2012 C and the Vulcan Nerve Pinch

Hi - my 2012 C (with just over 172K) came to a complete stop about a week ago with zero warning. Was dead as a doornail and had to be towed from it's final resting place. Turns out that 13 of the battery cells had given up the ghost. Now that it's fixed and back on the road, I'm curious to know why the gas motor didn't kick in and get me home. Mostly because if I had been on the highway instead of a quiet city street, I'm concerned that my family and I could have been hurt.

Any idea if this was just operator error, or does this model just get the Vulcan pinch and go dark when enough cells die?

 

Thanks for the info! The tech who repaired it for me found that battery cooling intake behind the driver seat was clogged up and 13 out of the 20 cells were dead. He fixed it and sent me on way, and it seemed to be running great (I could REALLY hear that intake sucking in for once...), but about 20 miles later I got the old "Check the hybrid system and pull over to a safe place immediately" warning. The car seemed to be fine so I drove it home. Tech was super apologetic and is coming back today (on a Sunday no less...) to check it out. Does this sound like there's something on the computer side of the car that just didn't get reset? Because otherwise it was running great.

 

There was a lot of pet hair involved, but now that the 13 cells have been replaced and the car seems to be running normally, my concern is whether or not there's other damage that's been done to the hybrid system or if I'm just getting a false alert that can simply be reset