I can't see any way the battery could keep the A/C running for five hours. And since the computers won't let the battery drain too much the ICE must have been running quite a bit.

Might as well have turned the ECO mode off.

 

Answering a few of the above questions:

1. No, the car does NOT shut off if you leave it on and walk away with the FOB. There is another thread asking what you don't like about the TCH, and I posted this as one of my complaints. If the car is in Park, the car should shut off after maybe 5 minutes absent the FOB. Does Toyota do firmware upgrades?


2. The A/C uses the battery. When the battery gets low, the engine kicks on to recharge the battery. If your battery is "fully" charged you can sit and idle with the A/C for about 10-15 minutes before the engine kicks on (depending on the temperature outside).

 

I am still confused.

What happens forget to turn off the car, and walk away with the fob in your pocket?

Does it shut down the HSD evenutally? I know that it will beep at you if you walk out of range, but then what happens if you don't come back in a timely manner?

 

The car stays on.

 

WOW. I didn't realize that.

What prevents someone from hopping in and driving it away???

Doesn't it flash the message "key not detected" when you leave the area with the fob in your possession?

 

Parking in a good neighborhood? If it's similar to the Prius, you can leave the car on and manually lock the doors. I do this for short errands to avoid the startup penalty.

 

It will be sitting there with the engine off (at least for a while). They'll never figure out how to start it, or that it is already started.

 

Interesting...

This high-tech "Smart Key" isn't so smart, after all. This seems like something that should be changed - I might have to do an experiment and see if someone can drive away without the fob. One of my co-workers has volunteered to help!

 

The car does not turn off, and I went to a park, dropped my keys in the grass and went back to the running car. Got in and closed the door and drove away. The dash did say "key not detected" but it didnt stop me from putting it into drive. I thought that may be it would drive EV only, but the gas turned on as normal.

This is a flaw in my mind - it should prevent you driving away.

My other flaw : no auto door locks with the fob. If you can tell the keys are outside the car, then when I put the car into park, turn it off, and close the door, if the key is detected outside, lock the car!

 

I did my experiment, and drove around the block with the key in my coworker's possession (once the car was started with the fob in the car).

Kind of scary - it does help give me incentive to remember to shut the car off when I get out.

I still love my car though!