Motor starting while in Park

[2002]

Another ditto but with aggravation.
I was in the rare instance for me of just barely having enough charge to get home (and you know how I hate to run the ICE outside of the the seldom required but needed and appreciated System Checks). I’m watching the EV range and I had 3+ miles and 3 bars so I decided to go <1 mile and get some junk food. All was well until I turned off the car waiting for my order. When I turned it back on the EV range was 0 and the ICE comes on. Grrrrr!!!
I learned my lesson on that. Evidently, turning off the car causes some kind of internal reset on the algorithm or history or something when you’re close to the edge.
At least I’ve managed to go 12,000+ miles on 17 gal of gas so I’m not complaining. (Yeah, I don’t take many out of town trips)

I suppose another option is to leave the car running for the few minutes that you are in a store or wherever. I normally don't like to leave a car running unattended but I know some people do for air conditioning instead of using remote climate. In fact with low EV range that would be the only way since remote climate doesn't work if EV range is too low.

Although if I did leave the car running I wouldn't want to attract attention to it, but there is no way to turn off the display while the car is running. Also the DRL's will be on and quite noticeable, unless you had manually set the parking brake prior to turning off the car on your previous trip. If not the only way to turn off the DRL's is to set the parking brake, then turn the car off and back on again .... but now your EV range will be 0!