2006 Prius Out of Gas and Dead Battery?

You need to add four gallons at one time for the car to register that fuel has been added.

As an alternative, disconnect the 12V battery negative cable where it bolts to the body, for a few minutes. Reconnect and then try to start the car. By removing / reconnecting 12V power, that forces the fuel gauge electronics to take a current reading of the fuel level. Once the hybrid vehicle ECU recognizes that fuel is present, then it will allow the car to be started.

 

If you get the car started by filling with enough gaso, you may have a very low Hybrid battery, which is not a good thing. You might be in trouble, but to help matters you probably want to get the hybrid battery charged up a bit before you drive off. Read the posts for how to do this, but I am thinking the procedure is to put your foot on the brake and give it some revs to force charge - not sure if PARK works or you need to be in drive. Watch your battery icon on the screen. Turn off A/C which drains batt. In the most simple case, at least let the car warm up in PARK for about 5 mins.

 

^^ In most cases, won't a very low hybrid battery be taken care of quickly by ordinary driving? Just make sure to drive enough to get 4 to 6 bars, don't park it immediately with just 1 or 2 (or even 3?) bars.

 

do not know but if you just pull out with A/C on and you get into uphill with load on car, that would scare me. Obviously if you are sitting on a downhill that's nice. I am at least cutting off A/C and warming car in PARK...normally the engine comes on after about 60 secs and runs a couple minutes and that is good for battery.

 

The engine comes on after 7 secs and runs for 50 secs, unless it is cold and you have the heater on, then the engine will run for a considerable time longer.

 

if you have enough hybrid battery to start the engine, you'll be fine. just drive it until the indicator comes up to normal range.
if you don't, you'll have to take it to the dealer to have it charged. all the best!

 

Note that we are dealing with a 2006 here, but we don't know if it has a new battery or not. My 2006 with orig battery I am feeling vulnerable, perhaps paranoid to put it mildly.