Traction Battery Charge

Sounds perfectly normal to me. Search the site - the battery is designed to spend most of its time in the "blue".

 

Haha yeah PC is a GREAT site, and Im pretty new here myself (Sept) but with all of the knowledge here, Ive been edu-ma-cated and brought up to speed on the Prius pretty quick

And to answer your question, yup even on the highway. The Prius is designed to keep the traction battery in good health as a top priority. You just gotta learn to trust that the thing knows what its doing, took me a while too to figure out its behavior and patterns.

 

All green bars is actually an 80% charge level, and one purple bar is about 40% charge level. The car keeps to those limits to maximize battery life. Sometimes there is a relearning cycle that occurs, where the battery control will dump and charge more aggressively for a short while, so it will show more change on the display. But normal flat land driving hangs at 6 blue bars, as stated. You won't see all green bars unless you go downhill a ways.

 

If you won't to charge it, just park and hold your foot on the brake and press the throttle to the floor and charge her up! Does not take long for full green. H

 

You can tell your wife that all the money you are saving on gas lets you buy some extra stuff for the car.

 

You want some room in the HV battery so you can get regeneration from braking. If the battery 'fills' the computer do not let you regen anymore.

 

Sorry for thread jacking but my 04 seem to do the opposite. Its almost always green and charging even when im on the gas going 60-80mph. The hv battery only depletes on long inclines. It gets down to one bar once in a while. I feel like my hv battery is ALWAYS charging even when its all green and full bars on flat roads with my foot light on throttle. No climate control fan or AC on. Any input????

 

The ECU is a man with a plan...you just have to trust it.

Guaranteed if there is ever even a small problem with your traction battery, you will know it. Any by that I mean every light on your dash with illuminate like a christmas tree.

 

Enzo,
Read this (specifically the stages, become familiar with them).
I'll bet you're not allowing the car to go into S4 and this is most likely the reason your car always appears to be charging.

 

I know the energy screen is not completely accurate but its weird seeing it continuously going in and out of charge even with full greens. It makes me feel like the hv is weak so it demands to be charged on a regular basis.

 

Are you seeing a 1.5 second cycle of charged as much as the Computer thinks is 'full' then using just a hair and the Computer recharging? That is normal

 

As the other's have stated, your battery is working the way it is supposed to. You state "no climate control or AC on". With that one fact it should be clear that you are not putting any real load on the system. Therefore, it becomes real easy for the traction battery to get to the green 7th bar when you are going down the highway at the speeds you do. Also the battery will normally drop down going up a long incline. That is because the motor generator is using power from the traction battery to assist the ICE (gas engine) to get you up that hill.

If you had problems with the traction battery, you would know it. Your dash would be lit up like a christmas tree.

Long story short. Don't worry about it. Enjoy the MPG and the ride. And when you refuel, take the time to look at the price you paid and compare it to the guy next to you filling up that big SUV. The difference is night and day.

Ron

 

Thanks. I came from a first gen insight so I guess I'm just not used to having full 7 and sometimes even 8 bars while I'm keeping steady on the gas pedal. I assumed the battery would help the ICE when on gas and charge when let off. And what's with everyone saying blue is the healthy spot? Green is still 70-80% SOC so why is 50-60 any better?

I'm getting my recalls done next week so I might talk to the tech about it and hear his/her opinion.

 

Battery longevity I would suspect. It is well known that ANY battery will last longer if it not cycled completely. I know this much, the system is designed to allow some room for regeneration. If you fill the battery, then the Prius will go into B mode which will cause the motor generators to spin the engine to eliminate the excessive charge. It seems that in B mode, the Prius is not operating at top efficiency (MPG suffers).

There are other's who are more knowledgeable than myself on this board. The above is based on my understanding of how the Prius operates. YMMV.

Ron