green v blue battery

nice graphic thanx

 

I picked up our car on Wednesday, and I have as of yet to see the battery charge indicator move above the 68.57% level according to the graphic. This is after I drove it back home from the dealer for two hours, and around town about 100 miles since then. It has shown pink on several occasions (and charged appropriately), but it has never shown green. Should I be concerned that there is something wrong with my vehicle's HV battery?

 

I pretty much show 5 or 6 bars (blue) most of the time. I saw 2 pink bars when I first got car when I sat in the car in the driveway with the A/C on, fiddling with all of the voice controls and the kids in the back seat watching DVDs. I've only seen 7 bars (green) when coasting down this big ol' hill coming down I-20 into Atlanta. I've never seen all 8 bars. Sounds like you are OK. Go find a really big hill and coast down it to see green, you'll feel better....

Oh, and congrats on the new car! I remember you saying a month ago that you were expecting soon... Details?

 

[font=Comic Sans MS:4bd2fa701a]I have about a half-mile hill I come down to my house, at 25 MPH speed limit, so I'm braking all the way, and I frequently have an all green battery when I pull into my carport. Coming down some mountains, the battery got green soon, and even with B mode the car was dumping charge. To dump charge, the car spins up the ICE, runs it for a few seconds, withdraws gas and spark, then does it again. Quite startling the first time to have the car cycling the ICE quickly with a full battery.

Our smart cars will protect themselves if they can, avoiding both overcharge and undercharge.

Congratulations on your new smart car![/font:4bd2fa701a]arty:

 

Thanks for replying Bill and bigdaddy. We have only had the car for one week, and I suppose that we are being hyper-observant to "discover" something wrong.

We purchased a silver 2005 with grey interior and option package #6 from a dealership in Nashville, TN. The paperwork was straight forward, and he took quite a bit of time going over all of the features of the vehicle with me during delivery. We even spent about 30 minutes reviewing all of the printed documentation! Except for the rain on the drive home, it was a pleasant experience overall.

 

[font=Comic Sans MS:ac8827c866]Congratulations on the new Prius, jandmayra. artytime:

Your new car is very smart, so all you have to do is drive it and enjoy! Have fun. Ask any other questions you have right here on PriusChat, we're a friendly bunch, for the most part. The Search feature at the top of the page is great for finding answers to questions, too.[/font:ac8827c866]

 

My 2005 Prius almost always shows green battery bars. When it does go blue, it doesn't stay there too long, because invariably when I am coasting or regenerative braking, it charges it back up to green. In fact, I had been worried that it shouldn't be green so frequently...

 

White Planes New York as I recall it can get a bit cold around there. You will see more green in cold weather as the car runs more to heat it's self and you! More charging goes on. One of the reasons for the EV switch. When I get into the green and am in an area with a low enough speed limit I flip it on and "bleed" off a little of the charge. Not too much or the engine will get cold again. Works better as a strategy if you can monitor ICE temps.

 

Just out of curiousity, do the 2006's have pink bars on the battery indicator? My indicator has always either been at 6 or 7 blue bars or 7 or 8 green bars, never anything else. I've only had the car for ~2 weeks now though, so it may of course be that I just haven't driven it enough to see all the indicator levels possible. :huh:

 

Yes, they do. Just sit parked in the car for a while with the A/C going, like I did the other day. Of course, depending upon where you live, you may have to wait a few months to try that one out. In South Florida, we're already back into A/C weather.

 

Hmm...I've sat in the car with A/C going for an hour twice thus far and the indicator never dropped below 6 blue bars. ICE never turned on during that time either, which I thought was odd. I had the e-brake set just in case. Temps were in the high 70's/low 80's last Tues/Weds and I had just had the windows tinted and could not roll them down during my lunch hour, so I caved and turned the A/C on during that time instead. How long would I have to sit parked for it to take effect on the battery indicator??

 

I had the same question regarding the bars. Thanks for the responses.

 

I have NEVER seen pink. I would love to see it at least once. anyone know how I can make the battery go to pink? I see green some of the time.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(cary1952 @ Apr 11 2006, 10:49 PM) [snapback]238373[/snapback]</div>

I've had it go pink once (and only once). I was already in a relatively low state of charge; maybe 3 bars. There's a difficult merge onto the freeway around here, so I had to really punch the accelerator. It momentarily went down to pink as it dumped all the power it could (battery + ICE) into accelerating the car. It was only like that for ~30 seconds and I've never seen that again.

Tideland's way is probably easier and more straightforward.

 

I finally saw the pink (or rather, purple) bars. Was on a trip up to the mountains and was going up an 8-mile 6% grade and slightly less steep additional uphill grade for another 15 miles, and the battery finally went down to 2 then 1 purple bar. But I didn't notice any real decrease in power as we made our ascent. In fact, I was passing SUV's while going uphill, at about 55-60mph (speed limit 65).

On the way home, while coasting down the same grade (didn't need to use the accelerator for a good 10 mile segment but did use B to keep speed in control) saw the battery for the first time ever go to totally full green bars for a good 15-20 minutes.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rancid13 @ Apr 14 2006, 01:57 PM) [snapback]239852[/snapback]</div>

I had a similar experience a couple of days ago. I was driving up to the mountains and really pushing the car to see how it behaved. (It did great! ) It is a climb from about 400 ft to about 5000 feet in about an hour. When I got to my destination, I had two dark purple bars. Kinda scared me a bit, since I hadn't seen that color nor only two bars before. Like Jennifer, it recharged quickly going downhill.

I wonder what would happen if I had to continue going uphill another 30 or 60 minutes? Would the car cut the battery output to protect itself, resulting in drastic loss of power?

I also wonder if Toyota has changed the color of the last two bars from pink to purple, since Evan's car is not an '06 (if I recall correctly) But Jennifer's and mine are?