How long after traction battery failure?

Relattively new to Prius.
Driving used.
With coming holidays and travel, I am torn between cancelling the trip or taking that chance.
Just two days ago I got exiting news through festive illumination of the whole dash board and joyful beeping (or was it bl**eeping? I don't recall).
After getting home and exchanging for a dry pair of pants, ScanGauge revealed code P3023 (BATTERY BLOCK 13 BECOMES WEAK)
I am aware of cheap(-ish) battery replacement and actually prefer to do $3K Lithium one, but next two weeks we were planning to be 1000 ml away, not search for a "guy" and have Prius in-accessible...

THE QUESTION:
(and I pray for your holiday giving spirit
How long does it take to actually stop dead after the first occurrence? (provided it is only ONE block)

Cleared the codes, revving up engine behaved since, intense blowing in the rear (battery ventilation) gone.
Happened again on the highway, checked in motion: same code. Cleared in route and continued.
After the first incident acceleration was hard. But with cleared codes all became normal. With an adjustment of even gentler driving.
Drove two days without error codes.

 

Thanks
Why?
Is the battery heating much when degrading?
BTW, does that fan works harder because of error code (as general adjustment preset in computer) or does it respond to some kind of a temperature sensor?..

 

Taking approach: if it goes to hell - I might as well have some fun with it.
Purpose of this thread was: if it happened just before a planned 2 weeks trip, how long could we prolong the agony (and may be amend this with tricks in driving/usage)

Cancelled trip. But pursuing the original (imaginary now) scenario: extending it's life just a bit longer.

I've seen the battery inside: it is essentially a million standard size AA batteries soldered together. With those, when they loose capacity, I use refresh charger: couple of charge-discharge cycles until capacity stops improving with each cycle. To replicate on Prius: drive slow, back roads, no highways. Watching energy display: as soon as engine kicks in take my foot off accelerator. Could keep battery around 2 bars, tried hard to get to one bar without success. Speeds gradually declined to ~10 ml/hr, even if leveled surface, accelerate and then try to keep the speed - engine kicks in. Only was able to use battery to decrease the slow down, not keep up with the speed (talking about 45-40-35 even 20 ml/h, initially though kept fine if under ~35 ml/h, but that's with 3-4-5 bars on battery). Did that for an hour, driving slower, than I would be otherwise, but where I would be driving anyway. So, lost only time, ~half hour so far. Mileage was surprisingly high: 72 overall (understandable with slow speeds), despite current mpg when engine works consistently ~20-30 mpg and frequently as low as 8 mpg for when accelerating (slo-o-o-owly, mind you)

Later occurred to me that I can just park it and leave it on: when I was stopped on a hot day with AC on it depleted battery to 1 bar and then started the engine to recharge. Now, if I leave it without anything on it will deplete even slower, which is the best way to refresh: slowly fully discharge, then fully charge. It is in my back yard doing that right now. I already heard it start, checked - forgot the headlights on. Now turned them of, waiting on results. Checked display though: it doesn't let the battery to go beyond 2 bars - starts the engine to recharge at 2 bars.

P.S. I know is supposed to be done individually with each cell;
I am going to replace with $3k lithium pack the whole battery;
but those are the subjects for another thread: I am just trying to extend a dying battery on the cheap, on the go and without skills

 

Is there ACTUAL experience someone had with codes showing up and eventually being un-able to drive?
I am looking for those practical ##, like you know: when fill up light is up, but you can go 60-100 ml more..

 

OK, I actually was looking at a lithium one, but it is in principal what the original Toyota's battery is, isn't it?

 

Codes appeared:
1) highway, aggressive driving (was late), flat surface, evening time, Florida, T ~65F , end of 25 ml trip, 1,5 people in, no load, cabin fan was on, no AC. Revving engine, even on neutral, battery fan on all the time, climate control and cruise control were disabled (I thought at first that fan was going crazy for climate control)
2) highway, gentle driving, but up to ~70 mph, no load, no AC, T ~75F. Code cleared in route, reappeared in 3 minutes - repeated flash. No incidents since (2 days), mixed driving. Even tried provoking by accelerating aggressively.

Code was 3023

 

Drove routinely (meaning: after discharging-recharging while parked for hours)
Felt like it has more perk now in battery only mode... When charged to ~6 bars that is.
May be subjective, but I wasn't expecting that at all

 

meanwhile checked around for exchange:
1) lithium >$3K, 250K warranty, install and test for a week
2) made out of 3Gen cells battery (for 2Gen) with 2 years warranty in a day $2500
3) new battery for $2300 (unclear: they ship, have local installers) 3 y. w.
4) (same as above place) refurbished $1400 18 mth warranty
5) local "guy" $800 with his warranty...

 

I thought I reported the results...
Well, three years later: that time I made it through several days, gentle driving at first, mixed later and even tried aggressive for a while as a test. All in all after several clearing of the error codes in one (or was it two?) trips, had no problem whatsoever...
In the end decided to change the main battery anyway because of an upcoming LONG trip.
Made total >150 ml, driving from mild to outright aggressive (basically TRYING to kill the battery in the end).
I did though put the car in my back yard, "ON" and left it for a day. This was to let it nicely discharge-charge, coming from experience of refreshing regular utility batteries. Do not pretend to understand the theory of that, but I had no problems after that...

P.S. replacement lasted >3 years:
Has anyone ever used hybridbatteryexperts | Page 3 | PriusChat

P.P.S. Lithium were here li-on.us, but these are "experimental"