I live on a very steep hill. When I get home, I stop at the mailbox at the end of a long, steep driveway, and the hill assist is terrific to keep me from rolling backwards when I take my foot off the brake. Before the Prius, I've had years of practice perfecting an uphill start with a MANUAL transmission: takes a little fancy footwork, a "toe-heel" kind of thing with the right foot holding the brake and accelerator at the same time, while the left foot lets out the clutch. NO Thanks! This is MUCH nicer, especially now that I'm older, and.....lazy-er. ( is that a word?)
I have my car ABS Actuator fixed today, now the car stop too fast and the brake actions does not match the Energy Monitor activity plus the pedal it is harder to push. When the brake it is apply and the car stop fully it shows that the Electric Battery is supplying power to the electric motor, only when you push the pedal harder to the floor the supply of energy stop also after stopping and the car is let roll down hill by gravity there is no show of energy flowing either way. I even saw the slip light come on while breaking ( hard) to stop the battery from sending energy to the eletric motor according to the Energy Monitor indicator This brake solution need more work done
If you brake lightly and come to a stop, there is still energy flowing from the battery to the motor to the wheel. This is the automatic creep function that's built into the hybrid system to simulate a normal automatic vehicle. You are right in that you do have to press harder to stop this feature. It's normal. No energy flow is normal HOWEVER, it should quickly switch to regenerative braking (arrow from wheel to motor to battery) when you're going downhill. The moment where there are no arrows should be very short-lived. If you press the brake pedal all the way to the bottom past a little denté, that's the Hill-Start Assist that you activated. It will beep once and blink the Slip Indicator. When you lift your foot off the brake pedal, the car will hold the brakes for 0.8 seconds to give you time to move your foot over to the accelerator.
I have to say that I'm a bit worried that all these people who don't read their manuals and then complain that their traction control is going crazy to Toyota are going to convince Toyota to remove the feature entirely. I like Hill Start Assist just the way it is. I use it on several steep hills around my neighborhood. It lets me not feel like I need to quickly move my foot to the accelerator and mash it down hard to keep from rolling back. I would be really disappointed if Toyota removes the feature simply because they think people can't handle it. RTFM people!
+1 How many of these "problems" that are posted can be found simply in the manual? But perhaps a better option would be to disable these features by default, and require the owner to request activation via dealer or do some car dance to activate. This way, only those who read the manual will have it.
My slip indicator has shown itself twice upon startup. There was no blinking or chimes and it turned off as I back out of my garage.
The slip indicator will come on if the brake is pressed too hard while at stop. I have played with this a bit, and it seems mostly to be an indicator of having floored the break.
As Tom mentioned, you're activating the hill start assist. Read about it in your manual, it's described in there. It keeps the car from rolling backwards while stopped on a hill and you take your foot off the brake to give it gas.
LOL! Like some sort of secret key sequence to access super bonus extra feature!!! "Dude, I just leveled up and got more features!!!"
This happened to me twice today on the way to work. Roads are completely flat (city driving), and it is winter out...but no ice on the roads. Came to a complete stop at two separate red lights and had the slip indicator light flash at me. Wasn't sure what was going on...but then when I got to the parking lot at work, I pushed the brake pedal down farther, and sure enough...the light came on again. I've got a 2011 Prius w/ navigation. I looked in the manual (p. 254), and it says the Enhanced VSC/TRAC has been engaged. I just lightly tapped on the gas to get my car rolling again. Whew! I thought something was going haywire!
That's the hill-start assist that you engaged (not the TRAC/VSC). If you press the brake all the way down, past a little "click", the slip indicator will flash and is accompanied by a beep. When you release the pedal, you have a few seconds to move your feet to the accelerator before the car releases the brakes.