Battery not charging fully when driving?

performing exactly as designed. the computer leaves room in the battery for unexpected regeneration, so yes, it will go to full under the right conditions, but 40-60% full on your gauge is normal.

mpg's tell the whole story. and they are?

 

Sounds normal, mostly.

 

mostly?

 

I wonder if the battery icon is different for the 2015 vs. 2012. If not, mine charges up but leaves room for what would be 2 lines at the top, never going beyond that. Which is how the battery is designed.

 

that's probably average for the persona this time of year.

 

can you link us to that info? mine goes from one purple bar up to 8 light green bars, but mostly stays near the middle.

 

it varies, some say a few thousand, others say none at all. under ideal conditions, the persona probably gets 47-48 mpg. but that's gonna depend more on the weather, the terrain, your commute and your driving style more than anything else.

 

As a newbie, you should just try to drive 'normally' for the first couple tanks, don't try to outsmart the machine by forcing EV. The car is already quite intelligent about when to chose EV or gas, and it is easier for neophytes to sabotage mpg than to do better than the computers can. Get a baseline for your 'normal' driving, then use that as a benchmark for future finagling. When you go lower than that baseline, then you will know that you are doing something wrong.

On the open highway, the car tends to maintain charge at 6 (out of 8) bars. In city conditions, it easily falls lower. The lower it goes, the more the computers will want to use gasoline instead of EV.

 

Let's look at it the other way, imagine it WAS fully charging while driving Where would your braking energy go? It could not go into an already fully charged battery.

 

Also keep in mind the battery charge level indicator is an -approximation only-. And just to throw more oil in there, zero bars indicate about 30% charge by design, and all bars indicate about 80% charge, by design. What the meter shows is also temperature dependent. You can shut off the car with the indicator showing about half charge, and the next day when you put the car in "ready" it will often show something very different, such as 80% charge.

For maximum battery life, you do not want to operate the battery over large charge level changes. But you can only -influence- the charge level, not control it. So "relax and watch the blinking lights!"

 

NO.
You just need to get used to how the hybrid works.
In addition to what's already been said, there is an upper speed limit for EV operation.
Sounds like that might be about 42 MPH in your model.

 

It sounds like you're trying a little too hard to hold it in EV mode. Don't back off completely, but be a little more aggressive with the gas pedal. Don't be afraid to kick it in, accelerate with the Hybrid System Indicator (bar display) showing, and try to keep the acceleration in the yellow zone:




Accelerate a little more aggressively, and just slip into EV under light to moderate loads, and that'll tax the battery less. When it's running EV watch the bar, if it's approaching the mid line, you'll be eating the charge fast. Best to do EV only in the first quarter to third. And keep an eye on the state of charge too; if it starts dropping to near half, push the gas a little further, wake up the engine, pulse-and-glide more:



BTW, when I refer to EV, I'm not meaning via pushing the EV button, just by lifting off the gas to shut off, then gently re-applying, but keeping the bar to the left of the median.

 

I will find time to take a picture of my display.

 

Hmm...

It's all true that The Prius is designed to try to keep the battery in the "middle way" that is never really fully discharged, and never really fully charged. My understanding is the gauge doesn't represent an entirely "true" reality, in other words if showing all bars---fully charged...it really isn't...and when low...it really isn't as "empty" as it is showing.

But my gauge most often stays at the 2/3rds to 3/4ths charged level. With variations up and down from those baselines.

If you are NEVER getting above what is showing as a 50% charge, I might suspect a problem.

Have you tried driving down a hill? Going down a hill for a significant distance should cause the battery to charge. You should also be able to force charge it. There should be ways to MAKE it hold more than a 50% charge. If it isn't EVER showing more than that, then I think you might indeed have a problem.

It's not unusual that the battery isn't showing fully charged. It is unusual if it NEVER shows more than 50% charged.

Also as a new owner, you might be trying to use EV too much. Just drive it. Let the system use the gasoline engine. I'm NOT saying this is what is happening but sometimes a new owner can be paying too much attention to gauges, and actually using EV too agressively.

If you wish you can learn, adapt, embrace hypermiling techniques, but I always recommend that for a new owner/driver, at least at first they let HSD just work automatically. Get use to everything else. Then you can start to learn how you might want to employ EV "moments" with your car.

 

not that, i can also take a pic of my display. i mean your last sentence: 'that's how the battery was designed'. i think it can and does go to full on the display, and was designed to do so.

 

The battery was designed to allow charge from regenerative braking. It doesn't fully charge, for this reason. I have read about it in the manual. As far as the way it shows, I will take a picture and show you, it allows a space on the icon equal to about 2 bars.

 

agreed. so if you have two bars open at the top, and you start going down a long hill and braking, they don't fill in?