how to charge bat?

The battery is in the back curbside corner (assuming you drive in the right lane).

Which battery? The main power one or the small accessory one?

xx wrote:

ran down. where is the battery and how do i charge it? ASAP, please?

It is in the trunk, left side as you look inside. There are pull-type fasteners and the side panel comes off.

Charge with the lowest current charger available (this applies to all car batteries, IMHO). I like 2A chargers, but 4A is about as low as I've seen.

Sadly, completely discharging the battery (especially when they have a few years on them) often is the beginning of the end. You may want to carry a portable "jump-start" kit in the trunk - it isn't a bad idea anyway. The smallest one you can find is also adequate, since the battery has very little demand in starting.

Mike

The small accessory one.

Others have pointed out that it's a small battery in a compartment in the left side of the trunk. Very low capacity but also very low load.

I've hardwired a cigarette lighter plug to the battery. I can use the outlet to charge my cell phone or to jump the Prius battery. Just for grins, I bought an ISC brand solar battery charger and leave that plugged in most of the time. It sits behind the headrest in the back window.

Sometimes I get asked what the solar panel is for. It smile and tell them it is s triple hybrid. Gas, electric or solar.

:)

Look in your 2001 US Prius Owner's Manual, section 5 "In Case of an Emergency," in the "If your vehicle will not start" section, pages

166-169 (which includes pretty diagrams on how to jumpstart/boost your Prius). 12v battery is in the trunk, left side under some carpeting.

The Prius' 12v accessory battery (like every other car has) is used to power the accessories (lights, fans, radio, alarm, etc.) and the computers. Unlike other cars' accessory batteries, though, it is not used to start the car (so it is physically smaller and therefore easier to drain), but it does start the computers. The computers open a relay that hooks up the 200+V hybrid traction battery, and it is really the hybrid traction battery that starts the gasoline engine (using an electric motor).

Since your 12v is probably original (showing its age), and it was left in a degraded state for a while (unused for a long time, allowed to discharge and sat that way), the 12v battery is probably going to give you trouble in the future (won't hold its charge when sitting unused for long periods of time). Many people like carrying around a booster pack (usually with a tire inflator or emergency flare light built in) for this occurance, or to help another stranded motorist without damaging their own vehicle. But, you may have to buy a new 12v battery in the future...

Or avoid future annoyance and buy a new battery now, while you're already fiddling with it.

That's interesting. So, one could plug in a solar trickle down (IIRC) charger? I got one free from a VW dealer. I gather they plug them in when the cars are stuck in the lot for a really long time after the reach this country....

That's exactly what mine has. The car's accessory outlet (used to be called a cigarette lighter) is not active when the car is turned off, so plugging it in there does no good. Attaching a few wires with an accessory outlet to your battery terminals allows you to connect to it directly.

My car is 3 years old and the 12volt battery still tests out to be 100%

One can also google a few people selling kits for modifying one of the accessory outlets in this way.