Archives

This morning I got into my car like any other morning, powered it up and the car immediately flew into idle. I wondered what was going on because I can usually get half way down the driveway before this happens. My SGII reported a Soc @ 32.5 %. :eek: WTH! So I drove it for the next few minutes getting it to charge as fast as possible. After about 5 miles I was up to 43% then it jumped up to 58% within a minute.

The fcd showed only 1 bar when i powered up the car.

Any idea what could have caused this? I usually park the car with around 55-60% Soc. So what could have dropped the power this much.

I know the car doesn't want to be below 40% for safety reasons so what is the likelihood that this could have damaged the battery?

I doubt you damaged it -- could it have remained powered up over night somehow?

I would be inclined to agree with Sean. The fact that the car was able to still start was a good sign. Is it at all possible that the car was left powered up in N? perhaps Hobbit will have some insight/experience with this situation.

sometimes i notice i park with 7 or 8 bars (before green) and then when I go to my car 8 hours later the battery meter is now at 5 to 6 bars. Sometimes when you use that ev mode for the last bit of your trip, I guess the battery doesn't get a chance to calibrate the new SoC before being power off. Is my guess

I don't think it was left on the entire night. If it had I would have noticed a problem when I got in. If it had been on I would have turned it off and then had to turn it on again. I didn't notice any additional power button presses. Granted this is so routine we don't even think about it but I'm positive I didn't push the power button but one time.

philmcneal, I rarely even use EV mode unless I'm showing off the prius ability in EV to a first time rider. I've found using it actually reduces my mileage over the course of the tank.

I'm thinking that it could have just been a glitch. For some reason it thought it was that low. Idled like mad trying to get the battery up after a few minutes of on time it reset or something and reported an accurate Soc.

Well my mystery may be partly solved.
I just went out to the car to add the inj xgauge and I was going to confirm that the car wasn't left on so I took a look at the sgII trip info. For today it reported 6.1 hours of on time!

So the car was left on. My question is now who was the last driver? My wife. I'm not even going to mention this incident because it would just lead to problems.

So way didn't the car's ICE turn on when the battery got low? If she had put it in nuetral which I doubt it would have rolled off since my driveway is sloped.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Well, I'm just glad it is back to normal for you!!

So your wife is the culprit? That's a discussion I wouldn't want to have!! :eek:

Sounds like she may have done a soft start. She may have pressed the start button without pressing the brake.


Well my mystery may be partly solved.
I just went out to the car to add the inj xgauge and I was going to confirm that the car wasn't left on so I took a look at the sgII trip info. For today it reported 6.1 hours of on time!

So the car was left on. My question is now who was the last driver? My wife. I'm not even going to mention this incident because it would just lead to problems.

So way didn't the car's ICE turn on when the battery got low? If she had put it in nuetral which I doubt it would have rolled off since my driveway is sloped.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Sounds like she may have done a soft start. She may have pressed the start button without pressing the brake.

That would have put in in ACC, which would have drained the tiny 12v battery.

Aether, glad you figured out what happened.

Sounds normal. If the car is in READY and Park, it lets the
SOC get down to two pink bars before lighting the ICE to push a
little charge back in, but only up to three blue bars. No, I don't
know why it doesn't keep up at the normal 60% in this state
either. If you power down later, it's still down that low and
is very likely to go "ohcrap, I need to charge NOW" on the next
startup.
.
I see this condition a lot when I'm out at shows and such and just
leave the whole system powered up all day to run the inverter
and whatever else. Getting on the road again after one of those
is kinda painful...
.
_H*

Freaky to think of the car running in the garage. That could be a whole lot of CO.

Sounds normal. If the car is in READY and Park, it lets the
SOC get down to two pink bars before lighting the ICE to push a
little charge back in, but only up to three blue bars. No, I don't
know why it doesn't keep up at the normal 60% in this state
either. If you power down later, it's still down that low and
is very likely to go "ohcrap, I need to charge NOW" on the next
startup.
.
I see this condition a lot when I'm out at shows and such and just
leave the whole system powered up all day to run the inverter
and whatever else. Getting on the road again after one of those
is kinda painful...
.
_H*

Well it was down to 1 pink bar and the SGII Soc said ~30something %.

Well it was down to 1 pink bar and the SGII Soc said ~30something %.

We have a thing here called holiday of lights, which is the city park filled full of holiday lights. I made the unfortunate mistake of going on opening night, I figured it would be a quick roll through with nothing but light EV. Well everyone in the world showed up which meant it took about 1 1/2 hours to get throught this .5 mile course or so. During this time I kept heat, headlights, and radio off the only draw on the HV was the HSD system. I watched teh car go from 5 bars to 4 bars to 3 bars to 2 bars and still no ICE firing up as long as I was sitting still. The HV had to get down to 1 bar before the ICE would fire up to charge the HV, at this point the car was idling and charging at 35 amps or so. All the HSD seemed to want to do was maintain the 1 bar SOC, I glanced at SOC on the SGII and it read something in the mid 30% range. Which if I'm reading correctly is the samething you noticed. I wanted to post this and inform you that you are not the only one who has seen this. Once I got through the city park I pulled over and force charged at 35 amps to 5 bars then drove away. The reason for my force charging is that the majority of the ICE power was going to charging anyway.

Take care,
Josh

interesting Josh,
Seems normal I guess. I was starting to think something was wrong.

interesting Josh,
Seems normal I guess. I was starting to think something was wrong.

I was starting to get worried when it hit 2 bars and no ICE. I was relieved to see the ICE come on when it hit 1 bar. So I guess this is normally and nothing to worry about. :Banane29: