PHEV Charging.

[ernieb]

The RAV4P Battery never gets charged to 100% and 30% is reserved for the Hybrid use.  My current estimate is it gets to about the 95% ish and the last hour or so with the 240v granny cable is used to trickle charge the final useable Battery charge. (the traction Battery can be conditioned, heated or cooled to give a better charging regime) They give you a number of options when charging the best in my view is to set the leaving time.  So if you need the car for 7am Monday morning the car will calculate when to start the charge to have it ready for you to depart.  The reality is it insets this by a little time but essentially it works fine.  You can also set it to have the car preconditioned and the front and rear screens defrosted.  The later is a very useful in the winter if you're rushing to work of take the kids to school, not that this is an issue for me, but I do appreciate the functionality if I'm going to make an early run out. As I've said elsewhere really nice to get into a cool car during the recent hot weather and the power is being provided by the house saving the traction battery.  Using the 'leaving time' does not leave the battery at the indicated 100% for longer than is necessary, the battery performs best when it is in the mid range of its charge state and its life is extended if it's not kept for long periods at 100%.