Prius (Gen 2) :: Battery Only Charging Downhill And Braking
Sep 19, 2014
Right now my husband and I are driving from San Luis Obispo Ca to LA and back in a day. We noticed right before the grape vine on the I5 that the engine was really working, even on flat ground. Looked at the battery and it was purple. We have been driving for about 2 hours averaging about 70mph on mostly flat land. The battery finally charged itself on the big downhill of the grapevine (I5) but we're noticing we're running right through it again unless we start to break more. So, it's not getting any recharge during driving, just breaking. Can it be the generator? What causes this?
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Curiosity question. I've noticed that on a downhill of a couple miles, especially in "braking" mode or with the cruise control on, the motor/generator and engine are used to keep the speed down and the battery gets charged to the very top quite quickly. That's good!
On a really long downhill, will the motor/generator still be used for braking and the excess electricity discarded to keep from overcharging the battery?
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I've been mostly content with my Prius Plug-in for nearly a year now. But, as a driver very consciously aware of what my car is doing, I have many complaints concerning the internal combustion engine igniting when not needed, or remaining on for far too long. I do my best to work around them, but I feel the need to enumerate my complaints and vent about them. Note I live in southern California where cold weather is extremely rare, and I consciously don't use the heater or AC.
ICE ignites when braking downhill on a full charge. I've heard users say this is necessary because if the battery is full, regenerative braking will overcharge the battery.
ICE ignites if I step on the accelerator ever so slightly too hard. I understand that Toyota claims it needs to use ICE to deliver the extra power to the wheels asked for by the driver, but I just don't believe that. The engine usually simply idles and does not power the wheels at all when this happens, meanwhile the wheels are still running on 100% EV power. I know this because I've become in tune to exactly when the ICE powers the wheels and when it's not. The easiest sign of ICE actually powering wheels is when the accelerator begins to vibrate and I hear the ICE rev up. The second sign is by watching the MPG meter. If you're cruising at something like 50 MPH, and the ICE is idling, you'll see it getting about 80-90 MPG. When it actually supplies useful power, it suddenly drops down to 50 or below.
ICE ignites if the car moves faster than 65 MPH. This seems totally arbitrary to me. For example, it does not matter if you're accelerating steep downhill in neutral, or on a level highway just very slowly accelerating past 65. You can watch the power meter the whole time, and even if it doesn't get anywhere near the (power) section to the far right, the ICE still ignites as soon as you hit 66. In those situations, why does it even think it needs any extra power? And to top it all off, all it really does is idle for at least a minute anyway.
The ICE runs only momentarily, but here's the kicker: If you immediately let go of the accelerator, decelerate to below 65 MPH, or even come to a full stop at a red light, the ICE still continues to run for at least a minute or two. Worse still, it idles for about a minute regardless of speed or power, then suddenly decides that it should power the wheels for a few seconds even if no variables have changed, and it does this for about 30 seconds more before finally deciding to suddenly pop back into pure EV mode. How you work around all of this? Stop at a red light, shut off the car, and restart it. As it powers on, it stays in EV mode, proving to you that it never needed to be sitting there idling in the first place.
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So our car has performed flawlessly since 2005/135K miles. Still getting 55 mpg in the display in the summer, 45 mpg in the winter. Only issue is traction battery SOC quickly goes to full green when coasting downhill, and 1 or 2 purple bars when climbing. In Colorado, this happens a lot. Within a mile or so coasting downhill the SOC is full green. Question is: should I replace the traction battery? Is there any harm to continuing to experience this behavior? When full green, I realize I am using friction braking over regen braking, have actually felt the crossover from regen to the pads, as the SOC goes full green.
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I just got a 2004, it did have a bad 12V battery which I did replace, still not charging.But First it is making a loud noise under the hood sounds like towards the right side.when I accelerate starts at 18 to 20 miles per hour. Tried sitting still with car in gear and pushing accelerator can not get it to make the noise that way, without the wheels rotating.
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I don't own a Prius, but my parents own two identical 2002 models (each with 120k miles).
My mother's car wasn't driven for nearly a month (hip replacement), and when they tried to start it last week, the ready light would blink 3 times - but no cranking.
After taking it to the dealer, they were quoted $4600 to replace the traction battery and ECU. We did the mandatory research on rebuilt batteries, but with only a vague diagnosis from the dealer, we were not convinced that this was the (only) problem.
So, my brother and I decided to swap the ECU, then the battery from my father's working Prius to my mother's - thereby proving the issue. Upon removing the 'dead' battery from mother's car, I decided to open the module, and check each battery. We measured anywhere from 3.0 to 6.4V on the individual cells - and 7.0V to 11V on the paired cells. It was clear that the batteries had discharged unevenly. The total charge remaining was about 151V - still above the 40% SOC minimum I'd read about.
We then bought 5 x 10A chargers from Walmart, and connected each to a pair of modules. Set the charge to rapid (10A) and waited 30 minutes (or until the charger indicated full). After 2 hours, all 19 pair were charged fully - with each reporting 15.7V +/- 0.5V. The total power was about 295V.
We reassembled the battery, re-installed it, and the car started immediately. We let it sit running, until it cycled off on its own. About 5 min later, the ICE fired again to charge the 12V battery - but it threw a P3006 error code. It showed a PS + MAIN + battery icon on the MFD. Using an OBDII scan tool, we cleared the error, and drove the car for a few miles. The error code did not return during that drive - but did one more time after letting it cycle off/on automatically. After clearing the code a second time, it never repeated again.
