I've been driving a 2007 Prius for a short while, and I've been wondering about the charge status of the hybrid battery, as displayed on the info screen.
What is the typical charge level? My indicator never shows the hybrid battery as fully charged. The graph usually shows the battery down one or two increments from full; never ever are all bars displayed. Is this normal? I would expect the battery to at least occasionally show a 100% charge status, but it never has. BlueDog
40% to 80%. That's the range. You'll never see it fully charged, and you'll never see it fully discharged.
Even what you see on the graph is not fully charged nor discharged. The system will never let it get below a certain point, not let it get over charged. You only see what it will let it do. My Prius has had all of the bars full (all green) and was down to one purple bar once that I saw (although I don't use that screen much anymore).
What you see is quite normal. Tomes
The displayed charge on the battery (seen on the Energy Monitor) rarely ever reaches "full" or "empty" but prefers to stay at a happy medium. The display only shows you the useable area of charge on the hybrid battery, displayed "empty" is about 40% and displayed "full" is about 80%. Actual charge levels of a NHW20 Prius (like yours) can be seen at:
To quote from Toyota:
The only time I have ever seen the charge on my battery (I have a 2003 model), was during a long down hill run on a dirt road where I had to ride the break to keep my speed down. So under certain conditions the batteries can be brought up to a full charge.
When all the bars are filled, it's only an 80% charge.
Yep.
There's a difference between a displayed full charge, and the batteries actually being fully charged.
The number of bars on the battery icon on the Energy Monitor is different between the NHW11 Classic Prius and the current NHW20 Prius, and the displayed amount of charge is a little different, but they're both at around 40-80%. displayed "empty" on the screen is about 40% charge on the hybrid batteries, and displayed "full" is about 80% charge on the hybrid batteries.
The Prius doesn't like being at either extreme, either... If too low (1/4 to 1/2 displayed on the Classic, bottom 2 pink/red bars on the NHW20), the gasoline engine will keep coming on to add charge to the battery (or you'll slow down a bit when going up a long/tall mountain as some of the engine's energy is siphoned for the hybrid battery). If too high (over the +/- on the Classic or top 2 green bars on the NHW20), then the Prius will use the electric motor to spin the gasoline engine repeatedly to bleed off the excess energy (such as street driving after coming down a long mountain).
All true stuff, nice. I will just add that when it is spinning off the excess electricity, it is spinning the engine without it turned on and thus uses no gas for that, just like in B mode. This changes electric energy into heat energy and sends it out through the exhaust. Tomes
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