Does your battery charge to maximum level?

This is normal. Loading to full level will decrease the traction batteries durability and will therefore not be done by your Prius. Full level charge happens only if you are regenerating too much...

 

Standard Load is between the lower two bars and should go up to below the uppermost two bars. Everything more or less will add to the traction batteries memory effect.

 

For flatlanders, this is normal. Most of us see the battery fill up only with a significant amount of regenerative braking while descending hills. Once we reach flat land, the car burns off the top two bars fairly quickly.

This pattern keeps some room available to harvest the 'free' energy of downhill slopes, which would otherwise be thrown away as heat in the friction brakes. And this improves battery longevity. Battery life is longest when the average state of charge (SOC) is somewhere in the middle, neither full nor empty.

 

The highest SOC that I've achieved while monitoring the HV battery with the SGII is about 78% - after
stopping or slowing down from a very steep downhill grade...

 

What you are seeing (6 bars) is normal. The car will try to maintain 6 bars throughout operations.

 

nope.. never to full.. but I haven tried to use as much as possible.. only got down to half.

 

Very rarely that happened to me with the 2010 and maybe once with 2012 in the last 6 month.

 

Saw it happen for the first time yesterday in my 2013 Prius Three (charge to max level). But it quickly dropped by 1 bar again.

 

I've only had my Prius for 3 weeks and saw the battery attain a "full" charge twice now (not for very long though maybe 5 minutes or so). Should I be concerned?

 

Take that back... just had to go to complete full yesterday for short time. At the same time, I have noticed it cycles much deeper though. I guess that is a good thing, use more battery = less gas.

 

The battery Indicator posted by the OP actually indicates an actual SOC of 40%-80%. So when that gauge reads full the actual battery charge is 80%. Never more. Toyota did this to preserve the life of the NiMH batteries.
I live at the top of a 3-4mile hill. I regularly see the gauge indicate "full" although in reality I have only once ever actually filled my batteries to exactly 80% coming down from Big Bear. (I have a ScanGauge2 that tells me exact real SOC)
It is not harmful in any way to send that gauge to full because the car's computer will never let any harm happen to the high voltage battery pack.

 

Go down a long steep hill and it will hit the top in no time 3 miles the most - happens to me daily

 

My '06 charges up to about 82.5% pretty much daily, when it starts to actively discharge. I live at the bottom of a 900ft steep hill, so it gets a charge like this every day.
Is this harmful or beneficial for the battery?
I have the Torque App, which has a state of charge indicator, so it's easy to monitor on the descent.

 

I have not seen mine full yet either!

 

I finally took my 2008 Prius to San Diego from Fresno, Ca. When coming back over the Grapevine, I noticed that my battery filled up for the first time (going downhill). I wasn't sure what to do, if anything. I was surprised that I was able to go for a good distance in the valley before it went back down one bar. I was able to drive in EV mode for a while at 70mph (I assume that I was in EV because I only saw the yellow arrows coming from elec. motor, but I could be wrong)


iPad ? HD

 

where did you get this ??? this is a myth .. mostly because what you see is first non-linear second the whole range is is somewhere btw 40%-60% of the REAL SOC of the battery ... it sounds like a waste but this is designed for last.

The most important for the battery is the number of cycles it takes .. but Toyota figured out that keeping the battery in this range is optimal ... but there is NO memory affect issues.

Sorry just realized someone already said this..

 

I get this information from my car: It starts loading via ICE when below the 2 lowest bars and does not load any more via ICE once it reaches the third highest bar...

 

You may have trouble finding a long steep decline in Florida. Should you vacation in the Great Smokies you may find a downhill long enough to fill the battery. (You may also be able to fill the battery with gradual braking from the top speed of your Prius, but I can't advise this)

Once you do 'fill' the HV Battery, the Prius will try engine braking to help the friction brakes.