All Bars On Battery Indicator

Very interesting.

 

Took a pic today (sorry for bad cell phone quality), with battery fully charged, and the top bar is the same color as the rest.

 

Was this achieved on steep hill or in slight downgrade conditions?

 

I'd consider it steep--you're riding the brakes the entire way. The road goes from ~750 feet above sea level to sea level in about 1/2 mile--and it's a pretty straight road (no switchbacks).

 

Matt is talking about his Gen2 Prius on this Gen3 forum.

Ken@Japan

 

I maxed out the battery on downhill regen again this evening for at least the tenth, possibly twelfth time, and saw the same as this picture -- no red bar.

It is clear that the top bar lights up before the battery is really full -- some reduced regen is still happening and the engine has not fully spun up in compression braking mode. But a bit farther down the hill, visible regen ceased and the engine was spinning much faster, yet the top bar was still not red.

Do I need an even longer hill to get the red? Or are there display panels out there from different vendors (much like tires), some with a red bar and some without?

Do the 'red bar people' see this bar in two different colors, depending on how full the battery is, or is this bar only red?

 

Pics from "red bar people", or it didn't happen.

 

They're calling it red when they actually mean salmon color. I'd have to go out of my way to get a pic as there are hardly any hills where I live (much less long enough to get to 8th bar).

 

Ive had mine in 100% full many times. Usually when I come after a trip in the mountains, its just downhill.
No red here, only green

 

I agree that the top bar is not red, but before we discount the stories of red bars I noticed a situation where the bottom part of the display was red (the whole trip line). It took me a few seconds to realize the sun was shining in and directly illuminating only that portion of the display. As soon as I went around a bend the direct sunlight went away and the display was indeed white. So... Is it possible that the people seeing the red bar are in a situation where just the top of the display is getting direct sun making it look more pinkish?

 

Viewing angles and sun can do this with VFDs.

Tom

 

Salmon or pink, it has a red-ish hue since my last set of hill climb tests were between midnight and 1:30 AM ... no sun light. The hill climb also includes descending and though I used "B," it still peak charges the traction battery. Cute, the pink-ish color also makes sense given what we've seen with NHW11 traction battery temperatures when charging increases the temperature.

Bob Wilson

 

Could it be that the elusive salmon bars are only visible at night?

I got my Prius on July 10, the days are very long here around that time. On my first drive in darkness, 4 weeks (!) later, I noticed the arrows coming out of the battery are actually green.

 

I asked my dealer why I never see 8 bars. He said you never will. Guess he was wrong.

 

Or could it be the top bar is initially green/white and then turns another color if the traction battery is even more full?

 

That would be very unusual for a VFD display. With a VFD, each display element is a segment of a fixed color. Changing colors usually requires lighting an adjacent element, not changing the color of an element.

Tom

 

It seems to me that what is happening here is that when the car is listed as full charge, it will display all 8 segments as green. Once the maximum charging has occured, it seemed to me that the top bar went salmon/reddish color, very similar is color to the 'red arrows' that are displayed on the display when it shows the energy flowing from the ICE to the motors or battery.

While I am not certain that this is the reason that I have seen it happen (once, about 3 weeks ago, in a hilly part of rural Indiana), and every other time that I have been to 8 bars of SOC, I have never seen it red, or anything other than greenish. That one time that I saw it that, it was only reddish for about 3 minutes, then just green, and finally went back to 7 bars, etc... I thought it was just me, as it had not happened again, until I saw this posting today.

If it happens again, I will do all I can to get a picture of it to post here, assuming that no one else has yet, but as my daily commute is very level, I have not had it to 8 bars at all in the Chicago area.

As for Tom's (qbee42) comment of lighting adjacent elements, this may well be the case, but as on a TV, it is hard to tell if the 'dots' are 1/50th of an inch over or not, so either they change colors, or the red one next to it light up.

Does anyone have access to the tech documents to read over this information and put it to rest one way or another?

 

I saw this just yesterday and the photo isn't great, but you can make out the different color of the top bar. This was the first time I saw it and it is clearly a different color (slightly). I was coasting down a long grade on Rt. 202 near West Chester, PA.

 

SOLVED! At least on my Prius. Both camps are correct, they just have their controls set different.

With the dashboard lighting set for full Daylight brightness, I see only the monochrome. But with the brightness turned down for night, I see a weak but definite pinkish or reddish color to the top bar. I'll check the pics tomorrow, but first glance on the camera viewfinder show it washed out, no better than the pictures already posted to this thread.

This was spotted at dusk, at least a half hour after sunset. Other readers with better color vision should test this. I wouldn't be surprised if a few folks can see the dual colors even at full brightness, but my color vision is not sufficiently strong.