Does battery charge indicator ever turn FULLY green?

if you go downhill long enough it'll fully charge

 

Yes, it can turn fully green. No, it normally doesn't. It is amazing how long the thing will stay in EV mode once you've got full green bars though! Very similar to how a plug-in Prius would operate with a larger traction battery.

 

You'll find the closer the battery is to 'full', the more the system will favor the battery when driving. (ie, it'll slightly shift it's behavior, using a little more electricity, and a little less gas, to achive the same speed/acceleration). This fairly efficiently prevents the battery from becoming overcharged, by making use of that electricity.

It can turn fully green, but it's not normal to do so. Coasting down a long hill constantly regenerating energy is the most common example.

-Ken

 

I regularly get green bars but only in the winter. Cold weather causes the battery to charge more, or maybe it's just it discharges less. Still won't go all green.

To get all green you need to get out of flat areas and head to mountains. They don't have to be big ones:
In MA I have seen all bars green in two places. Up around Goshen, and around Shutesbury-Pelham area.

I never get all green around Eastern MA. I expect most of NJ is also too flat.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tomdeimos @ Oct 21 2006, 05:23 PM) [snapback]336197[/snapback]</div>

Cold = More

Since the engine runs more often and the battery-pack is much easier to keep cool, you'll see more electricity flowing in both directions during the winter.

The most obvious situation is when I leave for work. My climb out of the valley begins just a few feet from my driveway. In the winter, the fact that the system favors the electric motor much more than in the summer is very easy to notice. That's a pretty sweet advantage of the hybrid system. It protects the engine at times you wouldn't expect, in this case providing a longer opportunity to warm up.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Tideland Prius @ Oct 21 2006, 12:53 PM) [snapback]336151[/snapback]</div>

Do not let this statement confuse you into believing that eight green bars are not “normal.†It may not be an everyday sight, but eight green bars are totally within the “normal†standards of Prius operation. Eight green bars does not signify an abnormal condition . . . therefor, it is “normal†. . . or as NASA likes to say, “Nominalâ€. Don't confuse "normal" with "average."

Eight bars signifies that the Prius batteries are charged to the maximum level allowed by the Prii's battery care program . . . 80% of the batteries' non-Prius capacity. Eight bars is not a battery life lessening overcharge condition. If it were, I would imagine Toyota would not let you turn the car off with that state of charge and walk away for an indeterminate amount of time.

At 8 bars, the computer will try to use the battery as much as possible to bring it back down to 6 bars . . this is to make room in the battery to take advantage of future charging opportunities, yet still be able to provide enough power for current operations. If the battery was always in a nearly full SOC condition the Prii's efficiency would actually suffer, same as it would if the battery SOC were always near the bottom . . . the ICE would have to work harder to make-up for the lack of available power from the battery. There is a happy medium there . . . somewhere around six bars.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Oct 21 2006, 06:50 PM) [snapback]336204[/snapback]</div>

This battery usage is very short like the first couple of minutes after start up. Most of my commute the battery is essentially shut down. I get green bars every single day in the AM from October to March.
The bars stay green once it is cold enough for the engine to not shut off.

I never see more current flowing in either direction. The current limits are severely low for charging and for braking till the battery gets warm and in my commute that never happens with a 15 to 20 minute drive.

The other obvious effect is getting onto highways. Where the car in summer uses the battery in winter the RPM of the engine goes way up instead from like 2200 rpm as high as 3500 rpm for the same acceleration.

Battery charge and discharge limits go from over 100 amperes to under 50.

I agree if you drive long enough to get the battery warmed up well over 50 degrees it can then be used.
However the set point remains higher and I would even then really have to work at using lots of stealth to see blue battery bars.

For warm weather I typically have 6 bars.

Also note my results may be different than yours because I use a block heater. So the engine starts out at a summer warmth but the battery is cold.

 

Wait till it gets really cold in the northeast! That thing will be green all the time and the mpg's will go to the low 40's.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tomdeimos @ Oct 21 2006, 06:55 PM) [snapback]336220[/snapback]</div>

Heck, I can claim the opposite. Winter traffic congestion gets so bad sometimes that I see pink from having stealthed for so long. It's the blues for me most of the time.

By the way, keep in mind the the green/blue threshold changed. When I got my newer Multi-Display, I noticed that green happened far more frequently. Of course, that could also have been a strangely lucky coincidence... where late-life break-in had some influence. Whatever the case, it is not the same anymore.

Also, there's no real temperature limit for the HSD; I've done stealth at -18F. For the Classic model, anything below +20F required the engine.

 

I've gotten full green bars since day one (about 2 months ago) when I bought the Prius. I live in somewhat hilly but maybe better defined as rolling terrain. When I turn into my driveway after just about any trip (short or long) I'm good and green. My wife calls it the "nirvana state." When I drive out I can ride on electric only for about 1.6 miles until I get to a major road where I have to get up to 60 or so. I should add that I typically just "drive it" meaning no P&G but I do use cruise whenever possible.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Oct 21 2006, 10:11 PM) [snapback]336262[/snapback]</div>

I am sure you can pull down to blue bars if you try to use stealth. Since I get so little of it I tend to give up trying once temps get below 30 degrees F. Except on a trip when the battery gets warm. My summer back route won't even keep the engine up to stage 4 temperatures in winter. So I go highway and too fast for any stealth.

I have never seen pink except in traffic jams with the AC going.

The set point was changed by the big code update fix for the engine dying on the highway problem, maybe.
At least that gave me a bit more stealth in cold weather.

Stealth at -18 is possible but won't last due to the fast engine cool down. The issue on current limits and switching into stealth depends on battery temperature only, assuming engine is in stage 4. After 30 minutes of driving the battery can get warm with almost any outside temperature if you use the heater enough. My commute is only 15 to 20 min.

The other thing I may do differently is I always try to max battery charge. I believe it is more efficient and I have power for stealth when and if I need it. So I accelerate etc to make battery charge. I do this same summer or winter, yet summer stays around 6 bars and winter it goes up to green ones.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Oct 21 2006, 02:35 PM) [snapback]336178[/snapback]</div>

It may not be "normal" for you but it's an everyday occurrence for me. To most destinations from my house I have to drop 800 feet in elevation in just under two miles. By the time I reach the bottom I almost always have all green with no little white space at the top.

 

I think I had my car almost two months before I saw all green bars. That was coming down from Donner pass, regening at 70-80 mph for several miles. I have seen it a couple of time since. But one short of a full green box is normally as high as it goes.

 

Have seen it all greeen, it does not stay that way for long... try checking it when you see lots of little green cars on the yell ow consuption bars, especially after going down a long hill or doing lots of braking!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(stevejm @ Oct 21 2006, 02:49 PM) [snapback]336150[/snapback]</div>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maybe you haven't looked at the right time? Until then, maybe you could hang this on your dash?

 

Never once in a year and a half have I had a full green bar experience. Maybe one day, the dream will come true...ha ha

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(NCPriusGrl @ Oct 24 2006, 10:22 AM) [snapback]337303[/snapback]</div>

Me neither, in the 6 months & 20K KMs I have driven thus far. Although Toronto has it's share of hills & valleys, on the whole it is pretty flat. <_<

We'll see what happens this winter...