Mostly, it does. This is the first one I've heard of that didn't become balky and light the warning lights before quitting altogether. OTOH, most of the on-road failures I've experienced with other cars over the years were without warning. Clutches and sometimes automatic transmissions give warning in the way they operate, but pretty much every other failure I've had on the road was a surprise. Such is life.
Mike
The great thing about the Toyota's hybrid transmission is its simplicity. However, it does mean that the ICE has no low end torque to the wheels, as it counts on the electric motors to perform that function. I cannot see any way that Toyota could provide backup for this kind of failure without turning their beautiful, simple, reliable transmission into a complete kludge. Therefore, I doubt they will ever consider trying to engineer a fix for this.
Paul
Will they bury the victims in a hybrid coffin?
I am not looking for Toyota to solve the problem with car not able to function when the main battery dies. I would just like some warning that the main battery is about to die.
Awfully dramatic. In 35 years of driving I've experienced sudden shutdown many hundreds of times and never panicked over it. Virtually every car made can be expected to die unexpectedly at some time, and main battery failure is so rare as to not be worth worrying about. The Nissan I traded in for my wife's Prius died several times a day for two months - sometimes only for a second, sometimes for half an hour - before I was able to track down the bad connection responsible. If stalling were all that serious there would be ambulances sent out as a precaution when a tow truck was dispatched.
Mike
That's called SEDS (Sudden Engine Death Syndrome) something I experienced with my Dodge Rampage. To make a long story short, a mouse was run over by the timing belt causing it to skip to the next series of teeth. To compensate, an unenlightened technician compensated by rotating the distributor to a point that banjo-strung the wire coming from the coil. Eventually the conductor broke but the spaghetti was left intact so the wire looked perfect. When I would accelerate, the distributor would rotate to advance the spark, separating the broken conductor resulting in immediate shut-down, usually in the middle of an intersection. The spaghetti would pull the conductor together again and the car would start and run flawlessly.
Three dealerships were unable to find the cause. Frustrated by unrelenting SEDS I got out my trusty snow scraper and started poking until I found the broken wire.
An unexpected shut-down in traffic sometimes presents a dangerous situation. Since every battery eventually fails, and since coincident ICE/Battery failure is unlikely, I would find a work-around an interesting engineering challenge. But then, I'm an engineer.
The Prius actually has 2 different batteries.
The NiMH hybrid traction battery pack is covered in the US under the hybrid system warranty for 8 years/100,000 miles. (Similar in other countries as well.) IF you have a 2004-current AT-PZEV Prius in a California emissions state (which states follow the CA emissions vary by model year), the hybrid battery is further covered under the CA emissions warranty out to 10 years/150,000 miles.
The Pb-A 12v accessory battery is another matter altogether. You might be able to get it covered under the basic new vehicle warranty of 3 years/36,000 miles, but some dealers may (rightly so) consider it a consumable item and not cover it. (Too easy for owner-caused problems, like leaving the headlights on overnight to drain the 12v battery, for example.)
How does one do that? I'm thinking it's possible but difficult unless one sleeps in their car.
My husband actually did this on my US 2001... Turn off car, open door, turn on headlight switch. (since the door is already open, the auto-off doesn't trigger, but he didn't realize this at the time, though he was doing me a favor and returning my car the way he found it... thankfully a neighbor alerted him within the hour that the lights were on, and he corrected the problem before (barely) I needed a jumpstart...) Non-North American models do not have the auto-off headlight feature, either...
But the much more common method is to leave a map/courtesy light on overnight, or to accidentially leave a door open which leaves the dome light on overnight (usually the rear hatch/rear dome light on the NHW20).
Murphy's law strikes again!
To further describe it.
This is how "neutral" works. Since the gears in the tranny/diffy are always engaged, neutral is achieved by disconneting all power from both electric motors. This is why the batteries will not charge in neutral
- no power goes in or out of the MGs. In neutral, the ICE spins but delivers no torque to the wheels as MG1 freewheels backward. Losing the HV battery system will create the same condition - like putting the selector in "N".
On the other hand, if you run out of gas, or the ICE otherwise fails, you can "limp" around for a short time on MG2 until the batteries die.
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