Future Owner Charging Questions

0%, that is to the minimum level level the car maintains (should be roughly 30%)

 

Do you mean that ideal SOC of 30% is when the battery is left along for a week or longer? Does it also mean that it is ok to keep at 70% overnight once in a while or repeatedly? If it's left at 70% overnight for 7 days, while still driving every day, does it go counter to ideal SOC of 30%?

In a real scenario, what happens if in the morning plans changed, you didn't drive or drove little. Does it mean that now you have to deplete the battery preferably down to 30% or at least discharge somewhat.

I guess what I am trying to figure out if repeated charge and discharge cycles are really necessary, because, from what I understand, that shortens the battery lifespan as well. Basically if you charged the battery to 70% does it absolutely (meaning what's best for the battery) needs to be discharged to 30% and then charged again to 70 or more before the next drive.

Also, could you site a source, Toyota or other, for optimal 30% storage figure for Gen5?

Thank You.

 

What regen setting do you have the "B" mode set at. I have driven quite a few times at 4C (39,2F) and noticed no difference in regen capability. I had an OTA update recently and it reset the B mode to the lowest setting.

 

I would not try to overthink it. The manual states: ●Leave a low level of charge in the hybrid battery (traction battery) when leaving the vehicle undriven for a long period of time. After confirming that EV mode or AUTO EV/HV mode has switched to HV mode, turn the power switch off.

I don't consider a week to be a long period of time for not driving a car. More like 3- 4 weeks. With the scenario you described above, I would not charge every day, only when either I know I will be driving a longer distance or when the EV level got down to 30%.

 

Don't stress too much over it.

Toyota recommends an ideal long-term storage SOC of 0%, but 25% is more optimal. As a general rule, high SOC is bad for the battery, and you should only fully charge it immediately before you need it.

Regarding your other question, the effect of a deep charge/discharge cycle is a lot more stronger than charging from 30–70% or so. If you can get 800 cycles of life with 0–100%, you should be able to get perhaps several thousand cycles with 30–70%.

 

But doesn't Toyota already limit the charge range for us anyway? Unless I've misunderstood something from other threads we can't actually charge it to max max or use it to literally 0. So the impacts are going to be limited for your average user.

Isn't there also benefit to being plugged in for colder climates too like running the battery heating system when plugged in.

And at some point we just gotta drive the car.

 

Yes ! For Gen3 and Gen4 (Primes) it's estimated at somewhere between 10 and 15% of the Traction Batteries capacity is not available through the charging systems in the car, both at the top end and the bottom. So between 20 and 30% of capacity. I'm reading Gen5 (Prime) as being somewhere around half that much both at bottom and top. The more techstream users that report, the closer we should be able to get to a consciences of actual capacity and limits of charge.

Yes, keeping the Prime plugged in when ambient temps start to dip below 2 C / 35 F allows the traction battery heaters to automatically start and run.
Gen4 Primes recommended max time to leave the car plugged in is 3 days.
I believe the Gen5 Primes recommendation might be a day or two longer than the Gen4 ?.

LIke a lot of other aspects of the Prius and Prime behaviors, a lot has to do with personal preferences and it would be a lot easier to understand what others are talking about if they would share that fact more often.

Toyota offers a lot of choices for owners and I think they covered a lot of aspects of the cars systems that could help with owner maintenance as the car get older.
I also think that it's going to be interesting to see which systems have the most trouble as the cars age with all the senors and entertainment features that mostly all new cars are getting.

 

That is the case for any battery, as it could quickly destroy the battery to complete deplete it or overcharge it. Nevertheless, there is an optimal storage SOC and also deeper cycles are harder on the battery as I explained above. You don't want to charge to/keep at a high SOC unless you immediately need it.

 

in cold weather below 2C , canadian models extend the period to 31 days for the gen4 prime,don't know for the gen 5

 

I believe @KMO posted about that being a special option and not the default recommendation for Gen 5

 

31 days is the default option for cars delivered to Canada and Alaska. The setting can be toggled by a TechStream device.

 

It's one of the things in the pre-delivery inspection. Here's the blurb from the European version:

The normal battery heater function seems to give up at about -10°C, from my testing.- logic seems to be that it's going to be too much work to get into good postive-temperature EV operation range, and you'll probably be starting the engine for cabin heat anyway.

This changes the logic to warm below -10°C to try to stop it going lower, potentially saving it from dropping below -30°C.

Not sure how much you can trust this to have been set by the dealer (and is it really recommended for all of Canada?) - but you can tell it's enabled because you get a display message telling you when it's activating ("Traction battery temp is low - System has prioritised charging to preserve battery condition") - it's not silent like the normal battery heater function.

I don't have this function on here in Finland - temperatures do drop into the minus twenties, but hardly ever goes below 30.

 

I've set to 3 out of 3. I have a phev. No automatic resetting after reboot. How do you get the OTA???

 

It happened automatically. I received notification on the Toyota app.