I was listening to music in my car waiting on someone for about 30 minutes. The air and lights were turned off. I looked down and had one pink bar and panic set in. I drove the car around just a short bit (it seemed to run differently) but soon charged right back up. Does this mean my 12 volt battery is too weak? Surely I can listen to the radio without the battery going dead on me. I don't know how the car works so could someone clarify for me?
No problem at all. Its next to impossible, with out and EE degree and a whole lot of effort, to damage the HV pack through using the car or the electronics. Just treat it like a normal car. If your going to listen to the radio for a long time, just be sure that the Prius is all the way on (you can see the speedometer). The change in driving you were experiencing is normal. The ECU (computer) in the prius will run the gas engine if it ever wants to charge the battery. You were probably seeing the gas engine turn on before you were accustomed, but this is all normal operation. Nothing to worry about. I've gotten mine down to 1 bar before, I was trying to see how far I could discharge it. Got it up to 8 bars too. All fun and games with the Prius. Enjoy the ride. 11011011
That pink bar was an indicator that the hybrid battery, not the 12 volt battery, was running low. My understanding is that the car is engineered so that the hybrid battery never will be drained (until its final demise): -- If the car was running, the ICE would kick in to charge the hybrid battery. -- If the car was not running, but was in ACC or IG-ON modes so that you could listen to the radio or use other accessories, then I think (but am not sure) that the hybrid battery will not discharge completely, but would would automatically stop providing power or charging the 12 volt, and that your electrical usage would all be coming out of the 12 volt. I'd welcome any comments.
Your Prius would have felt a bit sluggish because the petrol engine was charging the battery which wasn't available to boost the power. All is good in the world. If you also had the air conditioner on it would have drained the battery pretty quick but the system stops total discharge. As said earlier, leave the system in ready mode in park to listen to the radio when parked.
Agree with all previous ideas/replies. I would add one other item: If you're sitting and waiting, be SURE you are in any other gear than NEUTRAL. The car will not recharge batteries while in Neutral! In that case, you could run your charge down dangerously low.:frusty:
I agree with the others. The Prius goes to great lengths to protect the hybrid battery and maintain its charge between 40% and 80%. The battery display actually represents those limits, not 0% and 100%. One pink bar is in the range of 42% or so. This graphic shows the relationship between the display and state of charge.
Jimbo's exactly right. At one pink bar, you're no where close to completely discharging the battery. The Prius will indeed go to great lengths to protect the battery. It's almost impossible for you to damage it. Almost bing the operative word there.
No need to panic. As long as the car is in "ready" mode and not in neutral, everything is fine. There is no need to drive the car around. The internal combustion engine (ICE) does a fine job of spinning the generator while the car is sitting still. You just need to make sure you haven't left it in neutral. When the 200V battery gets down around 40% the ICE will fire up and charge the battery up a bit. Then the ICE will shut back off until needed again. Nope, the display is an indicator of the state of charge of your 200V battery, not your 12V battery. The lowest "one bar" indication on the display means the 200V battery is about 40% charged. The highest "eight bars" indication means the 200V battery is about 80% charged. As I understand it, keeping the battery in this 40% - 80% range extends the life of the battery and makes it possible for Toyorta to offer the 100,000 mile warantee. Additionally, as long as the car is in "ready" mode the accessories are all running off the 200V battery (not the 12V battery) as well. There is an switching power supply that steps the 200V down to about 13V to be used by the accesories of the car while it is in "ready" mode. As long as the car is in "ready" mode you can listen to the radio until you run out of gasoline. Then you can still listen to the radio until the battery is drained. Keep gas in the tank, and keep the car in "ready" mode when listening to the radio, and the ICE will kick in whenever the 200V battery gets near 40% charged. On the other hand, the 12V battery is a rather small battery. Several people have indicated that if you are in ACC or IGN ON mode instead of "ready" mode, you can drain the 12V battery quite a bit faster than in other cars. The "state of charge" indicator on the multi-function display will not indicate this, and your best indication that you've drained the battery too far will probably be an inability to get the car into "ready" mode. Furthermore, the car cannot turn on the ICE if you have it in neutral. If the car is in "Ready" mode, but in neutral, and the 200V battery gets much below 40% charged, I believe I've heard that the car will shut off to try to protect the battery. If you keep turning it back on, and putting it back in neutral, I'm not sure what would happen. It might be possible in this case to force the 200V battery to discharge to the point where it can no longer start the ICE. At that point you'd have to tow it to a dealer and have the 200V battery charged up again. This might make future warantee claims on a 200V battery failure difficult. I hope this post, or one of the others here have clarified things for you.
Even if you were in neutral or you ran out of gasoline while in "ready" and Park, the Prius would not allow full discharge of the traction battery. It will shut off at about 30% charge.
Very cool . I'd often wondered if it would do that. Time to add it to the truly odd prius trivia thread. 11011011
Thanks for the good info. I have never seen pink battery bars. I have had it throw a hissy fit at the car wash when they opened the doors to dry the door jams and I was in neutral. So I figured that was bad. Donna
On my first tank of gas from the dealer, they appearently did not fill it up all the way, and I ran out about 2 miles from the gas station thinking I was good for another 40 miles according to the econ I was getting.... Drained the battery down to the lowest bar, then the car quit providing power as I limped up a hill and wouldn't restart. It basically shuts itself down and lights up the master warning light, then came up with a 'you must refuel' message on the MFD when I tried shutting down and restarting. Made for an interesting first week in the car, the dealer had freaked my wife out by saying that you could mess up the fuel bladder by draining it all the way and it had cost someone $4000 to fix. Thankfully with a couple gallons all was well. My point being the car will basically shut itself down before taking the battery below 40%....
Aha! I had thought it charged in neutral for some reason so that is where I had it. The engine was left on and there was no air or lights on. I guess this neutral was the problem. I wasn't aware that the car could be turned off and the radio still play.
