It is 13 degrees here in Lexington,Ky, and it is supposed todrop down into the single digits, tonight. I am driving the wife's van to work, just to be on the safe side. How do we protect against the cold?

 

From what I've seen by reading many of the posts for the last year or so, most, if not all, of these cars have started and run quite normally in reasonably cold weather.
I haven't seen any posts about people complaining about their cars not starting.
Now if you are asking about sub-zero, that's another story, I can't say for sure.
Most cold weather complaints deal with the cars handling in snow and ice (I can't make it up my friend's driveway with the factory tires)....as well as the hit to the mileage, but that's to be expected.

 

It has been -30F with a wind chill making it -50F lately and the TCH has had no issues.

Please realize that you have one of the strongest starters in your car, 40hp! that will spin the engine to 1000rpm before applying fuel and spark. A standard ICE starter is much weaker and only spins the engine to 400 rpm.

Drive your TCH and don't worry about the weather!

 

Only difference I notice is engine starts immediately instead of the usual 7 second delay.

These really cold days are the only time of the year I turn OFF the ECO switch, so its also typical that during my 20 minute commute the engine never shuts off.

 

The design engineers would be remiss, EXTREMELY so, were the ICE not to "start" within any one, "next up", cylinder's intake and compression stroke. And since the "starter" spin rate can be so precisely controlled it will never "spin" above idle speed on an initial ICE startup.

Poor starting capability of IC engines goes back to the days of carburation and is just simply not an issue with modern day engines controlled by a multiplicity of sensors, servomotors, and microprocessors.

And yes, that ~40HP starter motor can probably raise the engine RPM to the equivalent of 1000RPM within a 1/4 revolution.

 

It was -14 degF (before the windchill) when I went to work this morning and my 2009 Camry Hybrid started right up and performed fine. I would not worry about it!

Enjoy!

 

The only problem I had this morning (7 degrees in GA by the way... brrrr) was the seat belt retractor started "squeaking" just enough to bother me. Cleared up when the interior got warm though.

You know it's a nice car when that is the ONLY thing you find to complain about in this cold.... Well other than my tank mileage going down to 40.6 that is...

 

My 2008 FEH has problems when its below about 15 degrees. The engine RPM goes way up and the mpg way down from35 to 20MPG. It's got to have something to do with the transmission. It has the CVT and it sits at 2500+RPM to go 30 MPH. One day it was down to 5 degrees and on the highway it sat at almost 3500 RPM to go 60 MPH.

Frustrating and the dealer can't find anything wrong

 

jimpias - how was your climate control set? it can have a drastic impact on mpg as at certain climate control settings, the ICE will run continuously. check haroldo's signature for additional info.

 

Where did you find out that the starter motor is ~ 40HP?
MG1 is used as the starter, but I have not been able to find out how much power is can put out.
MG2 on the other end has a capability of 105 kW (141 HP) but is limited to 40HP by the output from the battery capacities. But MG2 is not used to start the ICE, just to power the wheels and brake the TCH.
If we were to increase the battery output to MG2 max output, we could have almost 300HP