My Hymotion battery is dead. RIP. Almost 3 years of service.

After almost 3 years of service my Hymotion battery has died.

Last week after starting the car it gave me 3 flashes on the LED. After trying to restart the car the Hymotion battery would not turn on and give me any kind of light on the LED.

David Roper had the same issue and he said he was told it had something to do with the DC to DC converter locking up. The easy solution is to swap the battery.

The good news is that the battery is still under warranty. :rockon: But just barley. My warranty expires in the middle of August 2011. So I guess I'm lucky that it failed now instead of later. I don't know how much this would be to fix if out of warranty but I'll try to ask when I get it replaced.

Here comes the bad news. I will have it serviced Friday the 22nd at Smart Motors Toyota in Madison Wisconsin. This means I will not compete in the MPG challenge. I guess it will be good news for everyone in the PHEV category as now I will not be able to kick your butts. Most likely I would have had my nice person handed to me this year anyway.

If the replacement goes OK I will still be able to be in the showcase which I hope to make up for the MPG challenge and kick your butts there. :rockon:


I will be keeping separate stats on the replacement battery so I will provide some of this packs final stats.

Best Tank
3536 Miles
314 MPG
115.43 MPGe

Total PHEV miles - 23569
Gas used - 160.34
Gas cost - $437.11
Total kWh Used - 3372.5
Total kWh cost @$0.08 - $269.8
Avg. Wh per mile - 143.09
Avg MPG - 147.0
Avg MPGe - 90.4
Avg CPM - $0.03

Estimated charge/discharge cycles - ~700

Last full charge in Wh - 4634.3
Still about 23-25 miles all electric

2010 full charge - 4683.4
About 24.4 miles all electric

2009 full charge - 4734.2
About 26.6 miles all electric

2008 Full charge - 5295.7
About 25-30 miles all electric


Some extra stats pulled from the battery.
Full cycle counter - 378
.5 cycle counter - 166
.2 cycle counter - 251

If you add all those up I was not too far off from my estimated cycles.

I kind of wish I could keep the batteries because I would like to see how long they would last. Lithium is still so new we need data on how long they will last. I just hope the replacement pack is as good as or better than what I my current pack was capable of.

 

The 3 flashes according to David Roper is a DC to DC converter issue not a battery issue.

 

The Hymotion battery system has everything in one box. They are replacing the whole thing.

 

Here are some cycle stats I was able to get from the old battery.

Full cycle counter - 378
.5 cycle counter - 166
.2 cycle counter - 251

If you add all those up I was not too far off from my estimated cycles.

Whats interesting is the .2 cycles was pretty high. 127 cycles away from the full charge cycles. I dont remember plugging in that much with almost a full charge on the pack but maybe I did do that a lot and just dont remember.

I'll be posting some data on the new/refurbished pack here shortly. I'm waiting for it to finish charging and when it does I will post what I find.

 

Yes

 

It was working fine one day and then the next it gave the 3 flashes. There were no indications of it starting to fail. I dont know why it failed.