It's been around -20 ~ 25c for the past few days in my area. I think it may benefit the battery if the car runs on gas under extreme cold weather, but am not 100% sure. What do you guys think?
When it's around 0 F or -17c the ICE will start on it's own. It seems to run at relatively low RPM if the battery is charged and in the HV mode.
I found I needed to rev the engine to get the engine going so that the heater would melt the ice on the windshield not that is has been ~5F outside. Just using the battery was too weak to melt it .
Observation of today (-22 C in the morning) I generally do NOT use cabin heat (I am still on gas from Aug 16th) - only the seat warmer but today was just a touch too cool - so preheated car; fully charged and after about 5 min driving turned on heat.. was surprised that the EV range didn't change - no indication ICE had turned on except the gas range reduced and when I looked at Vehicle info - energy - there was the ICE 'beavering' away...... later in the day the same thing occurred.... so, yes, if it is cold enough and you ask for heat - the ICE gives (it turns off after a while and then the EV supplies the heat) Question - I did not see any indication the ICE was running on the main dashboard display?
Same here with temps at -22C with wind chills saying -32C. I did not have a preheated car and it wasn't plugged in, and I did notice ICE turn on and stayed on for the most part. Once EV started showing up, the ICE turned off and on frequently. Once I reached a certain point EV turned back on and ICe stayed off, but my EV range was WAAAY off. I wasn't on a full battery so I showed 32KM left and I did ~19-20km trip and ran out of range about 4km from my destination. I kept my temp at 15.5C and seat warmer was turned off part way through my trip.
