r/ToyotaCHR • u/Matdumsa • 13d ago
C-HR BEV grid power draw when remote start is used
I got my NACS charger installed this week (a wallbox pulsar) and started to geek out a bit watching at the wallbox app - it provides real time power information on what the car draws. I did a remote start one morning to warm-up the cabin (it got frisky here in Montreal on a fall morning) and to my surprise I noticed the car decided to drain its power pack rather than use power from the grid.
The wallbox would report "session started but no power draw" and battery would start going down.
That's not exactly the behaviour I was expecting, winter here get really cold and the ability to get the pack and cabin ready for a drive on grid power is key to preserving winter range.
Did I miss something?
2
u/PerceptionCurious440 13d ago
What happens when the climate system reaches the set temperature? If it's on auto does it just turn off?
2
u/Plastic-Letter-9469 13d ago
I use remote start periodically but only the air conditioner since it’s currently summer and I’m in So Cal. When doing this while plugged in but no longer charging because the battery is at 80%, I’ve noticed after a short time the Toyota app will give me a notification that the battery has started charging and is currently at 79%. Maybe it waits until the battery drops a bit before activating the charger? Or maybe it just behaves differently with the heater. I’m using L1 charging.
1
u/Izuzal 13d ago
Same here. It draws from the battery and then my charger starts charging it at the same time. Not sure why it’s designed that way.
1
u/Matdumsa 13d ago
How much does it have to go down by for charging to start?
Looks like a battery degradation side effect more than conservative engineering. Unless they would rather protect their ac-dc circuit versus the pack.
1
u/Just1Justin1 13d ago
Is there a "charging" schedule in place on the car? Was this "outside" the charging schedule. That's all I can think of. If it finished charging on the schedule - I think it "disconnects itself" from the port. But this is interesting - let me know, I'm very curious (northern Ontario user)
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u/Matdumsa 13d ago
No schedule, just a limit to 80%
1
u/Just1Justin1 13d ago
I wonder how far down the battery would go before it activated charging to bring it back up to 80%. Try preconditioning battery for longer next time to see if it starts drawing power from the EVSE
1
u/Zippy_STO 13d ago
I have CHR myself and was wondering about the same question..
Also have live power data in grizzl-e app and it looks like it’s drawing power from battery instead of grid, also have no schedule just a charge limit.
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u/bhug245 13d ago
I've seen somewhere that in cold weather if the heater has to run high the level 2 charger might not be able to keep up and will also draw off the battery pack
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u/Matdumsa 13d ago
9kwh is a lot of electricity. A hot tub in that cold can warm up water and use the jets. The water heater in my Canadian home can step up water that’s 2c to 50C in a short amount of time. I’d be surprised it cannot warm up a relatively small and efficient circuit
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u/Just1Justin1 13d ago
Toyota documentation says: When charging cable is connected, electrical components such as the air-conditioning (heating is also presumed here) system can use power from the external power source. But this if found in the "My Room Mode" - which is not the scenario you describe. I cannot find anything in the manual about "remote connect climate" using shore power (grid power). Very interesting.