Steve,
I got to the low end of my battery charge once while climbing a hill at 2mph due to horrid traffic. I didn't want the ice to turn on so I figured "since it doesn't charge the battery in N, if I shift to N theres no point for the ICE to start". Well I was wrong. The ICE started and just kept running without doing anything, so I had to put the car in park and press the on/off switch to get it to cooperate.

Stephen,
I am highly surprised that 4 minutes of a car wash took so much juice out of your battery. I fill up gas at Costco and the wait line is usually around 10-15 minutes, during which time I am in EV Mode, slowly creeping forward, with AC set to 60 and running at 2 fan ticks, with the stereo on and my battery charge barely even moves a noticeable amount - prb looses around 1/10.