2009 GS450h hybrid battery reliability?

[Mossypossy]

Battery can be fully charged in a few miles, yes.

Don't expect good mpg for a 3 mile commute though.

[The Lexus Enthusiast]

38 minutes ago, cruisermark said:

I think if performance matters to you then you need the GS450H

Its a smaller car with less floaty feel than the LS and the 3.5 litre engine combined with the assist from the hybrid motors coupled with the CVT gearbox gives a linear acceleration experience like no other car in this sort of price bracket.

The LS range promotes a relaxed and sedate driving style

Hope this helps.

Yeah that's what I'm thinking also. The GS does seem very impressive. Not an easy choice though. LS has a sunroof ha ha😂 but you're quite right the GS is prob the better option overall.

[The Lexus Enthusiast]

22 minutes ago, Mossypossy said:

But will the LS give you 36mpg day in day out?

Sadly not and then there's tax which is way more than GS 🥴

[Mossypossy]

Had my GS with a sunroof for a year now.

Have used the sunroof ONCE!

[royoftherovers]

1 hour ago, The Lexus Enthusiast said:

Quite right John.

Sometimes though I'm partial to getting a move on at a more impressive rate than the other cars around me😁

won't be looking to race it like a track car ha ha

Which would be your bet John overall? 

1. I picked up my first ticket in 2019 for speeding and I could only partly blame the car !

2. The GS450h, Alexander.

[Steven Lockey]

3 hours ago, royoftherovers said:

1. I picked up my first ticket in 2019 for speeding and I could only partly blame the car !

2. The GS450h, Alexander.

Actually a shame you can't unlock the GS450h, its got a lot more power than it actually uses when
you put your foot down. 

The ICE has a max power of 286hp and the electrics can put out 197hp, so in theory it could output
483hp, but it's actually limited to 338hp total when everything I can see could easily handle the full power.

Also the manual says 5.2s 0-60 on the gs450h, but other guides say 5.6 or 5.9. 

I only know mine is closer to 5.2s but then I think the uprated Battery I got gives me slightly more low end grunt
then the normal one.

[Mossypossy]

Not sure it is as simple as adding the two potential horsepowers together.

Will be delivering max bhp at different speeds.

Obviously I would love to be proved wrong and have 483bhp!

[Steven Lockey]

8 minutes ago, Mossypossy said:

Not sure it is as simple as adding the two potential horsepowers together.

Will be delivering max bhp at different speeds.

Obviously I would love to be proved wrong and have 483bhp!

Did some digging on the other day, the combined possible total is 483, but the software locks
it to 338. From what I can tell the transmission e.t.c. can easily handle it, it's just the software
locking it in place.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any tools to reprogram the software in the car to give it that
extra ump it's capable of. 

I've noticed the traction control is very much the same, its tuned on the conservative side so it
never if at all slips, but could really apply quite a bit more power during acceleration. I think that
might be the difference between the 5.2 and 5.6 0-60 times, 5.2 is with the traction control off.

[royoftherovers]

14 minutes ago, Mossypossy said:

Not sure it is as simple as adding the two potential horsepowers together.

Will be delivering max bhp at different speeds.

Obviously I would love to be proved wrong and have 483bhp!

In " the round" 0-60 in less than 6 seconds, coupled with a maximum speed of 155mph is more than good enough for me.

[Mossypossy]

What we need is a software genius.

My son does serious coding for medical robots but I doubt he could "unlock" the potential.

[serbarry]

I wonder in which roads you would unchain 483 horsepower😜 I think for me would be already a big shock changing from my 1.5cc Prius to the GS😵

[Zotto]

18 minutes ago, serbarry said:

I think for me would be already a big shock changing from my 1.5cc Prius to the GS😵

It will be 🙃

[Steven Lockey]

47 minutes ago, serbarry said:

I wonder in which roads you would unchain 483 horsepower😜 I think for me would be already a big shock changing from my 1.5cc Prius to the GS😵

I went from a 1.4l Rover 25 so I know what you mean 🤣

[The Lexus Enthusiast]

17 hours ago, Steven Lockey said:

I went from a 1.4l Rover 25 so I know what you mean 🤣

Hi Guys,

So overall I'm thinking I should go for a GS450h over the LS460. The one I would like the most is a black one with a sunroof. Unfortunately none of the ones on Autotrader or eBay or the entire internet (trust me I've been looking everywhere for days) tick my boxes. Any black ones don't have a sunroof 

So I have a question for you guys (I hope this is allowed). Would anyone be interested in selling me their GS450h if it is black and has a sunroof and preferably wood on steering wheel? My budget is around £8,000. Still have my current car which i want to trade in but could sell first if needed or swap? 

