Battery not charging fully when driving?

If I need a certain throttle response, I'm gonna get it, one way or another. In normal mode it's relatively easy to accomplish, and still very easy to modulate. In ECO, I gotta deal with an inordinate amount of pedal travel; if anything I overshoot, cause God didn't intend mankind to have such crazy amount of pedal travel.

Well, I'm only being SLIGHTLY hyperbolic here.

 

But you did nail one of the reasons some people do better in PWR or Normal than in ECO.

 

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is braking. If you charge is staying around 50%, it may be because you are not braking lightly enough. When the bar on your screen goes to the left of the line, showing your charge rate while braking, it is important to learn how hard to brake. The vehicle slows by reversing the electric motor, which sends a charge INTO the battery. Braking too hard will engage the physical brake calipers. You want to learn to anticipate your stops and brake slowly and lightly to coax a charge into the battery. Unlike in a standard vehicle. I like to brake with it about half way to three quarters to the left, sending a nice charge into the battery each time I brake. Unless I am in heavy traffic, this keeps my battery toward the upper charge area in the display. It is not uncommon for my battery to stay in the upper three bar range the entire time I am driving.

Charging stops and your brake pads kick in at/under 7MPH, unless you brake too hard, too fast. You may or may not feel the transition from regenerative to hydraulic brakes, but it is there. It was more pronounced in the Gen II.

I have read posts on this site where break pads have more than 50% left at over 150,000 miles. My '07 was still on its original pads when I traded it in at 93,000 miles and my last inspection stated they had 70% remaining.

So, brake lightly. Capture more ions to send to your battery. Increase your mileage, and save on brake pads!

 

The battery icon is identical in the 2012 and 2015. No changes to the dashboard displays at all since the 2012 mid-cycle refresh.

 

so today i noticed that while driving the bars went all the way up to full. It has never happened before in 2 years of my ownership. is it a sign of battery failure? i have managed to put 70k miles on it in 2 years. the mileage is at 140k right now it is 2010 prius III. how can i check if the battery is failing and also what can i possibly do to not let it charge the whole 8 bars/?

 

Were you doing a sustained downhill run? In my experience this is the one time you'll get all the bars lit up. Otherwise, yeah: kinda odd.

 

no it is the same road i drove 100 times before. the only difference is i was driving on power and little aggressively since i was running late. but even after that day it did get upto 7 bars tops which was also first occurence since i never noticed more than 6 bars in 2 years. it was extremely hot for those few days i dont know if that has to do anything with charging

 

The battery is fine even if you see all 8 bars on the SOC. There's a fairly big buffer Toyota built into the battery, from full to empty, it is actually only 80% full - 40% empty. So when you see 8 bars, it's still only 80% charged.

 

Still, it seems weird to see the charge go up to full bars, on level roads. And Umar is driving the same route, battery is behaving different.

 

It's not strange at all, the battery is already 5 years old and has lost some of it's capacity. It'll charge up a lot quicker........and also deplete a lot quicker.

I notice this on my 2006, that should be throwing a code....but somehow the ecu is still keeping it in check. It can charge up to full bars from only 2-3 bars in a matter of 3 blocks of stop and go. The way Toyota designed the battery and ECU, it can have a 20% capacity and still function properly.

 

Yeah, just my hunch it sounds like a battery where some sort of compensation is starting to happen.

With Honda and their (ill-fated) IMA system, an ailing battery would hang at about 30~40%, while the car pulls out all it's tricks: disabling auto-stop, running a sort of fast idle, constantly charging. And the charge would suddenly zoomph up to 100%. Well, the "new" 100%. And as you mentioned: fall off quite quickly too, back to 30~40% status quo.

 

I have had all the bars fill up when regen braking from very high rates of speed. (95 MPH to 35MPH)

 

Those two facts explain part of the issue, aside from aging. See if it returns to normal behavior under normal conditions.

 

well it did kind of returned to normal since then. and i noticed for past few months battery has been discharging way quicker than when at 70k, its at 140k now btw. I do have elm327 module and planning on checking the battery charging and discharging pattern along with the max charge on each cell. the android app for that gives fully detailed specs on everything.

 

I cannot find how to display the engine temperature. Any idea?

 

I use an older OBDII module, more recently there are cell phone apps that use Bluetooth to connect to the OBDII bus.
here is mine:

I choose to display RPM, instant MPG, engine water temp, and intake air temp

 

Thank you

 

How can I turn off hybrid system in 2023 Prius?

 

Only by turning off the entire ignition. A Prius can't drive in non-hybrid mode. It can't even start the gasoline engine.

 

Motor/Generator2 pushes the car down the road.

The Internal Combustion Engine may assist M/G2 by pushing against M/G1. It never acts alone.