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Post your coldest cold starts!

MassMopar

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On Friday, I fully charged the Jeep then unplugged it for the night. The next morning I headed for the grocery store. It was 14F according to the Jeep, 15.8 according to my weather station. Jeep fired right up and started the gas engine. First 2-3 miles I was locked out of electric only mode while I assume the battery was pre-conditioning, then electric mode was available as usual.

We are going to have some colder mornings this week to try - down in the single digits. I'm curious if any real-world 4xe owners have had the Jeep not start without being plugged in.


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JollieOllie

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Hopefully you'll get some good responses here. My Jeep is in the garage, and those would be the majority of my cold starts. (Not that cold) We have had a bit of a cold spell here and the main thing I'm noticing is that the 4xe mainly wants to drive in ICE mode. I'm not getting any electric-only miles. Of course, in Hybrid mode i can still see battery usage to assist the ICE, i just cant drive electric only. I'm ok with that, I just found it interesting. This having been my only experience with a Hybrid or Electric vehicle, in other words I have limited experience, and based on this limited experience only, I'm glad its a hybrid and not a full electric.
 

BXFXJeep

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Hopefully you'll get some good responses here. My Jeep is in the garage, and those would be the majority of my cold starts. (Not that cold) We have had a bit of a cold spell here and the main thing I'm noticing is that the 4xe mainly wants to drive in ICE mode. I'm not getting any electric-only miles. Of course, in Hybrid mode i can still see battery usage to assist the ICE, i just cant drive electric only. I'm ok with that, I just found it interesting. This having been my only experience with a Hybrid or Electric vehicle, in other words I have limited experience, and based on this limited experience only, I'm glad its a hybrid and not a full electric.

-18 in Toronto, and my experience is exactly as JollieOllie described, it doesn't really matter to me that much that I am driving in ICE on these extremely cold days, or battery performance is not great on cold days, since very cold days are not that frequent.

I park in an underground garage which is a few degrees warmer than outside, this morning when I started I drove in electric for about 2 km until the ICA kicked in.
 
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MassMopar

MassMopar

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This morning, weather station said 7F, Jeep said 10F. Same exact start-up sequence as my first post, fully charged and un-plugged the Jeep fired right up and turned on the ICE motor. It definitely seems to like to run the ICE to get temps up to spec before electric mode is available. I imagine the transmission and battery temps are the critical ones, along with cabin HVAC load.
 

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BXFXJeep

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-18 in Toronto, and my experience is exactly as JollieOllie described, it doesn't really matter to me that much that I am driving in ICE on these extremely cold days, or battery performance is not great on cold days, since very cold days are not that frequent.

I park in an underground garage which is a few degrees warmer than outside, this morning when I started I drove in electric for about 2 km until the ICA kicked in.
It warmed up to a balmy -11C and the Wrangler ran for a bit on Electric, I was able to squeeze out about 25km

The battery "evaporates" quickly in subzero, and with a 40km range on a good day, losing any off it may disappoint some people.

I'm still quite happy with the 4xe even if I run on pure ICE some times/days etc, it's just that the ICE can be a bit noisy compared to the sweet silence of the electric.

From the get go I never really had much expectations to run on pure electric.
 

Jeeperz Kreeperz

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Had a good cold weather test this evening:
  • Temp 4 degrees F on weather app, 5 degrees on Jeep. Temp dropped to 0 degrees at mid point of trip.
  • 55 minute drive with 10 minutes of idling in the middle, and 10 minutes of idling at end.
  • Jeep started at 100% charge, and had been sitting in 46 degree F garage for two days.
  • Climate control set to 68 degrees. Fan on low
  • Seat heaters NOT on
  • Steering wheel heat NOT on
Results:
Electric was usable for roughly the first two minutes after leaving the garage. After that, she realized how cold it was outside, and I was unable to use electric mode for the remaining 50+ minutes of trip. I would attempt it every few minutes, and would receive the message on the dash that it was temporarily unavailable, and it would kick me out to hybrid mode.

Electric went from 100% to 98% in first 2 minutes. Over the remaining 50+ minutes the electric range went from 98% to 70% - even though the vehicle was using ICE the entire time.

I guess I was hoping electric would be available after a reasonable warm-up period. But maybe at those temps, it just takes too much to keep the cabin and HVB up to temp?

