Traction Battery

[Pink]

Ok guys, tell me a bit about this old Traction Battery then, please ! 😀

This being my first Hybrid, I’m not quite sure what to expect as normal or not. I appreciate that the charge meter will rarely show all full bars, as you clearly want the Battery to be providing power either standalone or alongside the ICE.

What I’m less sure on is how the meter should normally look & behave in the early stages of a journey. This morning the meter was 3/4's full on start-up but discharged down to a couple of bars quite quickly after 10 mins or so in slow stop-start traffic when it was mainly on EV. Seemed a bit alarming, but maybe this is normal?  It did recharge again fairly quickly later in the journey as the pace picked up or it had some decent regenerative braking.

But it was quite mild this morning, so I’m wondering how it will cope in much colder winter conditions. I presume the ICE does more of the work, but could the Traction Battery ever discharge completely or does the ICE prevent it from reaching such a critical condition. And are there any indicators or warnings that it might not be in good health? I had an Bluetooth OBD dongle and App for my old car called Carly, which was useful for fault clearing, coding and generally monitoring. Do folk here use anything similar ? TIA

[darrude]

Nothing to worry about.  The car is setup to protect the Battery.  When the Battery is very cold you will find on very cold mornings (when it hasn't had time to warm up), even after the ICE/Cabin has warmed up, the hybrid system is basically a start / stop system and even a feather press on the throttle will fire the ice up.  The charge meter will fully charge, for me it is pretty much every journey near home, but I live in a very hilly region, I don't think this happens for most people (the Traction Battery actually runs the ICE to prevent overcharging from regen braking).

Its quite shocking how quickly the Battery can discharge / recharge itself.

Expect your MPG's to drop during cold weather, especially on shorter runs.  I stopped at BB near the office I worked last year, approx 2 mile journey, all flat on slow roads.  In summer I was getting average of 50-60Mpg, on really cold mornings I was getting mids 20's.  longer journeys seem to even out.

I think it would be a main dealer hybrid health check if your worried, be interesting to know exactly what the hybrid health check was, when I inquired, the response I got from the dealer made me ask the question 'so it's just a waste of money then' and the response wasn't them telling me no...  I don't bother with that on mine, probably just a good one to get done before selling the car.

 

[Pink]

Thanks Darrude, appreciate the reassuring comment in a subject I’m still learning about ! 

[byrnew2007]

Hi Gareth, i changed over to my first hybrid myself 3 months ago and i had the same concerns as you. the Battery level goes up and down like a yo yo . i thought it would last longer driving on electric mode but it seems to all balance out when u drive it and by breaking,  the Battery meter goes back up fairly quick and ur ready to use the Battery again. either way when it gets to 2 bars and of u are in traffic or driving in a 50k and the engine isn't on it will kick the engine in and recharge. i had the Battery health check done by the lexus dealer and the report stated all was good. if u get ur car serviced by lexus the hybrid health check is free and once they pass it u will get a year or 15,000km warranty on ur Battery . as the lads told me on this form don't worry about it just drive it and enjoy it the car knows what it is doing leave that to do the work it's designed to do and enjoy the comfort of ur new car  🙂

[Thackeray]

16 hours ago, Pink said:

Ok guys, tell me a bit about this old Traction battery then, please ! 😀

 

This being my first Hybrid, I’m not quite sure what to expect as normal or not. I appreciate that the charge meter will rarely show all full bars, as you clearly want the battery to be providing power either standalone or alongside the ICE.

 

What I’m less sure on is how the meter should normally look & behave in the early stages of a journey.

It's taken me quite a while to get to grips with what to expect from the Battery meter but this is what I've learnt so far.

First of all, the meter doesn't represent the actual capacity of the Battery. In fact, the Battery is never charged less than 40% (presumably one bar) or more than 80% (eight bars). The computer takes care of this and the capacity range is set to provide long life for the Battery. I've read on forums of Priuses that achieve 300,000 miles on the original Battery pack.

Second, my initial instinct was that I'd like to see the Battery looking close to full. After a while I realised that this is because I was looking at the Battery gauge like the petrol gauge, where fuller is better and close to empty is worrying. In fact, with the Battery meter, you need it generally to be around half full or less because if it's full you can't store any regenerated electricity. So the energy will effectively be thrown away as heat. 

Third, the Battery level when you park the car will depend on the area you've been driving in and the effect of that driving on the amount of electricity regeneration. Where I live, I almost always park with only two or three bars on the Battery meter. (I've never seen one bar). Initially, I found this a bit concerning.

But while on holiday this summer I was driving mostly in the country and when I parked the car there were usually around five or six bars on the meter. Same car, different environment and weather. In fact, this summer was the first and only time I've seen eight bars and that was at the end of a 2-3 km long downhill stretch. 

Fourth, the hybrid Battery doesn't have a huge capacity. It's much smaller than for example one of the recent hybrid Volvos - can't remember which model. I don't think the engineers really intended the car to do much electric-only driving; the Battery is just there to store regenerated electricity. Probably the EV mode was put in at the insistence of the marketing department - its use is generally quite limited.

[PaulWhitt20]

After a while you will stop being obsessed with the Battery level and just trust it to do its thing. It is a Lexus after all.

Enjoy the drive.

 

[Pink]

Paul, Thackeray ... thanks both.

Having spent the last 5 years on a beemer forum I get nervous if something isn’t wrong, or broken, or about to break on my car (or another members car); so I’m not used to such reliability and worry-free ownership !!

I must remember I own a Lexus

i must remember I own a Lexus

i must remember I own a Lexus 

...etc 😂

[Steve44]

If you can get more than about a mile or so on Battery or EV running you’re doing well. The Battery is large but not powerful.

if you want to extend EV running turn off the AC and fans and keep the heated seats on to keep warm, or windows down to cool down Leaving the climate control on, especially if it is cold, will push the engine to run to keep the air blowers hot.

Remember virtually all the systems in the car are powered from the traction Battery rather than the 12v Battery on a normal car.

Finally, it is fun to try and keep the Battery full on a long downhill or to run as far as possible just on EV, but ultimately as others have said, the car will do it’s own thing as it thinks it needs to and it is fine. Don’t sweat it, I think there has been only a couple of Battery failures ever on on a Lexus or Toyota and if it happens to you you will have been extremely unlucky and probably nothing you’ve done will have caused it.

Enjoy the silence and of creeping up on unsuspecting pedestrians in car parks!

[Britprius]

One of the things about hybrids that is not generally realised is that the system is designed to reduce emissions.

When the engine is started cold it's emissions are high so the Battery is used as the prime moving source of energy with a little assistance from the engine to help bring down emissions. Once the engine is warm the engine then becomes the prime mover unless this means high emissions such as when moving from a standstill when Battery power is used.

John. 

[ganzoom]

On 10/4/2018 at 12:12 PM, Pink said:

Having spent the last 5 years on a beemer forum I get nervous if something isn’t wrong, or broken, or about to break on my car (or another members car); so I’m not used to such reliability and worry-free ownership !!

Having owned a 335i in the past I can relate!!

You really have nothing to worry about on these cars. Just don't think of the car as an EV, more ultra efficent petrol. The hybrid system is there to backup the petrol engine rather than drive the car for any real distance.

Oh you can throw away any OBD fault readers, you simply don't need them!! I use carry a USB/OBD cable in glove box of my old BMW as it needed so often. The only maintenance on the IS I have to do is fill it up with petrol every few weeks :).