Thanks 

[The Lexus Enthusiast]

18 hours ago, Steven Lockey said:

Did some digging on the other day, the combined possible total is 483, but the software locks
it to 338. From what I can tell the transmission e.t.c. can easily handle it, it's just the software
locking it in place.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any tools to reprogram the software in the car to give it that
extra ump it's capable of. 

I've noticed the traction control is very much the same, its tuned on the conservative side so it
never if at all slips, but could really apply quite a bit more power during acceleration. I think that
might be the difference between the 5.2 and 5.6 0-60 times, 5.2 is with the traction control off.

Great, now I know what button to press to get 5.2 secs 🤩

[The Lexus Enthusiast]

Whoops looks like I accidentally quoted someone, sorry! 

Hi Guys,

So overall I'm thinking I should go for a GS450h over the LS460. The one I would like the most is a black one with a sunroof. Unfortunately none of the ones on Autotrader or eBay or the entire internet (trust me I've been looking everywhere for days) tick my boxes. Any black ones don't have a sunroof 

So I have a question for you guys (I hope this is allowed). Would anyone be interested in selling me their GS450h if it is black and has a sunroof and preferably wood on steering wheel? My budget is around £8,000. Still have my current car which i want to trade in but could sell first if needed or swap? 

Thanks 

[royoftherovers]

Nice try Sunshine. If you don`t ask you don`t get ?

As one gets older one finds that Sunroofs/Moonroofs are an utter and complete waste of time.

Airconditioning is the only one that is required.

Good luck.

[Thackeray]

21 hours ago, Steven Lockey said:

Did some digging on the other day, the combined possible total is 483, but the software locks
it to 338. From what I can tell the transmission e.t.c. can easily handle it, it's just the software
locking it in place.

Unfortunately there don't seem to be any tools to reprogram the software in the car to give it that
extra ump it's capable of. 

My guess is that one of the key limiting factors is the size of the Battery.

The eCVT transmission (power split device) splits the power output from the engine between the road wheels and motor-generator 1 (MG1). I don't know what the split is but on the first Prius I think it was 78/22. So let's say around 3/4 of the engine's 286 bhp is directed straight to the road wheels. The remaining 1/4 drives MG1, which generates a bit less (because of efficiency losses) than 1/4 of the engine's output. The generated electricity then drives MG2 (more power loss) which is connected to the road wheels. 

As for the electric motors, I've never seen it spelled out anywhere but my guess is that the quoted electric motor capacity is for the two motors combined. In the above scenario, MG1 is fully in use, transferring the engine's power to MG2, so none of its electric motor capacity bhp can be used while it's in generation mode. But some of the electric motor capacity (perhaps the larger part provided by MG2) can still be brought into play by feeding more electricity to MG2. Let's say MG2 has half of the quoted 197 bhp or around 100 bhp. This is available to add to the power (direct and indirect) from the petrol engine. But this power has to come from the Battery. I have no idea whether the Battery can add enough electricity to produce 100 bhp from MG2. But I would suspect not and certainly not for very long - only a few seconds probably.

If the maximum total output is 338 bhp, with 286 bhp coming from the petrol engine, that suggests that the Battery can only provide enough for around 50 bhp from the electric motors, even though they are quoted as having a capacity of 197 bhp.

So I would guess that the limit on total bhp is structural to some extent and in addition that there are software limits to the rest of the available power to protect the Battery and to protect the electric motors, which would be damaged if they could spin beyond certain limits.

 

[Mossypossy]

4 hours ago, The Lexus Enthusiast said:

Whoops looks like I accidentally quoted someone, sorry! 

Hi Guys,

So overall I'm thinking I should go for a GS450h over the LS460. The one I would like the most is a black one with a sunroof. Unfortunately none of the ones on Autotrader or Ebay or the entire internet (trust me I've been looking everywhere for days) tick my boxes. Any black ones don't have a sunroof 

So I have a question for you guys (I hope this is allowed). Would anyone be interested in selling me their GS450h if it is black and has a sunroof and preferably wood on steering wheel? My budget is around £8,000. Still have my current car which i want to trade in but could sell first if needed or swap? 

Thanks 

Ooh don't tempt me!

Can't actually think of any car I would want to replace it with. Maybe a Porsche.

[The Lexus Enthusiast]

1 minute ago, Mossypossy said:

Ooh don't tempt me!

