I've only had my Prius a couple of months now and there are still new questions popping up. This weekend I went to NYC and was driving across Staten Island, which is several miles long. The top span of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge was closed, so traffic was backed up the entire length of the Island (from Goethels to Verrazano). I was crawling along for more than an hour when I happened to fiddle with the energy screens and noticed that my batteries were (dangerously?) low. My question. If you're crawling about like that is it possible to run out of battery power while you've still got a supply of gas? And if so, what do you do? Thanks. Marc
Read your owner's manual. It covers this quite clearly. Your batteries weren't dangerously low. The computer keeps them within the range it requires. Your display merely tells you where the batteries are within that range--not within the absolute range of 0% to 100%.
I know I could have checked the manual, but to be quite frank, I spent so much time with the manual the first couple of weeks I'm a little tired of it. So I thought I'd try the more social alternative here. I was also puzzled about how to turn the voice back on for the navigation system, having turned it off on a previous trip, but since I regarded that as a less interesting question, I plan to check it that one out in the manual before my next trip. Thanks for the very fast responses!. Marc
Ok, Marc, here's the deal: The Energy Screen provides a window of 40% to 60%. Seriously, that's it. So when you think you're fully charged, you're only at 60% (but you rarely are). And when you think you are dangerously low, you're at 40% (but you rarely are). In fact, one of the reasons the Prius hybrid batteries will last so long is that they are never (intentionally) fully charged nor fully drained. When the batteries start to approach that 40% minimum, your ICE will engage purely for the purpose of recharging the battery back up to a comfortable 50% or so. So the short version is: don't worry about it, the Prius will take care of itself.
You do know *not* to shift it to Neutral in situations like that, right? In Neutral the main battery does not get recharged and can indeed get completey drained, so just leave it in Drive. (Standing with the brake engaged the computers shut off power to the drive motors, and so, unlike a car with a conventional automatic transmission, no energy is wasted.)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(papamarc @ Mar 19 2007, 10:09 PM) [snapback]408711[/snapback]</div> Papamarc -- Did you find out how to turn to the "Navigation Voice" back on? If not, are you talking about the voice that tells you to make a turn or the one that tells you to "Say Enter Destination"?
