Highway vs City and battery life

"City" miles is harder to judge.

If it was driven normally (whether has a delivery or a personal vehicle) in the city, it will hold up fine. The issue arises if they're constantly draining the battery (e.g. some taxi drivers will leave the car idling - in a Prius, the engine stays off until the battery is down to 2 bars, then it will intermittently come on to top it up to 3 bars and the cycle repeats until the driver turns off the car or they take a fare and drive off). The same for anyone who sits in traffic and lets the battery drain (e.g. hot climate with the A/C constantly running).

Same for highway. A normal highway jaunt should be fine. If it was constantly going up and down hills/mountains such that the battery keeps getting topped up to 8 bars, then it may reduce battery life.

But you said "long highway commute" so assuming the normal city life vs. highway, I think the highway is better. Nothing wrong with the city one but there are more variables. (If it's a local car, then you can better evaluate it since you know what the traffic is like in your area).

If you're really concerned, you can always purchase one of these

Prolong Battery Systems. Extending the life of your hybrid. – Hybrid Automotive

I forget his member name but the seller is on PriusChat.

 

Thanks Bisco!

 

Toyota set the parameters such that the battery charge management keeps it at around 60% true SOC (that's represented by 6 bars in the MFD). The range of these the NiMH batteries is 40%-80% (0 bars to 8 bars in the MFD) Toyota has a buffer of 20% at the top for normal driving in case there's a lot of stop & going and you're braking a lot or there's a hill and the battery can take some of that braking work.

What I'm saying is that for someone like me who drives across the Rockies, (where there are lots of long downhill stretches), there's the possibility I shortened my battery life by constantly going between 60% and 80%. Now given that I'm driving on the highway in the mountains, that 80% comes back down to 60% pretty quickly in the next uphill as the hybrid system uses more battery propulsion to bring it back to 60%.

So it will stay at 60% as much as it can for longevity. Now you don't have to worry too much about it during normal operation. Don't fret about the changing battery SOC (unless it's changing rapidly under normal driving... then you may have bad battery).

That's one thing.

The other thing I mentioned (separate from the mountainous driving) is the constant idling or heavy use of A/C such that the battery is constantly near 45% (2 bars) but again it's rare unless the vehicle was a taxi or the last owner had a really bad commute through rush hour traffic in a hot environment.

Here's the range

^^ What he said