A 2006 with more than 99k miles on it. Mostly used to go to work (20 miles one way) daily. Driven in snow once, been in hot temps for a bit, still does 50 mpg easily. Parked in the garage at home. Got a 2014 Prius for my wife recently and have driven it to work some. The traction battery in the '06 recharges to full from half charged within 3 miles. The traction battery in the '14 takes nearly 10 miles to recharge to full from half charged. One difference: we use the ECO mode on the '14 and the '06 doesn't have that. The '06 traction battery also discharges faster, especially in stop & go traffic. That battery bas been down to 2 bars several times. But, it keeps its charge. The '14 traction battery hardly gets below 50% charge, same stop & go traffic. I am not a gear head, but it seems to me that this isn't quite right. Comments?
The Gen3 is very different than the Gen2 as far as how the drivetrain is programmed to act. I wouldn't compare the two too much. By half to full charged in 3 miles, do you mean 4 to 6 bars? That seems perfectly normal to me. Unless you've noticed a change from the way that car acted before, I don't think there's an issue.
If you feel it has changed and the mpgs you're getting now is unusually low, then something might be going on with regards to the traction battery already. However, if you live in a hilly area like I do, and the car can't help but overcharge on the way down, sometimes it will forcefully discharge itself rather quickly after several minutes when it will use more juice than normal to assist the engine to try and get it back down to normal charge levels. I think it's doing a deep discharge cycle every once in a while to keep the battery healthy, just like what you should do with normal AA/AAA NiMH batteries. It happens to me say once in 3 weeks, but it still hasn't affected my average mileage, so I guess that's normal.
the 2006 battery is older and will hold less then a compleet new 2014 battery thats normal also in ecomode the 2014 gen 3 will respond less to the gas pedal and in city stop and go will use a little less because the respond is slower en with fewer energy because of that. i think this is normal but you never know. as long you MPG is still what you expec and normally get i dont think anything is wrong. at some point you will be replacing the HV battery and for a 2006 model almost 8 years old %wise that not yet the case. depending on where you life ( lots of heat and hills is not that great ) and things like that and a little bit of luck you normally would get more then 10 years out of it.
I had considered that. As it is I have to consider some serious house repairs, but that is a different forum...
It is hard to exactly compare the 2014 and the 2006. And remember the screen you are looking at does not give you exact data. It is still just and approximation of what is really going on. A good way to start is to do an active scan of the pack as well as the battery vblocks under load such as hard braking and all-electric acceleration is a quick way to test your pack. Weak cells, imbalanced packs, etc show themselves quite readily. Where are you located? Adding your location to your profile may help you link up with others in your area that you can compare with.
An update: the car is in for the 100k mile maintainance. I had the traction battery tested, and all is well. However,the 12v battery, also installed by Toyota, is bad after 2 years.
