ICE does not turn off, after turning on to protect full battery

M

michael shama

New Member
Hi all,
I have read all the threads about the ICE coming on to protect the battery, and I am glad it does. But it doesn’t want to turn off! I live at the top of a long hill, and I have a 60 mile daily commute, so I charge the battery to full every night and come home empty. I want to save my battery as much as possible (so should I charge to full as soon as I get home or right before I leave… leave the battery empty or full overnight?) But a bigger concern I have is that I charge to full (since I can’t specify charge to 95%), and every morning coming out of my home, driving down the hill, the ICE comes on to protect the battery, and it doesn’t turn off, it doesn’t go back into EV mode, and I cant force it!, so I use more gas than I want. After my EV range drops 2-3 bars, I sometimes turn the car off, and back on again to force it into EV mode. Any thoughts on what I can do to maximize EV range, protect the battery, and not waste gas?
Thanks all!
 
How long do you wait? If engine starts it needs to run for a while to wam it up to keep the engine healthy. In my experience it shuts off in about 10 to 15 miles of highway driving and reverts back to EV mode then. Have you waited that long without taking steps to interrupt it?

If it stays running for your whole 60 mile commutes, I feel something is wrong with the car. Complain to Honda...
 
michael shama said:
Hi all,
I have read all the threads about the ICE coming on to protect the battery, and I am glad it does. But it doesn’t want to turn off! I live at the top of a long hill, and I have a 60 mile daily commute, so I charge the battery to full every night and come home empty. I want to save my battery as much as possible (so should I charge to full as soon as I get home or right before I leave… leave the battery empty or full overnight?) But a bigger concern I have is that I charge to full (since I can’t specify charge to 95%), and every morning coming out of my home, driving down the hill, the ICE comes on to protect the battery, and it doesn’t turn off, it doesn’t go back into EV mode, and I cant force it!, so I use more gas than I want. After my EV range drops 2-3 bars, I sometimes turn the car off, and back on again to force it into EV mode. Any thoughts on what I can do to maximize EV range, protect the battery, and not waste gas?
Thanks all!
Click to expand...
I'd suggest you set a timer in the app to start charging about 1:45 before you leave (more or less) so that you get to ~95% right when you leave home, that way it will not start the ICE on that first hill.
 
I've been dealing with this not from a hill, but just from regen being too strong when the battery is fully charged. In my car, I haven't been able to decelerate to a full stop from about 40 MPH right at half mile or so after charging to keep the ICE from kicking in. I tried stopping charging at 95%, but that didn't help. Today I stopped charging at 87% and I'll see how that works. I really don't need all the battery range since I have a short commute, so it's not a huge deal to stop charging if I can remember to catch it. The regen thing is kind of a death spiral if you aren't careful. The ICE kicks on due to the battery being near full state of charge with too much regen. The ICE has to run enough to warm adequately. When it is running to warm, it will add some regen back into the battery (not exceeding regen levels, so slowly) and pretty much fully recharges the battery since it was near full SOC already. So now you are at an even more sensitive state for regen starting the ICE again if it is much at all....
 
Thank you all! –
@craze1cars, you are probably right that I do need to be more patient to let the engine warm up, but that seems so counter intuitive for me – it seems there are several other times the ICE comes on and off quicker than that..?? I usually have 10 miles of frustrating city driving with the ICE on before I get to the highway. I wouldnt mind so much highway driving with ICE, but the city driving w ICE is annoying.
@JustAnotherPoorDriver, ideally, I would charge to 95%, but it hasn’t been so easy for me to time the departure (I have 3 child seats in the back row, so you can imagine, departure time is very inconsistent).
@Seetee, thanks, I have tried turning on and off HV mode, with little success.
@ Robert_Alabama – misery loves company! At least you have a shorter commute – I hope the lower charge works for you. When my commute was shorter, and I only charged to 70-90%. I never had this problem!
 
The engine can cycle on and off quickly only after warmup. Modern 4 cylinders are notorious for fouling plugs if started cold and shut off quickly. Gotta get the plugs good and hot to burn off deposits, plus get moisture out of oil and get it hot and flowing good, etc. Once hot the short starts are harmless. Dont interrupt it. Its running for a reason. If it shuts off 10 or 15 miles into commute it is working as designed and burns very little fuel because rpm stays low. It’s not an electric car...engine needs to run at times.
 
