed and distance. Use Google Earth to check the elevation profile. Validate the routes by testing them as there may be undocumented problems like pathologically timed lights. Use PlugShare to map potential recharging sites. Without charging at home, I would emphasize finding charging opportunities on the way home were shopping and free charging exist. It sounds like the OP is arriving home with ~50% SOC so getting a boost before parking would be a good thing. Upon reflection trying to find some HV operation in CHARGE mode to minimize fuel burn to achieve an 80% SOC when parked at home does not look likely. Leaving work at 100%, it will be at 80% within about 5 miles, about halfway home. Running the car in HV and CHARGE mode will mean parking at 80%, higher than the likely 55-60%. Bob Wilson
What I do is, put in my start and end in evtripplanner, and then drag the route around on the map watching the route miles used at each drop. It's not all that deadly accurate as a whole (since it doesn't even have the Prime [I use Leaf Beta] and since conditions matter a lot) but I've found the relative changes in route miles between routes to be quite accurate.
