Hello everyone! I am new Prius owner; I have a 2012 Three model. How long would say is the duration of your battery charge in an unavoidable bumper to bumper traffic? From my own experience, with 6 battery bars, it lasts about 30-40 minutes. Does this sound accurate?
I can tell you that my 06 lasted about that when I was stuck in bumper to bumper on the freeway while I was driving it home after my purchase. I would assume that is fairly accurate as there is nothing going on to really recharge that battery until it gets closer to dead and the gas engine kicks on to charge it. If it's not normal, or accurate, please someone correct me. I've only had my car for a few days but from what I see it seems normal and understandable.
Without the AC on then the HV battery may last up to 30 minutes before it gets down to 2 bars and the ICE fires up to recharge. Then it only recharges to 4 bars so the time between recharge will get much shorter. It will keep doing this until you get moving again and go through a few regen cycles before the battery is fully recharged. On the other hand, if it is 95F outside and you have the AC on, then the HV battery may not last 10 minutes before it starts cycling the ICE to recharge. It is nothing to worry about though as the car takes very good care of the HV battery. It does help to limit the accessories that are on and causing load on the battery while stopped in traffic.
It's totally normal. The car takes care of its own batteries unless the driver does something stupid (shifts to Neutral, turns the car from ON to ACC or IG_ON, runs out of gas, et cetera).
