Experience in HEAVY traffic

If the Traction Battery is fully charged, then B mode would spin the ICE, or physical brakes would engage more.

In a real overcharge situation, people have even reported the Traction Battery spinning the ICE even in D mode just to bleed off some electricity, for example at the bottom of a long hill.

But, we're talking here about heavy stop and go traffic, where the concern is LOW Traction Battery charge. IE, you've used up the available charge in EV mode in stop and go traffic, and the ICE is forced to cut in to recharge it. Overcharge isn't going to be the issue

Anything you can do to save Electricity (dead-band coasting or neutral depending on your preference), or increase regeneration (possibly low speed B mode braking according to the Japanese drivers who have studied it), will prolong the time you can spend with the ICE off.

 

A related question for you all -- can anyone "dead-band coast" below 8 mph? I don't mean continue to coast when you started at a higher speed, I mean in the situation where you are stopped at the beginning get up to top speed of, say, 6 mph, then coast to a stop. I wasn't able to, that is part of why I was coasting in neutral back down from 5 to 0 mph.

Thanks,
Marina

 

Uhh, so once the traction battery is fully charged, where would the regeneration braking energy go? Is there a resistor bank somewhere?

no it is sent to plug the drive motor to slow it down.

 

I use B to put some charge in the HV battery when I'm in heavy traffic and almost home and the HV battery is down to 2 bars or 3 I'll do the last 2-3 blocks in B and get the HV up to 4 bars for the next day so I can get into stealth quicker as it isn't trying to get he HV up to 5 bars.

 

dead band always drops out for me about 12-13 km's per hour. So about 8 would be the limit as far as I've been able to determine