I've noticed that my battery only charges to 6 out of the 8 bars and have never gotten it to go higher. Anyone else get their battery to fully charge?

Thanks.

 

Yeah, but only when going down long hills. I always get a full charge in the Ozarks near the top of Arkansas when traveling some of those long down hill stretches. Otherwise, I'm like you.

 

Had a Prius for 3 years, only saw a full charge once. As I recall, it tries to maintain a middle ground range that is most efficient over many charge/discharge cycles. The Prius Chat forum is a wealth of information if you're looking to learn more about the hybrid system operation and driving technique than ends up on this forum. More than you need to know, really.

 

When I bought my car I was told the battery charging indicator never shows full or empty charging. It is just how it is configured.

 

I've gotten it to charge up twice. Took a picture of the graphics to show this but I think it rolled off the iPhone. I also got it while going down a long hill.

 

From what I've read about hybrid batteries, the car computer does not fully charge the battery, nor depletes it completely, in order to optimize its useful life. Repeated full-charge and drainage will shorten its life (i.e. the battery, over time, will not be able to hold much charge, if at all).

 

Thanks everyone. I thought it was just a result of my driving, short trips under 15 mi. I had driven about 30-40 mi a couple of times but the battery did not charge past 6 bars either.

 

If the battery was kept fully charged all the time, then braking/coasting charging during that time would be wasted, since it couldn't charge the battery. 'Using up' some of the charge constantly while driving to keep it down a little gives the battery headroom to charge up again when you're coasting, braking, etc.

 

Dealership informed me this is how it is designed to work. Never indicates a full charge.

 

We are used to thinking in finite terms, fuel tank is empty, 1/2 full, nearly full etc. Even with the liquid fuel the gauges were only a general guide to the level inside. Now we are dealing with a bit more abstract measurement, that is "how excited are the molecules". jbm79 is correct, you do not want to "overfill" or its equivalant nor completely stop the chemical process "empty the tank".

 

Does anyone else have a problem with the battery completely dying after about 10 minutes of running? Was waiting in the drive thru lane and it went to gas engine because the battery was empty. Is the battery bad, should it be replaced? This is a 2013 with 22,200 miles.

 

That is exactly how it is designed. The battery is not bad and it has not died. I t only holds a limited charge. If you are sitting there with AC on idling (on the battery) it will only last about that long. Then the gas engine comes on recharges it etc.

In other words, the battery and gas engine recycle as required.

 

Were you using AC? In the ES300h, the AC compressor runs on high voltage directly from the hybrid battery, so it will deplete the hybrid battery very quickly when the engine isn't running. Trust the engineers though- this is still more efficient than running the engine solely for the air conditioner. Our engines are more efficient at higher-than-idle RPMs, so the car will deplete the battery using the AC, then run the engine at 1200-1400 RPM to bring it up a few bars and shut the engine off, then do it again.

There was an interesting chart on the prius which found that it was a more efficient generator (kwh per gallon) than most home/portable generators.

Full charge is possible, just not common in normal driving. I sometimes get all bars from going on a long downhill regen. The lowest I've ever gotten it I think is two bars, but now I'm thinking that maybe I've seen one bar before.