All, I bought a Prius plug-in in the last week of May (California). BTW, I did not realize that I was eligible for Green HOV Stickers until yesterday - I was following AB2013 diligently, did not realize a Senate bill had added 15K stickers in July. I sent in my application yesterday - hope to get the stickers soon. Will shave 10 minutes off my commute. I have a question - does Toyota provide a mobile app that helps you monitor the charge level remotely ? I suppose not by default (since car uses cellphone to communicate with internet - I don't know how it would - unless you left a cellphone in the car). Just want to know if there is some roundabout way to get this functionality in (I charge at work, multiple folks use the charger, would be good to know once my car is charged, so I could move it after I get an full charge alert). Currently, use approximate time measure, but that is not fool proof (sometimes car is charge in hour and half, sometimes not). Ford Fusion plug in has a nice app that does this - would be nice to have it in a Toyota.
Only the advanced trim of the Plug In Prius has the cellular components to communicate charge info and the extra apps to in Entune to view it. In the advanced trim There are cellular parts for the SOS button to notify safety service (free for 3 yr w PIP) in case of crash. Sorry.
Almost all electric cars has this feature... Except base prius plug in... Toyota should include this for us...
If you know the SOC (Scan Gauge II) you can probably estimate the charging time within 15 minutes after making a few measurements at home for calibration. My full charge (SOC around 23% to SOC 85%) takes 2 hours 15 minutes at 120 volts.
Charging takes about 1.5 hours at 208V (12A or greater available). The battery level vs charge time doesn't vary as widely as in a car w a larger battery. I don't have any problem picking my car up from the public EVSE after 1 1/2 hours. [If I am really concerned I can watch the charging power from some public EVSE app's or web sites.] Also, I always try to end trips with the PiP at 0 electric miles remaining, so it is almost always going to be ~1.5 hours. Sure, I'd take more battery capacity as long as it doesn't have any additional cost ($$'s or MPG). I stopped for groceries on the way home the other day. Starting w 0 electric miles available, I drove 8.5 miles (7 miles highway, 1.5 miles local), and got 78 MPG. I'm not a hyper miler, don't even know how. That's very impressive MPG and tells me the design tradeoffs in the PiP are very good.
