How Often are you doing a Prime Traction Battery 120v Recharge

I think their first global foray into Li-ion was the Prius v/alpha/+ with the third row seat.

Then there were the other car companies that switched sooner, or always used Li-ion. Honda's case with NiMH is well known. Is there any similar story about hybrids with Li-ion?

 

Wow that's amazing but I'm not really surprised...Toyota tends to think of everything!!!

 

Absolutely. And it may be that the economics are such that even though nickel batteries last longer in extreme weather, that it's still more economical just to brute force lithium longevity by adding additional capacity to absorb the losses.

 

Except whether there might be more than one person in the car that wants to charge their phone, or that someone might want to listen to music from their USB device while using navigation (since the LE doesn't have navigation without Android Auto).

Toyota gets a lot right, especially the technical stuff, but somehow seems to miss some really basic stuff sometimes.

 

it's because the japanese don't think like us. they're gluing star wars characters to their dashboards, and putting hello kitty stickers on, we're looking for a place to put the phone.

 

Usually I schedule the battery replenishment during the night, in such a way that it is completed at 630 am, which is the time I normally wake up— I don’t want my Nespresso machine to overload my household electric outlet, since it is limited to 3 kWh.
I also limit the charge current to 8A; I know the side effect of reduced charger efficiency, but in return the battery life should benefit from lower charge current. Most of the time, when I park the car home there is still a lot of juice in the battery (30 to 50% of the range, depending of HVAC use), so I am confident that the traction battery will last no less than the car.

Having also an old Lexus RX450h equipped with a NiMh traction battery, and having had a Gen 3 Prius, I prefer by far the LiIon batteries behaviour and agree that if Toyota still use NiMh batteries on some of its products is only for economic convenience.

 

Every battery chemistry is different, and different manufacturers may have different charging strategies, but in the Nissan Leaf it was found that Level 1 degraded the battery faster than Level 2 (which is twice the Prius's Level 2 charge rate). I suspect that was caused by cars in colder climates where Level 1 wasn't enough to warm the battery much, so it was more impacted by cold charging than at Level 2 but that's just speculation.

 

If charging at over 8A at 120V is bad, then for sure don't drive the car. Normal driving pumps vastly more current into the battery than L2 charging at 16A. Not to mention how much power is pulled from the battery while driving.

 

The ECU is very keen in protecting the traction battery from excessive charge and discharge current.
Anyway the fact that the charge lasts 1 h more than if done @ 10A does not bother me at all… actually, in this period of the year the car keeps telling me when I shut down “Do you want to use the air conditioning during recharge?” therefore I suppose that charging with 2 Ah less heat should be developed (correct me if I am wrong) hence the battery life should benefit from this choice.

 

I charge at night but only if the battery is less than 60%

SM-P610 ?

 

Having bought three PPs in 5 years, I am no longer worried about taking care of the battery for longevity. I don't see myself keeping the car longer than 3 years. And I know no appreciable degradation will occur in that period. I am currently charging twice a day once at home very short ~30min on L1, then once at work for a full charge on L2. Short 30 min charge at home is needed to get my round trips of commuting ~40miles.

 

All charging is "bad" for the battery, just like driving is bad for tires. However, if you discovered that driving 65 mph would make your tires last 10% longer than driving at 60 mph, why wouldn't you?

 

Not charging is also bad for the battery. Time alone will kill it. But driving at 65 mph doesn't make your tires last longer. And charging at 8A at 120V won't make the battery last any longer than charging it at the still very low rate of 16A at 240V. Especially because:

My 2017 Prime with almost 54,000 miles still takes well over 6 kWh to charge, just like when I got it. And I still get the same EV range as when I got it. Oh, and it's still under warranty. Your Prime's battery will be under warranty for 150,000 miles. Well, PiP's will anyway. Not sure about the warranty in Italy. It's probably better to worry about something else if you feel you must worry.

The reason stated in the owner's manual for the 8A charging option is if you're using a shared wall outlet and the car's charger is tripping the circuit breaker. It's there for your convenience, not for the protection of the battery. I drive so frequently, that if I had to charge at 8A, 120V, I might as well not have a Prime. Even 12A, 120V at the office is often not fast enough.