The 87% charge level was low enough that the ICE didn't start for regen at the same location that it usually does. I'll have to experiment more to make sure this always works for me to prevent ICE or to see if I can push up the level a little. Like I posted earlier, I tried 95% once and that failed.
 
michael shama said:
@JustAnotherPoorDriver, ideally, I would charge to 95%, but it hasn’t been so easy for me to time the departure (I have 3 child seats in the back row, so you can imagine, departure time is very inconsistent).
Click to expand...
Then don't time the departure--shut it down manually in the app when an alarm goes off an alarm (wakeup?) and work backwards from that point. Just be aware that the charging restarts when you precondition.

Or get a smart charger and use that to manage it.
 
Yes, I used the hondalink app today to stop the charging. Still takes a little attention to hit it right since your time window is fairly narrow if charging at 30A.
 
Experiment with a low partial charge and see how much you regen. Then you will know how about much headroom to leave.

Alternatively you can control a level 1 charger pretty easily when it is plugged into a Wemo.
Then again a level 1 charger is so slow that you may not need to shorten the charge at all.
 
craze1cars said:
The engine can cycle on and off quickly only after warmup. Modern 4 cylinders are notorious for fouling plugs if started cold and shut off quickly. Gotta get the plugs good and hot to burn off deposits, plus get moisture out of oil and get it hot and flowing good, etc. Once hot the short starts are harmless. Dont interrupt it. Its running for a reason. If it shuts off 10 or 15 miles into commute it is working as designed and burns very little fuel because rpm stays low. It’s not an electric car...engine needs to run at times.
Click to expand...
Interesting - I always figured, but never knew why, or how improtant it was. Thank you for clarifying! (Frustrating, but I guess I will be more patient.

All of the other suggestions are helpful ways for me to limit the charge in the battery - but all require some form of timing and/or calculation... worth a try but not an ideal long term solution. I do use a level 2 charger (sadly, the versicharge) - hmmm...maybe I use the car preconditioning without charging to deplete the battery a bit!
 
@michael shama, I was posting in another thread about the ICE starting from regen when the battery is nearly fully charged. Rather than drag you through the details, someone asked about running the heat. If you can anticipate where you are decelerating enough to cause the ICE to start, you could turn the heat on just before that time. This might give enough room for the regen to not start the ICE. Then turn it off after you get through the place where the deceleration started it. For my car, this is the same location every time, after stopping from 40 mph for a left turn. It will be easy to try this solution for me. i think if I can avoid this one event, that the rest of the drive will be no problem as the battery will continue to discharge and leave more and more room for regen.
 
I tried it yesterday, but I think started the heat too soon before the braking event (like 15 seconds prior to braking) and the ICE started. I'll push it today back to about a minute earlier and see if that is enough.
 
I have a small hill about 1 minute into my daily drive I have to go down that sometimes triggers the engine to start. What I don’t understand is why after the engine warms up and shuts back off does the power gauge not go back to blue? Instead it stays white and the engine randomly starts back up for brief periods of time up to the end of my 12-15 minute commute. I wonder if I’d be better off just putting the car in neutral going down the small hill (there’s a stop sign at the end of that small hill). In my opinion, Honda should have just programmed the friction brakes to take over in these cases rather than starting the gas engine.
 
ManKo,

I think the ICE goes into HV mode, even though HV indicator does not activate. To stop the ICE from activating during the entire commute, try manually putting in HV mode, and then taking it out of HV mode.

Switching to neutral for going down the small hill does seem like it would avoid the whole issue.
 
Eureeka! I have stopped the ICE from starting for my regen immediately after charging through the heater. This happens every day, so it is very predictable for me. It's about 1/4 mile into my commute home. I started the heater at relatively high fan speed about 30 to 45 seconds prior to the time of regen. No ICE start. Then simply turned the heat off. Thanks to @The Gadgeteer and @MNSteve for helping to suggest this solution to me. I'll play with the amount of fan speed required to see if I can back that down to a slower setting. The heater is on for so short a time that the environment in the car really doesn't change so that isn't going to be a problem. Hopefully the results are 100% repeatable and I can take this aggravation off my list...
 
I have to assume fan speed is irrelevant as that’s running off the 12v and uses very little juice. It’s just the heat coils for the coolant you want to turn on since they draw something like 7,000 watts out of the big battery when first activated. That shouldn’t change with any fan speed you choose.
 
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I noticed in my car that once ICE turns on, it will stay on for awhile, until ICE has warmed up and the dash will show the white line instead of blue. But eventually, it does to back to EV mode. Be patient
 
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