My assumption is that the 300V HV charge was above the 80% SOC and it didn't like that. But after a few cranking cycles, and the tendency for the battery to discharge back to it's rated output, the error no longer repeated.
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Is there anyway to charge a couple of batt cells by running the car.
Just replaced 2 packs and there voltage is 2-3 volts lower than the rest of the batt packs? the ones replaced are at 14.5 to 15 where the others are at 17-18 volts.
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Have a 2009 with 25K on it, purchased in April when they were practically giving them away. Recently did an oil change and got snow tires, then left my husband in car with heat on for 20+ minutes, and now mileage is in the 30's and the battery isn't charging itself or regenerating. What could be going on?
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I have got Prius 2004. I have got a problem. With MFD. It's showing the screen where it should show that the battery is charging but it's not showing the charging at all. Car is running fine and starts as normal. I have changed the 12V battery but it's still not showing the charging.
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Recently we went on trip requiring a 3 hour ferry ride. Decided to keep it in READY to listen to the stereo and maintain a minimal level of heat. I noticed the engine kicking on and no arrows from or to anywhere. The HV battery gauge was mostly down to 2-3 bars but still no arrows. There were times that it kicked on and the arrows showed the batteries being charged too. Was the engine kicking on without charging just to maintain the engine coolant temp to provide heat for the cabin, or what?
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Meant to post this for a while but on both the Prii C's I have owned, I mostly only see the arrow on the HSI going towards the battery and not the other way to assist the engine. My wife watched it while I drove the last 2 days and it never went to the engine except when driving in EV.
On my regular size Prius I had, I saw it going to the engine way more than the C,
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I was wondering how I would charge my gen 1 battery cells and balance them with my IMAX b6 lipro battery charger. Every time I try to charge it or hook it up the thing keeps saying "input vol error". Now I don't know if that means I need a different ac adapter since I'm now using a 19.5 v laptop charger and most of the time they use a 12v ac adapter.
Most of the cells have a reading under 6v but we have 38 new cells coming in today. How we can balance them with this charger because I know it has a balance charge setting for the lithium batteries. That has a separate plug though. Should we just put the cells closest to their voltages and have them balanced that way?
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My 01 Prius is not charging the 12V battery and I have error code P3001. Everyone on here said P3001 is the HV battery ECU. (which I replaced with one from the Junk Yard and still get the error code)
I charged the 12V battery over night and Autozone says that its ok. They tested it with a little machine. The only other thing I can think of is that the Inverter DC-DC converter part is bad. How I can test that? (is there a way other than replace the inverter?)
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My dad's Gen III has been sitting garaged for almost a year now, and of course the 12 volt battery is dead. Firstly, it's sitting in a one car garage, and secondly I have a Gen II so a straight jump isn't possible. I have a trickle charger that should be able to bring the 12 volt back up in 15-19 hours, but here's my question:
Maybe I'm being lazy, but I'd rather not deal with climbing in the back to release the hatch and running an extension cord so I can get the charger close enough to hook straight up to the battery..
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I have an 05 prius with 108k miles that I bought about 3 months ago. I had noticed some times during phase 1 warm up where prius is in park and ice is charging the battery there will be mildly violent jerking of the car.
I was messing around the other morning, after driving the car about 30 minutes then letting it sit for about an hour in 40 degree f weather. I readied the car and it started charging the battery. While still in park i pressed the gas pedal to see what would happen. The mfd showed no arrows which I assume is normal. But when I let off the gas pedal there was a abrupt jerking as the mfd showed power flowing from the ice to the battery again.
Experienced jerkiness while in phase 1? After phase 1 is complete I do not notice any more of this behavior.
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First a little background on the car , it has 217,000 miles. The battery was just replaced with a used one. While taking it through the carwash, she put it in neutral and a minute or two later she got a warning that the battery was not charging and to put it in gear. Sounds like the battery is having issues to me. She has a 60-day warranty.
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I just bought a 2012 Prius c. There are oftentimes when I don't drive my car for a few days. When this happens, I have heard that the car might not start, especially in the winter. Is this true?
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2010 gen III bought Aug 2009.
Would it be possible to disable HV battery charging or regeneration (with torque pro regen coop)? This way I could use battery and ICE power when going up a long mountainous area, and end up with 30% charge at the top instead of 60%. Then on the way down I could use regen to build back up the battery.
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My wife plugged in to the EV charging station at work for the first time today. She was supposed to receive an email when the charge finished but wasn't notified because there was a still a trickle charge being registered by the EV station even though the battery was full.
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195k miles.... I have charged the battery, I have bought a new battery, I have Charged the new battery... All with no avail.. Slowly but surely one at a time the abs trac control and stability control lights come on and eventually the triangle of death... Meaning when I shut it off its not going to restart.. If i drive it sparingly it might take a week if i drive it all day then it takes one day... when fully charged there is no warning or sign that there is a battery issue or draining untill the voltage is starting to get low. I have an ultra gauge hooked up and shows 14.14 while driving, I am lost as to whats the issue. also no codes or pending codes... I have taken the new battery to auto zone and had a functional test done.. said checked good... signed befuddled
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The MFD on my 2005 prius shows that every time the gas engine kicks in, it trys to charge the batt. even when it doesn't need to be charged. This has been happening for about 2 weeks, and not one time has the gas engine kicked in without showing the arrow going to the electric motor, even when the batt is completely full. I know it's not just a problem with the MFD because my MPG average has clearly gone down since this started.
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