Does Your Battery Ever show full charge?

Likewise. Performance has been impressive, but It's been concerning me a bit too (just quietly). Had my C for a month - closest i got was 1 bar from being full?. but it hovers generally below that. Was wondering if it's due to my driving technique? They did assure me not to worry about it, the day i picked up the car?. I'm Going in for 1st service tomorrow, so will ask the question again.

 

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Not being full is a good sign. Your Prius is designed to keep the battery at about the two-thirds point. The idea is to have charge for powering the electric motor when needed, but still have room in the battery for regenerative braking.

The reason that your Civic often showed a full charge is that Honda has done a poor job with battery management. As good as Honda is at making cars, they haven't had the same luck with hybrids.

Tom

 

Will the battery terminal be blue when it is "full"? Or is full when the topmost segment, the one with the battery terminal, is off?

 

The terminals will not fill up - The only time I have gotten the top bar full is coming down a mountain pass - and typically it gets up that high when you are about halfway down the pass. Then at the bottom the car goes into protection mode and runs on EV only to bring the charge back down to tow bars less than the top - this is where it should be most of the time. On the other end of the spectrum - I have never seen the battery get down to 1 bar, the lowest it gets is 2 bars then the engine will come on.

 

So the segment where the battery terminal is can never be lit? If I had a long hill near my home I could find out for myself.

 

I have never seen it light up while coming down a mountain pass, i can not confirm or deny whether its possible, but I literally did half of the descent in B mode after it was to the top bar and the terminals never lit up - and i was specifically watching for it as i was curious myself.

 

I've seen my battery hit the top notch once.

I don't know if this is fully accurate, but I read somewhere that the C keeps the actual battery charge level between 50-80%. Your battery meter showing empty would be 50 and full would be 80. I guess that would explain how it can charge so fast.

 

Since B mode essentially turns off the regen, I'm not surprised it doesn't top off the battery. Ride the regen brakes down a long decline and you'll see it top out!

 

Actually, based on the Scanguage "SOC" Xgauge...when the battery hits 40% the car will aggressively charge the battery. The car tries to keep the battery at 60% and when the battery meter on the dash shows full the battery is at 80%...

Here is an interesting document to read on the entire HSD battery system...not specifically for the C, but concept remains the same.

http://www.autoshop101.com/forms/Hybrid03.pdf

-M

 

Read through the older threads if you want to feel like part of the crowd. You are far from alone.

Pretty much every owner, regardless of their type of Prius, shares your experience.

They have the same expectations you do when you look at any plug-in device. But you have to remind yourself that yours doesn't have a plug, it self-recharges. Best use of the gas engine is to charge when the opportunity is most efficient. That means you'll rarely see full. Why consume gas when there's already enough electricity to deliver around 50 MPG?

 

B mode does not turn off regeneration. I've used B mode to fill up my battery on many many many mountain descents. It just takes a longer descent to fill in B mode than in brake pedal regen mode.

When descending a long 5-7% grade in B mode, part way down one may hear the engine suddenly spin up from moderate speed (say 2500 rpm) to high speed (4000+ rpm). That is the audio indication that the battery has filled, and all the power is being dumped into engine compression.

My experience is only with the liftback. The 'c' has a different display, so I can't say how its filled SOC appears on the dashboard.

 

I live at the top of a really steep hill and in the space of 1.5 miles, going to work in the morning, my battery is fully charged. It's great, I get 60 MPG on the way to work. But, on the flip side, I only get 40 MPG on the way home.

 

While B mode does some regen, it won't fill the battery to the very top of the indicator, which was what the OP was asking. Using the brakes in Drive on a long downhill run is the only way to get that to happen.

 

I have used only B mode and it filled it all the way to the top many times - maybe the mountain passes I drive are just bigger?

 

B mode can and will max out the HV battery, assuming a long enough and steep enough descent. In fact B mode regenerates more aggressively at some speeds, but it's principal purpose is to discard excess energy through engine braking. As such, it is harder to max out the battery, but certainly not impossible.

To be clear, in this context "max out" or "fill the battery" refers to the upper SOC limit as set by the computer, not the theoretical maximum charge.

Tom

 

Thank you. The linked document is very interesting and informative.

 

Yeah mine does quite often. But that is only because i live in an extremely hilly and mountainous area.