Can't actually think of any car I would want to replace it with. Maybe a Porsche.

Sadly I don't have a Porsche to offer you 😆 but with the 450h's 0-60 time I bet you can beat at least some Porsches though? 

[Steven Lockey]

On 3/26/2021 at 2:54 PM, Thackeray said:

My guess is that one of the key limiting factors is the size of the battery.

The eCVT transmission (power split device) splits the power output from the engine between the road wheels and motor-generator 1 (MG1). I don't know what the split is but on the first Prius I think it was 78/22. So let's say around 3/4 of the engine's 286 bhp is directed straight to the road wheels. The remaining 1/4 drives MG1, which generates a bit less (because of efficiency losses) than 1/4 of the engine's output. The generated electricity then drives MG2 (more power loss) which is connected to the road wheels. 

As for the electric motors, I've never seen it spelled out anywhere but my guess is that the quoted electric motor capacity is for the two motors combined. In the above scenario, MG1 is fully in use, transferring the engine's power to MG2, so none of its electric motor capacity bhp can be used while it's in generation mode. But some of the electric motor capacity (perhaps the larger part provided by MG2) can still be brought into play by feeding more electricity to MG2. Let's say MG2 has half of the quoted 197 bhp or around 100 bhp. This is available to add to the power (direct and indirect) from the petrol engine. But this power has to come from the battery. I have no idea whether the battery can add enough electricity to produce 100 bhp from MG2. But I would suspect not and certainly not for very long - only a few seconds probably.

If the maximum total output is 338 bhp, with 286 bhp coming from the petrol engine, that suggests that the battery can only provide enough for around 50 bhp from the electric motors, even though they are quoted as having a capacity of 197 bhp.

So I would guess that the limit on total bhp is structural to some extent and in addition that there are software limits to the rest of the available power to protect the battery and to protect the electric motors, which would be damaged if they could spin beyond certain limits.

 

According to Lexus that isn't right 🙂

If you are just running on ICE, it disconnects the generators so the ICE is directly powering the wheels on their own. What you are describing is a serial hybrid which isn't what the GS uses.

"Lexus Hybrid Drive is known as a full hybrid system, meaning that its two power sources – a battery-powered electric motor and a petrol-driven combustion engine – are entirely separate from one another. Either of them can power the car on their own, or the power from both units can be combined."

Also given the GS450h is far heavier than my old citroen Saxo 1l which had 50hp and accelerates on the electrics alone faster than the Saxo did, pretty sure it can output a lot more than 50hp 🙂 Hard to tell cos the ICE kicks in at about 10-15mph when accelerating hard, but sure its a lot more than 50hp.

Was reading up on it before, it does look like it's just a software limitation to make the ride and acceleration smooth. There is no reason for example the car would maintain linear acceleration from 60-130ish if it didn't have spare power. Basically the software is designed to favour comfort over performance and to limit the strain on various components to help ensure long-term reliability. 

From what some engineers where saying, basically you'd have to rewrite the ECU controller to unlock it's potential and I think that is hard-coded onto a chip so not something you could do easily at all. 

A shame in some ways but as Roy said.... its plenty fast enough already!

[Steven Lockey]

On 3/26/2021 at 12:13 PM, The Lexus Enthusiast said:

Whoops looks like I accidentally quoted someone, sorry! 

Hi Guys,

So overall I'm thinking I should go for a GS450h over the LS460. The one I would like the most is a black one with a sunroof. Unfortunately none of the ones on Autotrader or Ebay or the entire internet (trust me I've been looking everywhere for days) tick my boxes. Any black ones don't have a sunroof 

So I have a question for you guys (I hope this is allowed). Would anyone be interested in selling me their GS450h if it is black and has a sunroof and preferably wood on steering wheel? My budget is around £8,000. Still have my current car which i want to trade in but could sell first if needed or swap? 

Thanks 

Could always find one in a different colour and have a wrap applied?

[Thackeray]

9 hours ago, Steven Lockey said:

According to Lexus that isn't right 🙂

If you are just running on ICE, it disconnects the generators so the ICE is directly powering the wheels on their own. What you are describing is a serial hybrid which isn't what the GS uses.

"Lexus Hybrid Drive is known as a full hybrid system, meaning that its two power sources – a battery-powered electric motor and a petrol-driven combustion engine – are entirely separate from one another. Either of them can power the car on their own, or the power from both units can be combined."

