hybrid battery question on C

Isn't that what I said?

 

yes, but the rebuttal to means post hasn't arrived yet.

 

I wasn't questioning your statement, I was rebutting Sam Spade's. I included your quote to give context to what Sam was claiming that the Prius couldn't do.

 

Ah sorry, my ignore list tripped me up lol.

 

Yeah. I generally ignore them too and responses have puzzled me a few times.

 

There are a lot of "ifs" in your story.
I did say "use the battery exclusively"; maybe I should have added "when driving normally" too.

 

Battery only can go up to 45mph if the car is warm. EV button push mode maxes out at 25mph.

 

Not that I would want to try doing that on my own hybrid with the oil not yet circulating, but I've never seen proof of the battery icon in a Prius c going to just one bar.

 

If you read the rest of my post you'll see that the reason the battery drains is precisely because the car isn't putting any load on the gas engine - it's using the electric motor only for propulsion. It does that exactly so that it won't cause any extra wear until the oil has had a chance to circulate through the engine.

 

I've never seen the bar drop below two... I arrive at my house with the car turning on due to low charge almost every day, you'd think that at least once I would have seen it... weird.

 

Two's the lowest I've ever seen too, albeit with regular 3rd gen Prius.

 

I did read your post. And if you read my post, then you'll see that I have not seen proof of it going to one bar, so why are you asking me to read your post?

 

In normal driving conditions the car won't let the battery drop below 2 bars - when it gets that low it runs the engine to charge it back up again. But when you start the car from cold it will draw on the battery for propulsion for the first several seconds, even if it's only at 2 bars, to protect the engine until oil has circulated throughout it. If you start the car cold with a low hybrid battery and draw enough power from it, I've seen it go down to 1 bar for a short while until the motor/generator is allowed to load the engine and fill it back up again.

I've also heard that in "neutral" the engine won't start, and if you leave it in "neutral" too long with the car turned on it can run down the hybrid battery - this was in conjunction with a warning to go into an automatic car wash with plenty of charge in the battery so that it wouldn't run down as it was pulled through the wash in neutral gear. I've never seen the battery discharge below 2 bars in this situation myself, though, because I heed that advice.

 

I have heard of the neutral drop, but yeah, never wanted to test that one myself. I'll have to set myself up for a quick start from low battery to see if it drops... if I'm brave enough, that is.

 

I'm not sure about this. Any normal car manages to start up and run the engine cold. It is the worst time for lubrication, but it's doable. There's enough residual oil that engines don't seize.

I mean, it might be the case, with the Prius, but it seems somewhat foolhardy programming if it were so: to endanger the hybrid battery to protect a cold engine.

 

The engineering on the Prius seems to be very solid - I don't think there's any danger of the car harming the battery. And in fact I think that's one of the reasons why the car never lets the battery drop under 2 bars in normal circumstances - so that there's a reserve available for cold starting. Remember that the actual battery capacity is a fair bit larger than what's shown on the battery graph - it's actually capable of charging higher than the top of the graph and discharging lower than the bottom. The car's software maintains the state of charge within a smaller range to pamper the battery and prolong it's life. So even at 1 bar of charge it still has quite a bit of margin to go below that.

 

I attempted this last night on my drive home from work. I put my seat belt on, was ready to go. Pressed the power button and immediately put the car into D. I pressed the gas pedal and the engine turned on immediately. Battery bar stayed at 2... but the engine revved really weird... sounded like it was hanging through the transmission... not something I'll be doing again.