Hello, Question for the forum. I took my son to In-N-Out for dinner. This was Saturday night and it was very busy. We were probably in the drive through for about fifteen minutes before we finally received our food and drove off. I noticed my battery was down to about three bars, this was at night, so I had my headlights on too. It seems I could have easily drained my battery and caused some problems. Any suggestions on how to handle this in the future? I'm glad I do not have to commute to San Francisco. This is stop and go traffic and sometimes it could take 20 or 30 minutes to move a mile or so. Is there a risk of depleting your batter or causing major problems? Thanks Mark
Mark, There's no problem at all. When the hybrid battery gets too low, the internal combustion engine will kick in to charge it up.
You handle this situation by not worrying about it. The Prius will take care of itself. When the battery gets low enough, the ICE will come on automatically and charge the battery. This cycle will continue as long as you have fuel and keep the transmission out of N (it can't recharge in N). Tom
Since the engine will come on to protect the battery, there is no risk at all, I've seen it go down on mine quite a bit, but the engine will come on to recharge when it gets way too low.
As the others say, no harm to your battery. However, it will hurt your fuel economy; the ICE (internal combustion engine) has to run to recharge it. Two steps you can take to minimize the MPG hit: turn off your headlights in the drive-through line and, if you can tolerate it, the climate control.
The ultimate solution: Park and order inside. I know that In-N-Out lots can be small--at the Davis location, I usually park down Olive Drive and walk back
I like this answer. I really dislike the whole concept of drive throughs. I always get out and go in, although I usually avoid places that have drive throughs. You can make a good argument about time, kids in the car, convenience, and such, but to me those are all symptoms of a bigger problem. We have allowed our lives to become over scheduled and too frenzied. Taking a little time to eat is a first step back toward being civilized. Tom
Well when I am waiting for my #1 combo with a Coke please, and I can not believe I have not seen this suggested, I turn the car off!!! Its a wonderful concept! I jsut sit there, when they get around to a moving on up, I turn it back on. Get to the window, grab the goodies and off I go!! Animal style rocks!! KK6PD
You're trying to optimize what the Prius has already optimized. The Prius turns the engine off when it's not needed. The problem with idling is all those cars that don't turn the engine off when it's not needed. Yes, the Prius engine will run occasionally during a long wait. But even when it does that to operate the air conditioning during hot weather, the actual cost is really quite minimal. Turning the Prius off triggers the low efficiency warmup mode when you actually do restart it. My Prius gets terrible mileage for about the first 10-15 minutes, and then gets the great mileage. I suspect that 5 minutes of sitting in the car with it in READY mode would use less gas than turning it off and then restarting.
A big benefit of the Toyota hybrid system is that it is an economical way to travel stop & go - this is why the EPA city mpg rating exceeds the EPA highway mpg rating. The engine usually does not run while you are traveling at low speed or stopped, unless the engine needs to be warmed up or the traction battery needs a charge. If you make the car IG-OFF while waiting for a short period of time, then when you make the car READY again, the engine will run for a short period of time before it automatically turns off. Depending upon how frequently you make the car IG-OFF then READY, you may use more fuel compared to leaving the car READY and letting it decide when to turn the gasoline engine on and off.
We bought our new Prius from a dealer in Daly City last week and got caught in a traffic jam (overflow from the game last Sunday) on the way home and drained the battery down to 2 or 3 bars. As everyone stated before, the ICE came on and charged it back up during the slowdown. It's nice to know we're driving such a smart piece of machinery.
In general, I like this answer, but you can't "avoid" In-N-Out Burger. That's sacrilege to those of us who pray at the alter of cheeseburgers and french fries, but don't have the luxury of having an In-N-Out any closer than about six day's hard drive from us. But you're right, there's always the "park and go inside option". But back to the topic....the only way I understand it that the battery can be drained dangerously is if the car is driven when the ICE is out of gas or otherwise incapacitated. In this case it can't kick on to recharge the battery when it drops below tolerance. Similarly, the newer Gen II cars won't let you drive on just the battery...
+1 These answers. A VERY long wait..maybe more than 20 minutes depending upon how many accessories are running/draining the battery it may be more efficient to shut down and then restart. But going through S1 warm up is not efficient at all and cause quite a long idle period burning gas. There's probably a way to do the math on this thing, but I'd say it's not a cut and dry thing and that it's likely just as efficient if not more so to leave the car in READY (esp. if you're already in S4) for most waits like this. And as a benefit you can keep listening to music and such. Now, I DO shut off the heat/A/C, when practical I shut off the headlights (I sometimes do very late drive-throughs on late ER shifts with no other cars around but I have to wait for them to cook fries and my burger and such since business is so slow) to reduce the drain.
i think what i would have done is go to parking lights since there is no need for them in a drive thru and that is what i do. because you have to move occasionally, i never turn the Pri off.
