[Nick]

I've been thinking about this problem as I usually leave my car for two weeks in an airport carpark and I may have to leave it for four weeks next winter. A possible solution might be to leave a solar panel on the dashboard and plugged into the cigarette lighter socket. This would supply a trickle charge to the battery whenever there is any bright sunlight so would be useless in an enclosed carpark.
Incidentally, the cigarette lighter socket is inside the central armrest storage box in the UK version. There is no cigarette lighter as such and if you want an ashtray it's an optional extra. Luckily I don't smoke.

I've had my Prius for nearly 11 weeks and I still haven't seen another one.

Cheers, Nick

 

[Nick]

I checked and the UK Prius 2004 has only one 12 V outlet and this is in the centre storage compartment and it is isolated when power is off. This means I have to switch on to ACC to be able to use my compressor to pump the tyres, something I never had to do with any other car I owned.

I suppose the solar panel could be connected to the 12V battery and could sit on the rear 'shelf'. Those I have seen advertised in UK come with croc clips as well as cigarette lighter plug.

It would be really useful if there was a list of which devices were driven by which battery.

Nick

 

[Nick]

Thanks for the suggestions Victor.

I'm not very happy about having somebody from a hotel or carpark take it for a drive. They might even make the situation worse because they are not familiar with the car. I think I will explore the idea of a trickle charger powered by sunlight or perhaps an auxiliary dry cell battery.

I wonder how likely it is that the 12v battery would run down if left for two weeks. Usually when you arrive at the airport after a long drive the battery will be as fully charged as it is ever likely to be. I have never had a problem with other cars, including ones with an intruder system switched on while I was away. Is there really a larger load than normal when everything appears to be switched off (except the alarm)?

I could always leave the car in my garage at home and take a taxi to the airport but it's 150 miles so would be expensive and an admission of failure. After all the Prius is the most technologically advanced production car in the World so it should be able to do the job!

Nick

 

[Nick]

It's good to hear that the car can be left for 12 days without any problems (any advance on 12 ?) and some useful tips re turning things off so there is less load when you turn on again.

Also the point about the battery being a lot smaller in capacity compared to most cars. It certainly looks smaller. There is an empty compartment on the other side of the luggage compartment so, in theory, it should be possible to carry a charged up spare of some kind which could be wired in as and when necessary. Maybe it won't be necessary and Toyota are just being over-cautious.