I’ll try next time immediately after unplugging Jeep for better results.
 

JollieOllie

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Had a good cold weather test this evening:
  • Temp 4 degrees F on weather app, 5 degrees on Jeep. Temp dropped to 0 degrees at mid point of trip.
  • 55 minute drive with 10 minutes of idling in the middle, and 10 minutes of idling at end.
  • Jeep started at 100% charge, and had been sitting in 46 degree F garage for two days.
  • Climate control set to 68 degrees. Fan on low
  • Seat heaters NOT on
  • Steering wheel heat NOT on
Results:
Electric was usable for roughly the first two minutes after leaving the garage. After that, she realized how cold it was outside, and I was unable to use electric mode for the remaining 50+ minutes of trip. I would attempt it every few minutes, and would receive the message on the dash that it was temporarily unavailable, and it would kick me out to hybrid mode.

Electric went from 100% to 98% in first 2 minutes. Over the remaining 50+ minutes the electric range went from 98% to 70% - even though the vehicle was using ICE the entire time.

I guess I was hoping electric would be available after a reasonable warm-up period. But maybe at those temps, it just takes too much to keep the cabin and HVB up to temp?

I’ll try next time immediately after unplugging Jeep for better results.
Nice detailed report. It is pretty much my experience on those cold days.
 

BXFXJeep

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If you look at the Hybrid Pages, the Wrangler is using the electric motor, maybe the small one, because that number goes positive, but I don't really know what that means, the number is also low, usually under 10
 

BXFXJeep

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Last night 8pm, it was -5C

I was at 0%, it took the usual 2 hours and 20 minutes to charge up, remote start the Wrangler while it was still plugged in, the gas plant fired up, I let it run for about 2 minutes, then when I pushed the Start button, the gas shutdown, and I drove in full electric home which is 1 KM away @30-40kmph, parked it was 98% and 39 range.

It takes me about 2 minutes to park my bicycle, lock it up etc, and get back to the Wrangler, I remote start it while riding, about 20 car lengths away.

This AM still 98% and 39km range, Wrangler temp gauge showed 9c.

Started up and drove for 10km at around 40-45kmph, temp gauge showed outside 1C, the range was accurate

Then I plugged it in to charge at a heated underground parking garage, it took 1 hour to get to 100%, it displayed 40 km range available.

Drove home 1km, shows 98% with 39 km range outside temp 1C

I read in another thread in this Forum, to start the Wrangler while it is fully charged and still plugged in to warm up(steering, seats, heater etc), I usually do this now for about a minute.

Another tip was, if you have a level 2 home charger, schedule the Wrangler to finish charging just before you need it in the AM, instead of charging it up at night and letting it sit in the cold for hours fully charged, apparently Teslas have this sort of thing built in. The person said the battery performs better because it's already warmed up from the recent charging.
 

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paheerone

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left it overnight outside and forgot to plug in the charger. Battery still had about 40% left, it was about -27 celsius and I was able to remote start it. ICE was also on. After driving for 20 minutes and turning off the car, it did say plug it in for battery conditioning.
 

Getmadboy

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So this thread basically disproves all prior speculation that the 4xe is useless in the cold. It will start and run just fine in hybrid but won’t let you switch to electric only until the battery is conditioned. This is excellent info, thank you to all who have contributed their detailed experiences in this thread!!
 

joegrasse

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According to the supplement 4xe owner manual we have to see temperatures around -22°F to see what happens.

If the HV battery is not able to condition itself
and it becomes cold enough (or hot enough),
the vehicle will not start until the HV battery’s
cell temperatures are between -22°F (-30°C) and 122°F (50°C).
 

CsD

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Single digit starts here in Wisconsin, no issues. However the oil and gas refresh mode has been on and off non stop over the last month. Sometimes I can run electric, but so far 80-90% of my driving on the last month is all on the ICE engine. This is even with long trips over 30 minutes, etc. I think it’s just too cold
 
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MassMopar

MassMopar

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Had a low of 2F/-16C overnight, drove it to the grocery store this morning. Jeep ran just fine on the ICE the entire time. With a pretty short drive overall, electric mode was not available the entire trip. Looks like on the colder winter days we'll be spending more on the gas budget than we hoped, but the jeep still got the job done as expected!
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