I can see why Lexus might say this as they're wanting to emphasise that the planetary gearset allows all three power sources to contribute motion. But I'm not sure it's true to say that the petrol engine "can power the car on (its) own". The setup of the planetary gearset means that if neither motor/generator is operating the engine will simply spin to little effect. This is what happens when the car is stationary and the engine has just started from cold. The engine is not directly connected to the road wheels, though it drives cog wheels that are meshed with the road wheels. So the car doesn't move even though the engine is running.

On the other hand, MG2 is directly connected to the road wheels - not just meshed to them. So MG2 can move the car without the petrol engine running. Its power comes from the Battery for as long as the Battery can supply it.

It's not a pure series hybrid because around 3/4 of the engine's torque goes to the road wheels in normal operation. But the remaining 1/4 of the torque acts like a series hybrid, generating electricity from MG1 which is fed to MG2 to drive the road wheels, like in a series hybrid, or feeding it to the Battery if it's surplus to the current requirement.

If instead of this scenario, you feed Battery power to the two motor/generators simultaneously and this adds to the torque from the petrol engine, then the electric motors' power of around 200 bhp would be equivalent to around 150 kilowatts. If the Battery is 288 volts, this would create a current of 520 amps.  I have no idea of the design capacity but I wonder if the electrical system and Battery as installed are designed to cope with this size of load.

[Steven Lockey]

13 hours ago, Thackeray said:

I can see why Lexus might say this as they're wanting to emphasise that the planetary gearset allows all three power sources to contribute motion. But I'm not sure it's true to say that the petrol engine "can power the car on (its) own". The setup of the planetary gearset means that if neither motor/generator is operating the engine will simply spin to little effect. This is what happens when the car is stationary and the engine has just started from cold. The engine is not directly connected to the road wheels, though it drives cog wheels that are meshed with the road wheels. So the car doesn't move even though the engine is running.

On the other hand, MG2 is directly connected to the road wheels - not just meshed to them. So MG2 can move the car without the petrol engine running. Its power comes from the battery for as long as the battery can supply it.

It's not a pure series hybrid because around 3/4 of the engine's torque goes to the road wheels in normal operation. But the remaining 1/4 of the torque acts like a series hybrid, generating electricity from MG1 which is fed to MG2 to drive the road wheels, like in a series hybrid, or feeding it to the battery if it's surplus to the current requirement.

If instead of this scenario, you feed battery power to the two motor/generators simultaneously and this adds to the torque from the petrol engine, then the electric motors' power of around 200 bhp would be equivalent to around 150 kilowatts. If the battery is 288 volts, this would create a current of 520 amps.  I have no idea of the design capacity but I wonder if the electrical system and battery as installed are designed to cope with this size of load.

1> If Lexus said that and they specifically state that either can power the car entirely independently and it's not true, they could and would of been sued by now.
2> You can see on the console what the hybrid system is doing and if the electric motors are running at all. It tells you on the central console (if it's in the right display mode) exactly what the system is doing. Only time I've seen it generate extra electric power was when my Battery was dodgy. It also shows whenever the electric is adding power. I don't think they would make the system lie.
3> I've read that people disabled the hybrid system entirely (no complete circuit) and the car was still drivable. Not 100% sure on that as its just something random people said on the internet.
4> It may be the generator can draw variable amounts of power, much like it does under braking. So under standard operation its only drawing similar amounts of current to what the alternator on a normal car does?
5> Not sure what you mean about been directly attached to the road wheels.... no car has the engine directly attached to the road-wheels, that's what the gear-box does. What you are describing is when the car is in neutral. Is this was the case the car would only ever be able to output the electric power of the motors.

Done a bit of reading up, it does look like the generator is constantly running but just draws as much power as it needs. Reading the guide to the hybrid system it claims there is a power-splitter which can vary how much power goes to the wheels and how much to the generator.

"In normal driving, engine output is divided by the Power Split Device to drive the wheels directly and to power the generator, which in turn drives the electric motor and simultaneously charges the high-voltage Battery. In these circumstances, power allocation is constantly monitored and adjusted between engine and motor to maximise efficiency"

They do actually say here its optimised for smoothness of acceleration as well, which would imply they sacrifice some of the performance they could get. In addition I think as the electrics work best at near 0 mph and the ICE works best over 40 mph, it may be that neither can output their max at the same speeds.

Hard to read, looks like most of this is translated from japanese (badly lol).

This might be different on the IS300H

[Steven Lockey]

Also just looked at the manual and it does say the console will show if either MG1 or 2 is powering the wheels.