 

I own a 2018 Prime and almost 50,000 miles and on a working day I charge twice, one from home over night and another from work, free. Usually, I got about 30 miles per charge but lately, 3 weeks so far, I got only 24 miles after full charge and only 20 miles driving.

Anyone got the same problem? Thanks.

 

Yes, that's true. In an analogy an analogue is often a hypothetical rather than an actuality.

I am not aware of any data from any kind of controlled experiment one way or the other on the Toyota Prius Prime batteries. I am aware of actual data to support increased degradation in Nissan Leaf batteries charged at ~12A L1 as opposed to ~27A L2, which is counterintuitive given their infamous susceptibility to heat and suggestive that there's something deeper responsible. In terms of actual data collected over hundreds of cars over years of charging, the only solid information I have is that some batteries do in fact degrade more rapidly when charged slowly. I am not aware that any such data exists for Prius Prime batteries.

Everyone has their own unique approach judging risk and planning accordingly. Mine is such that when faced with a situation where I have limited data I will prefer to err on the side of caution. I have solid information that some lithium batteries will degrade more slowly when charged at Level 2 than when charged at Level 1. Since I am not aware of controlled data to suggest this doesn't apply to Prius Prime batteries I choose to assume it does. Nobody is forced to choose the same, and without controlled data to suggest otherwise there's no credible way to say the approach is unsound. The most that can be said without more data is, "we don't know."

Even a severely degraded battery can often accept a 70% charge, and it's likely that even if the Prius Prime's battery is similarly affected by charging current the degradation would be reduced by the fact that Toyota only allows a ~70% depth of discharge as opposed to Nissan's ~90+%.

That's my whole point: you shouldn't worry yourself to the point that you're reducing the charge rate as low as possible in an attempt to preserve your battery. There's no reason not to charge more quickly, and even some data to suggest that if you're that worried about babying the battery the faster charging might be just the way to do that.

What is Toyota's battery warranty, BTW? I'm not clear on what Toyota considers to be a defective battery in terms of capacity and how is it measured? The information I can find is vague.

 

Yeah, this bothers me, too. So far, all I've heard is anecdotal stories that they won't replace a battery till it throws a code, no matter what the batteries storage capacity. But, afaik, it's only hearsay. I'd like some definite explanation of the limits as well.

 

Yes, this is exactly the main reason for me to charge @220V/8A instead than 220V/10 A.
During hot summer nights like the ones we are experimenting right now the outlet wont' bear the car's charger and the HVAC units. Incidentally, here Toyota provides 10 years/200000 km warranty on the Prius Prime battery, and my battery is appear to be very good shape, if one look at the extimated range calculated after charge completion:

 

I don't think the GOM estimated EV range is a good indicator of the traction battery health or capacity. I can make it to display 50miles (80.4672km) by will if I wanted, but that has no meaning in terms of real EV range nor the battery health or capacity. If the GOM indicates real traction battery capacity, that means it has increased almost 100% since my purchase. The GOM initially was showing 20 miles, it now shows close to 40 miles after 1 mo of driving on my 2022 PP. BTW, in the US model, 50miles is the upper limit of the EV range displayed. You can not make it display anything higher than that.

 

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That's the limit set by Toyota. Just like 199.9mpg was the highest mpg that can be displayed on the 2017 PP which was increase to 999.9mpg on subsequent models. I am not sure if the EU version and JP version have the same display limit, though.

This was the GOM number I had on my 2017 PP when I sold it in 2020 winter after 2.5 years ~35Kmiles on it. Note the temperature. It was 7F (-14C). At this temperature, the real EV range I could get out of the full change battery was less than 20miles (32km). I could have made the GOM to display 50miles if I kept the car while longer, but I sold the car, so I had to start all over on my 2020 PP from the initial ~20miles on the GOM. Then the Pandemic hit. I was not driving at all, I sold the car after only 10 mo and 3Kmiles on my 2020 PP. I think the GOM only got up to around 40 miles top. I just bought my third PP 2021 model last month. Started again with ~20 miles on the GOM when I bought it. After 1 mo and 789miles on it, the GOM is now showing ~38 miles on it. I can make it go up all the way to 50miles by increasing the daily miles/kWh EV efficiency, but that will cost more than just driving all on EV mode now, so I probably will not play that game again.