Li-ion and Ni-Cad batteries treated as one?

Is the regular Prius nicad or NiMH? If it's Nicad I'm disappointed.

SCH-I535

 

It's Nickel-Metal_Hydryde, the original Prius (sorry, spellcheck couldn't help me with "Hydryde")

 

So far as I know, no car is Ni-Cad, it was mid 80s to mid 90s tech.

 

Regular Prius has NiMH.

PiP has only one big Li-ion battery pack. It is divided into HV and EV portion logically.

85% to 23% is for EV operation. 23% to 20%? is for HV operation.

With the use of HV/EV button, you can enter HV mode at any time. The battery state of charge will swing up and down but computer will maintain the % you switched at.

 

lol, can you imagine the memory problems the Prius or PIP would have with Ni-Cad's?

 

salespersons are scary, we should dress up as them on halloween! pip has one large lithium battery.

 

You just always drive electric until the car runs out of juice, then recharge on gas. Enforced pulse and glide, of a sort.

 

that leaves me out because I charge when I have 5 or so miles left EV

 

Well you do have 2 batteries:
one small 12v battery (AGM advanced lead-acid battery like regular car but its in the back) and
one big Li battery in a PiP.

Maybe that is what the saleman was trying to say (giving him/her benefit of doubt).

 

good point

 

No Ni-Cads in the Prius, unless there's an old rechargeable flashlight lying about in there.

 

The PiP prototype a few years back had separate hybrid and plug-in batteries, but the production models all have just one Li-Ion traction battery (plus the dinky 12v battery). When people run across web pages describing the PiP prototype, they get very confused. Feedback from the prototype users led to Toyota adopting a one-battery approach. In the prototype, the plug-in battery could not accept regeneration.

The standard Prius has NiMH. As mentioned, NiCd technology is obsolete, and getting rare these days even in small appliances like shavers and electric toothbrushes.

The distinction between the hybrid and plug-in "battery" is a logical distinction in the software. It's just one physical pack of cells.

 

Can you please elaborate on this?
I am asking as I had this phenomenon yesterday:
Driving on the highway, I manually switched to HV to preserve EV kms for town driving.
After about 20 km of highway driving I hit a traffic jam due to an accident with 35 minutes of stand-still to slow crawling, I stayed in HV as I thought my pedal demand will result EV driving (moving) anyway.
After about 12 minutes or so, the ICE kicked in for about a minute as in warming-up which seemed strange for a warmed-up situation.
To my surprise, this cycle repeated itself every 6 minutes or so, found it always started at a certain EV km display (in my case 13.1-13.2 km) and ended after adding about 1 km (in my case 14.1 km on the display).
Conditions: 27 deg C, ECO mode, AC on, flat ground.

With your comment quoted above I am starting thinking of the following algorithm by the car computers:
The driver (the loose nut behind the wheel) wants to stay in HV for some reason, so let's make his current EV range a target and logically make HV battery portion right there, not letting the range fall below the minimum set.
I wonder if this is the answer to what I experienced? Or was the ICE kicking in for some another reason (cat converter temp sensor or whatever)?

 

yup, your AC was on.

 

I think I've got it. By George, I've got it!

Thank you. Should have properly understood this months ago, but that really helped.

 

Correct. When you go to HV the computer always wants to get back to the same EV point. So if you go too far below that it will run the engine to get you back up. When you go to HV, just imagine you are driving a regular Prius. When the battery gets too low it has to replenish it somehow.

 

From my observation, PiP allows deeper discharge in HV mode because it can afford it. However, the tolerance threshold gets lower the more charge you borrow and ICE would kick in. Normally, I would accelerate with ICE before a lot of charge gets borrowed. After getting up to speed, the battery charge gets returned.

In your case, with A/C running, ICE trigger is likely due to charge depletion and reached the trigger point to sustain state of charge.

An easy way to avoid ICE coming on is of course to stay in EV mode.