Is it possible to completely drain your main battery in stop/go traffic?

As another anecdote, last night I was showing my Prius to a friend. We sat in the car and I turned it on so we'd have A/C. We sat in the car for over an hour. The battery drained down to two purple bars before the ICE came on. After that the ICE cycled on and off every few minutes. I didn't see blue bars again until I drove to work in the morning.

 

Don't forget that there's always the emergency hand crank, located next to the spare tire.

If the traction battery is drawn down too far (causing a 'low HV voltage' warning on the dash, a 'consult to a technician' warning on the MFD, followed by shutdown of the main computers) you can use this to manually restore the charge and force a re-boot.

BTW, 100 cranks = one bar of charge.

[laughing]
Just joking!

As Evan said, of course the main battery can't be exhausted in traffic...unless you're out of fuel!

 

I usually save this post for newbies but in your case I will copy and paste FYI.
Required reading.... go to this link and read about Prius power flow.
http://priuschat.com/Introduction-to-Prius...low-t30286.html
The state of charge on the traction(HV) battery is controlled by a battery computer. The visible part of the battery you see is 40%-80%. The batt computer wants to keep the HV battery at 60% all the time. This is to maximize the life of the battery.
It is very hard to get your battery to 8 green bars unless you already have 6 blue bars and you go down a hill at approx 6% grade or better for about 3-5 miles(coasting preferrably). After this if you keep driving on a flat surface the car uses the excess energy to run MG2 to help power the car to get back to 6 blue bars(approx 60%). If you have all greens all the time then the car has no place to store excess energy and must burn it up through resistors as heat to the environment. The HV battery is what starts your ICE(gas engine).
Read the 5 stages of operation here(click on the HERE link in the first post):
http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=4...amp;hl=5+Stages


Ahhh. Blocking the upper grill. I blocked my upper grill for summertime but not the lower. It forces the ICE to operate at slightly higher temps which makes it more efficient. I do not recommend doing this unless you have the scanguage II to monitor engine coolant temps. Blocking the lower grill also during extreme cold months will also give greater FE. If you can not keep up with the lingo then you need to read this:
http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=1...l=abbreviations
hope all of this helps. Read often and tell other drivers about this site.....very informative.

When people say "Pulse & Glide" most people think push the accelerator then coast to recharge the battery......
This is not the true intent of pulse and glide. It take some skill to do this properly.

1. PULSE Only pulse up to 40 MPH or below because at 41MPH the ICE will continue to run at 960 rpm even though the engine icon on your energy screen is not pink( lit up) to prevent MG1 from overspeeding. Yes I have the scanguageII and I have watched it countless times. If I am on a flat surface and doing P&G and get 41 mph by mistake then the ICE will not shut off(0rpm) until I reach about 37-38 mph so that is a few more seconds before the ICE shuts off and more fuel consumed. To prevent exceeding 40 mph on a down hill slope then do not pulse up to 40...make it less based on how long the hill is. I like to use regen to slow down if I know the rest of the down hill will take me where I wan to go without more acceleration. While on this note I will say that above 45 MPH the wind drag kicks in greatly and gets increasingly intense the faster you are above this speed.

2. GLIDE. This is the point that you take your foot off of the pedal to force the ICE to shut off. Read the 5 stages of operation and click on the here link to help you facilitate when the ICE will and will not shut off based on what STAGE it is in http://priuschat.com/index.php?showtopic=4...amp;hl=5+Stages After you remove your foot from the accelerator you then must reengage the accelerator ever so slightly while watching the energy screen to observe a NO ARROWS CONDITION(not regenerating AND not providing propulsion...no green or yellow arrows). You might be thinking by now.....why is this so in depth??? It takes some SKILL, slight of foot or feather foot to accomplish this. You can not be eating, conversing on the phone and any other things while trying to stay in a P&G mode. It clearly takes some skill and knowledge to do this correctly. I am trying to provide you the knowledge and pass on the info I have for this. From now on when having a conversation about P&G you can pass the MPH threshold and No arrows conditions on so others know. When someone says glide in the future this is what comes to mind each time.

3 Do it all over again...try to watch for lights and anticipate them so you can Glide. If you have a down hill ride home like I do for an entire mile prior to your drive way then you will master the downhill glide for battery recharge vs. no arrows glide condition. Good luck with this and keep us posted. If you feel this info is particularly useful and you have more input I will edit my post to accomodate your thoughts. Please advise through PM or click on my name and email me direct and please copy and paste the URL as I have many post so far.

 

Starbug, your signature brought a laugh. It would be nice to have an anti-EV switch to keep the ICE on long enough to charge the battery up to at least a couple of blue bars when you know you will be sitting in traffic. Maybe the Prius in the mirror universe has this feature.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny Hamilton @ Aug 14 2007, 05:29 PM) [snapback]495612[/snapback]</div>

Depends on the type of headlights, the HIDs just tilt up, so no difference. But the regular halogens...