It happens yesterday when I passed an accident caused traffic jam. The day is hot, about 100 F and the traffic is very slow. It lasted for about 15 to 20 minutes, of course the battery had only 2 bar left. After the traffic jam, the battery is charge quickly, but I realized that the EV will not turn on, or the car has only gas engine running. I can feel the acceleration is different with only gas engine running, not as smooth as normal. I got home, turned off my car. After two hours, I tried to drive it again, it's still the same. Until this morning, it got back to normal. During the whole time, there's no any sign showing there's any problem. I searched PriusChat, people talked about 12V battery or blocked vent, I know mine is not blocked. The only explanation I can come up with is, the ventilation needs car to move with certain speed, otherwise there's not enough air get in. So the battery got too hot and got protected. Any explanations or suggestions? Thanks.
If the battery was constantly at two bars, then it probably needed the engine to keep the AC running.
I live in the Southern U.S. and my Prius c does the same thing when the ambient temperature gets close to or over 100 degrees F. Even with a good charge, the engine will continue to run when stopped. Also, the regen braking seems to be much weaker. Batteries don't typically like heat and I assume it is normal operation and is just the car's computer taking steps to maintain the battery's longevity. Even after the ambient temperature drops, my car continues to run this way for maybe a couple hours (batteries can stay warm for quite awhile and driving the car [drawing current and charging] creates heat as well).
I have experienced this mode several times myself. The giveaway was the lack of regen braking. You know what else causes a lack of regen braking? When the ABS activates it cancels all regen braking. So thinking about the ABS thing - I found that stabbing the brake pedal for a moment to activate the ABS will make the car go back to normal. Obviously this should not be done in traffic, and it could cause you to loose control of your vehicle, so be very careful if you try it.
Petridish38 and TheTimob, thank you both for sharing your experiences, my car is still working fine after what happened. This was the first time it happened. Battery ran down to two bars in more than 100 F many times before, it didn't happen. That's why I feel slow moving traffic (using battery without gas engine) quickly drained battery at the same time, it cannot cool the battery very well. But I don't know how battery is cooled, whether faster moving helps. I'd like to have more input on the issue.
