Force-charg'g a 3G not as efficient as on a 2G ?

Hey, all,

As some of you may know from reading my previous posts, I work at a car auction driving a multitude of various cars through the auction block. Yesterday I got into a 2010 Prius that was already powered up from the guy that goes down the line starting all the cars. The car would NOT go into Drive or Reverse from the Neutral position I found it in. The guy had started it & put it into Neutral & left the defroster on to clear the windshield.

When I saw that the car wouldn't go into gear, I shut off the defroster & checked to see if it was in Ready mode. It was, but there was a message that I saw on the screen, something about the HV battery being extremely low & to shift into Park (which I then did). I was not too fully aware of any of the other conditions that may or may not have been displayed because my lane chief was upset that I wasn't moving & I was holding up the others behind me, but after a few seconds I did notice that there was one bar on the battery display, so I tried putting it in gear again & it worked.

When I got down to a holding area just outside the auction building, I left the car in Drive, put my left foot firmly on the brake pedal, & then stepped on the gas with my right foot (I've done this more than a few times on my '05 with good results going quickly from 1 or 2 purple bars of battery to 7 or 8 Green bars). Arrows were moving from the engine to the battery for a while until the battery reached 2 bars (which took an abnormally longer time than I am used to), then the arrows reversed (still with my foot on the gas pedal) so that it showed energy draining from the battery into the electric motor. At that point I could no longer get any more than the 2 bars & the arrows would NOT reverse again to indicate any charging going from the motor/generator to the battery.

I next had to drive a short distance across a major intersection & after doing that I put the car into Park because I knew I would have a long wait before moving again. After waiting only about a minute, I decided to try the force-charging again & this time the arrows started going from the motor/generator back into the battery again, so I just kept my foot on the gas (at the same moderately high RPM level I had already tried before). This time I had a little better success, but it took about 5 minutes to get up to just 4 bars of battery (normally after the same amount of time in my '05, I would have 8 green bars). After that I had to move through the auction block & back up to the parking area.

So I'm wondering if the force-charging in a 3G is really less efficient than doing it in a 2G (are the systems/software set up differently?), or does anybody think that this particular set of circumstances (such as this car being left in Neutral to let it discharge so deeply with the defroster on so long) had something more to do with it? Has anybody here with a 3G had good results with a force-charge bringing up the battery level higher & faster than it happened for me?

_________________
Ken (in Bolton, Ct)

 

CTpriusV,

Sorry, but I don't know what it went for. The auctioneer always sends the cars out of the building after the bidding starts but well before it ends on each car. We can only find out if the driver of the car behind was paying attention to the sale of the car ahead & hears the selling price from the auctioneer or happens to notice the bid tally board (which is mounted high up & usually on the opposite side from the driver, so it's a real neck twister to lean way forward & down to see the amount below the top windshield tinting.

Somebody said a Porsche in our lane this past Wednesday went for $67,000 (don't know what model it was). These are only dealers who are allowed to buy there, so after the dealer pays for a transporter truck (unless he brings his own driver), and gives it a safety check (fixing what's needed to pass inspection), & does some detailing on it, he will probably put it on his lot with a $75,000 price tag (to allow for some wiggle room in his selling negotiations).

Anyways, every 2 weeks the auction house publishes the sale prices of all the cars that sold in the previous 2 weeks, but that list is broken down by year, brand, & model only. There is no information about inventory/stock numbers, model trim levels, or option pkg's.

Ken (in Bolton, Ct)

 

Erikon,

I'm wondering if that extreme depletion level I faced when I got into the car is why it was taking so long to recover in the force charge, but I can't explain why the arrows on the display reversed during the force charge & were indicating energy coming OUT OF the battery (as in the battery assisting the gas engine while driving).

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

Wow, all the negativity about the force-charging operation in posts 6 through 10 !! Left foot on brake, shift to Drive, right foot on gas, don't let go of brake before shifting back to Park. That's the way we 2G people have been force-charging for a long time (whenever needed).

I didn't ask if I did the right thing or not. I was just puzzled why the results took so much longer to achieve in a 3G (& there's no fighting the brake like in a regular car).

Here's a thread with some comments about force-charging. See posts 41 through 45.
http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-ii-.../102405-little-help-please-5.html#post1466899

By the way, GrumpyCabbie, the car did start & was fine after my little force-charge. Please re-read my original post.

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

GreenJuice,

In actuality, once the car is pulled out of its parking spot at the auction, there is a lot of stop & go & waiting (much like sitting in a major traffic jam) for about a 15 minute cycle before the car is returned to its parking spot. During a lot of that time many of the dealers are opening & closing the car doors (inspecting the interior), checking under the hood, & the big one---is making sure the A/C is working, so I knew I needed to put some charge into the HV battery before turning on the A/C near the auction block building.

To adamace1,

The duration of my force-charge was only 7 or 8 minutes tops (NOT "a half hour" of "fighting the brakes"). We especially can't rev the engine near or inside the building for safety reasons.

To anyone else,

The Prius got parked with 4 bars of battery to sit for a few more days until the buying dealer could pick it up, or to sit for another week before being driven through the auction again if it didn't sell the first time. So I do think my force-charge might have left the car in a better place to sit unused (for whatever time length) than if I had parked it with only 1 or 2 bars (without the force-charge). I'm not looking for any justification for what I did, just making the comment. Cheers, everybody !

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)

 

Teakwood,

I respect that you're also a senior member here with even more posts than I have, but you have a 2010 Prius & you joined in 2010 as well. I've had my 2005 Prius since new & even though I didn't join here until 2007, I was over at PriusOnLine lurking & learning before I bought my Prius (but didn't join there until after I bought my Prius), & even before that I was on Mr Kash's Prius Page for over a year (I don't know if it still exists, but back in 2004 & 2005 it had massive amounts of technical data & engineering studies, etc). That used to be the "Go to" site for anybody who didn't know anything about hybrids but wanted to learn.

So many of us with the 2G cars are aware of the force-charging process even though some may never have personally tried it. Have you ever tried to step on the gas with your Prius in Park? It doesn't throttle up much more than a couple hundred RPM's higher than an idle (you can't rev it up
like a normal car). But using the force-charge method already described, you can get the state of charge of that bad boy HV battery back up into the green in a real hurry (& the gas engine will rev higher than it does in Park), so it's NOT nonsense.

And it's not all that dangerous (unless your left foot slips off the brake). You see a lot of us know what a farce it was that that guy out in California who claims his Prius wouldn't stop for many miles on the interstate, because even with the accelerator fully depressed, as soon as you apply the Prius brakes the car WILL come to a stop (mighty fast, may I add) even with the gas pedal still floored. I've done it to prove it to friends & other people. And the same with going into Neutral at highway speed. If you were to use both feet while in Drive (like the force-charging method) & shift to either Neutral or Park, the engine RPM's drop way down to a little above idle speed.

Ken (in Bolton,Ct)