New owner, confused about the battery

Sounds perfect. And welcome. The owner's manual is your friend with a Prius. It's a very different vehicle.

As long as that single purple bar is rare (as in just started out with a cold engine on a hot day and A/C is blasting) then that's fine. If the car is warmed up and cabin temperature is leveled off and you're not climbing a giant hill, you should not ever go to two bars. And filling all the bars should also only happen rarely such as going down a big hill or lots of stops in rapid succession from high speeds.

 

congrats and welcome! fill the tank, reset trip a or b, and let us know how you're mpg's are after refilling again.
some things to consider in the near future:

maintenance history

standard maintenance per the schedule that should have come with your car.

tranny fluid drain and refill

egr circuit cleaning.

12 volt battery load test, possible replacement

all the best!

 

I was thinking Gen2 was only one with purple blue and green battery graphic...guess not...I must expand my horizons

 

Never seen purple on our 2012 v Five.

 

I think that the pros already have you covered.
Basically if there's no check engine light (CEL) you're almost certainly OK.

It's going to take a little while to learn what is normal and what is not (win-win) but for the most part the best thing about rolling a Prius is that you just don't have to think about it all that much.
Drive it like a normal car and you will get above normal fuel efficiency.
Maintain the car normally, and you will get higher than normal reliability.

So...for the next few tanks, just relax and enjoy the new car and peruse some of the tips in this forum.
Maybe check your oil level after the second tank and then do a little light research on what maintenance has been done on your car in the past and then we can develop a strategery on how you can get this car to last another 100,000 miles without a major repair bill!

Make sure that your tire pressures are at least what's called for on the sticker in the driver's door jam.
Some people like to go a few pounds higher (40-ish)

The service history for your car might be available on line:
Where can I view my vehicle’s service history?

The warranty and maintenance guide IS available on-line:
2013 Toyota Prius V Owners Manual and Warranty - Toyota Owners
The Magnolia state is a wonderful state to live in (ask @JimboPalmer !) but finding a good place to get your car serviced can be a little challenging....so do not be afraid to ask questions, question quotes and advice, and generally learn how to maintain ANY modern car more cheaply!

MOST Importantly!!!

...Welcome Aboard!

 

A couple of questions:

1) How many miles per year do you expect to put on it and how many years do you hope to keep it?

Do you want to learn about and keep track of the hybrid tech or would you rather just drive it (nothing wrong with either attitude)?

If you want to learn and test the hybrid battery, I would suggest getting a good quality bluetooth OBDII dongle (that plugs into the cars diagnostic port) and use the Dr. Prius app to get an estimate of the hybrid battery health and life expectancy. The you can use the Hybrid Assistant app to get more info about how your hybrid is operating. to me it's fun to do these things but it's up to you whether to go to the trouble.

 

It's probably fine. Hybrid 101: other than for a diagnostic, you don't really want a full battery. You want it half full all the time. That way you have energy to accelerate and a place to put spare energy when you brake.

In practice, just buckle up and drive. These things just work.

 

As @Leadfoot J. McCoalroller said, just buckle up and drive. That what the car is made to do. If it was fussy, there wouldn't be so many millions on the road.

 

What I was told at some point, that I've now forgotten, is that whole design of the system is to maintain a "middle way" with the Prius Hybrid battery.
Therefore the gauge you're looking at isn't a "perfect" representation of the state of the battery. In other words, when it is low, it isn't as low as it represents, and it also isn't as high as it represents.
The whole system is designed to avoid "extremes" one way or the other. So very rarely very low for very long, and also very rarely fully charged.
IMO you want to keep a general eye on what's happening but not really obsess about the state of charge. If it's generally staying somewhere in the middle, you're OK.
And also IMO maybe change your thinking about what you are looking at, and how to "feel" about it. What I mean about that, is that it's not really a matter of "filling" the battery. It's not a gas gauge. Your not really obligated to make sure the battery is closer to the top than the bottom.
IMO the whole system is designed to take care of itself.
If you have problem with the hybrid battery? It will become or be severe enough that there won't really be a question. You'll get codes.
The behavior you're describing for your hybrid battery sounds perfectly normal to me.

 

The range from "Low" to "High" is around 40% to 80% actual battery capacity.

 

We have only had our Prius for a couple of months. I am curious about the sounds, shudders and visual que's from a scangauge that I installed plus the dash indicators. I have watched the youtube video's of the drivetrain and read what I could find about it. I want to understand it and I can say that I still haven't got a handle on it.

I start the car in the morning and the ICE is not running but before I get to the end of the driveway, the ICE starts but seems to be uncoupled from the wheels. According to my scangauge it is not charging the battery either. As I pull out of the driveway, the battery draw for that first accelleration is around 90 amps for maybe the first quarter mile and then there is a slight shudder as the ICE engages. At that point and for the rest of the day, it feels like the ICE begins providing motive power and is also charging the battery.

There appear to be several coolant temperature thresholds that switch it from one operating mode to another. I don't know if ambient air temperature is also a factor in how it behaves.

One coolant threshold is at just over 100 degrees F. Below that it doesn't seem to switch the ICE off at a traffic light. Must be some sort of warm-up mode.

There is a second threshold at around 160 degrees. Above that temperature if I am traveling below about 50 mph and release the accellerator for a couple of seconds, the ICE will shut off and the battery begins to charge at about 10 amps. Light throttle pressure results in the battery providing all the motive power. Heavier throttle pressure results in the ICE restarting.

I did notice that the scangauge indicated MPG is a little lower than the dash MPG indicator. Scangauge is based on entering the gallons of gas used at a fillup and the miles traveled on that tank so it is going to be a little more accurate.

My wife is oblivious to all this stuff going on. She just drives the car.

Damian, maybe you and I will be able to "just drive the car" as we get more comfortable with it and realize that there is nothing wrong.

 

Ronald: Your vehicle is 100% normal. The Prius ICE has to warm up before the hybrid system becomes fully effective, both in fuel economy and in keeping emissions low, so warming up the engine is prioritized. That's why it won't shut off at traffic lights until it reaches a certain temp. And, yes, the dash MPG is not accurate, scanguage is.

All of the learning that you are doing is part of the value of owning a Prius. You may never "just drive it" but you will probably let up some after a while.