Prius 2017 electric package noise

IDK, maybe capacitor squeal. Some high-end juice monitoring goes on in the inverter case. It's not the pesky pedestrian notification system I take it. Prius has always made interesting noises, which are even more interesting when you know what is making them.

 

Sometimes things that are known to vibrate at audible frequencies will be mounted with rubber grommets, or the like, to reduce the propagation of the sound into the rest of the car, and very cold weather makes the rubber harder.

 

Inverter whine increases with cold, can you post a video?

 

thanks, all i hear is the engine

 

my hearing isn't very good. hopefully someone else will tune in.

 

Does it make the noise when the ICE off? All I hear is a very loud ICE, too loud IMO.

A steady hum from the inverter is fine. Also, there's a separate cooling system for the inverter (the small coolant bottle in front) and that pump will also make a hum when operating.

 

ICE is Internal Combustion Engine. The big black box you have a picture of is your invertor. (In short, the hybrid inverter/converter is responsible for boosting the voltage from the DC hybrid battery from 200v to 500v in order to create the three phase power needed for MG1 (motor generator) and MG2. The inverter also supports voltage lowering conversion from the hybrid battery to the 12v system.)
The Prius is a very complicated hybrid system which means it runs off electricity stored in the big battery under the rear seat in your car. It has an MG1 and an MG2 (motor generator) that drives the powertrain...the car doesn't actually drive from the ICE engine, that's used to give the car electricity and, also, the radiator heat is used to heat the car. The air conditioning is a high-tech electrical compressor, doesn't use the ICE engine at all (except for electricity), which is a very cool invention.
A good resource for learning about your hybrid is The Car Care Nut on YouTube....he even has a video on the strange noises it makes (like when you open your driver's door.) You have a 2017 so I don't think you have the infamous "UFO" speaker which is just a speaker on the front of the car that turns on when you drive slow or are backing up....the new RAV-4 hybrids have a very loud UFO speaker, I can hear my neighbors from my garage when he drives down the street.
Because of all the electrical components folks who don't drive the car a lot have a lot of problems because it wants to recharge the batteries often. I've found even letting the car sit for a week makes the 12-volt battery low.

 

And "IMO" is "In My Opinion".

Have you tried Toyota dealership service departments?

Dealerships? They may be right? Not hearing anything unusual in the video you posted. To be fair it may be hard to capture the sound you're hearing.

How long have you had it?

 

there are few qualified hybrid mechs anywhere because they are so busy with gassers it isn't worth their time

 

and, to the OP's question, the inverter circuitry does that by switching electric currents on and off several thousand times a second to create waves of the right voltage and shape. (There's an old post that's about a different kind of inverter, for making 60Hz household power, with some pictures of how that wave-shaping by rapid switching works, for anyone interested in those details.)

Anyway, when those electric currents are rapidly switched on and off, so also are the magnetic fields that go with them, and those will slightly wiggle any of the magnetic metal in the area, at the same several-thousand-times-a-second frequency. Those vibrations are sounds in a range a person can hear, a subtle noise you can compare to the sound of a mosquito. Just what it does.

 

Boo, that's complete BS. The ICE definitely drives the wheels through the Hybrid Synergy Drive. I suggest you review Hybrid Synergy Drive - Wikipedia

Now, there were cars, not Toyota, that used an ICE to run a generator that powered the car, but Toyota's HSD