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Is there any way to "plug the car" and charge the hybrid battery

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by sebapisa, Mar 2, 2007.

  1. sebapisa

    sebapisa Junior Member

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    It seems like the battery level stays between 1/2 full to 3/4 full all the time, always in the blue. I've only seen the green bars in a long downhill.
    Is there any way to force a full charge to the battery? Plug it to an outlet? Maybe I should have asked the dealer to fully charge it before I drove away.
    Will my gas mileage improve with a fully charged battery?
    Thanks for the information.
     
    #1 sebapisa, Mar 2, 2007
  2. ohgreys

    ohgreys New Member

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    I'm not sure about a plug-in mod but you should know that the blue 1/4-3/4 full battery is A-ok and operating as it should be. As far as I know there is no MPG advantage to having a full battery.
     
    #2 ohgreys, Mar 2, 2007
  3. efusco

    efusco Moderator Emeritus
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    the battery is kept as close to 60% SOC as possible while still taking advantage of the battery to provide or store power as needed. This is what allows the battery to last the life of the car.

    There is no practial way to plug it in without adding extra batteries and charging those off the grid. There's also little advantage to doing so as the capacity is so small. Doing so would decrease the life of the battery.
     
    #3 efusco, Mar 2, 2007
  4. D0li0

    D0li0 New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ByWire @ Mar 2 2007, 02:42 PM) [snapback]399256[/snapback]</div>
    What you are experiencing is perfectly normal for the stock Prius, the battery is simply an energy buffer in the current generation of 100% gas fueled Hybrids. It is not intended to ever be fully charged nor discharged and the 8 bar scale you see on the screen actually represents a range from 40% to 80% of it's true SOC. If you're really interested in plugging in you might check our our Prius PHEV pages at http://www.eaa-phev.org/wiki/Prius_PHEV. There are significant advantages to being able to plug in a Hybrid with additional battery capacity installed. On short trips of less than 10 miles I don't need to use any gas and on longer freeway trips I can get nearly 100mpg with normal driving techniques. Granted at the moment this type of conversion is primarily for the enthusiast as a demonstration of the potential and won't really be economically sound until the manufacturers start to offer mass production vehicles with advanced Lithium batteries. So write your favorite influential people and ask them to push for Plug-in Hybrids...
     
    #4 D0li0, Mar 2, 2007
  5. statultra

    statultra uber-Senior Member

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    putting the vehicle in drive and firmly pressing the brakes and gas pedal ( full throttle ) will force chargethe battery, this reduces gas mileage,
     
    #5 statultra, Mar 4, 2007
  6. dipper

    dipper Senior Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(statultra @ Mar 3 2007, 10:19 PM) [snapback]399804[/snapback]</div>

    Or better yet, push the Prius over the top of a hill.... no gas wasted and battery is recharged. :lol:
     
    #6 dipper, Mar 4, 2007
  7. hobbit

    hobbit Senior Member

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    Just for fun last summer, I combined a little experiment with an
    "MPG challenge" as part of a local alt-fuel/energy fair. Per my own
    advice in http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/prius-rally-hints.txt
    I force-charged before coming up to the line to reset, and thus had
    that extra 300 Wh or so available. Did my loop, came back showing
    94.something MPG [less than my run at Hybridfest, grr] with a
    fairly low SOC because I tried to use up the rest of it at the end.
    .
    Then, I sat there and force-charged back up to green, and wound up
    with the MFD showing *83* something MPG instead. So for a short
    run [20 miles or so], when you're riding so many other delicate
    conditions for as long as you can, I guess it matters. But it's
    still not enough energy to be worth pulling out of the wall with
    the stock battery capacity.
    .
    _H*
     
    #7 hobbit, Mar 4, 2007
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