Thackeray

My alarm has gone off a few times over the years. Same car as yours. It's always been an insect in the car. My solution has always been to turn off the movement sensor for a day or two until the insect escapes or dies. I particularly liked the story another contributor described on a similar thread. His alarm would go off at 1.30am each night to his great annoyance. Couldn't find the solution. Eventually his wife cracked it. Around 1.30 am each morning a fox strolled down the pavement outside the house. The next door neighbour had movement sensor floodlights and the fox passing by turned on the floodlights. The bright light made a moth in the car think it was daytime and it started fluttering about. The car thought there was an intruder and set off the alarm.

I'm not sure that the colour coding is necessarily accurate for all car models. I've noticed that the colour is not really a useful guide on the IS300h for all circumstances. For example, if you set cruise control at 70mph the state of charge shown on Hybrid Assistant is continuously spot on 60%. Hybrid Assistant is set to regard this as good and shows it as green. But if you park the car in Ready mode, the battery will consistently run down to 40%, then it starts the engine to raise the charge to 50% and then stops the engine. I can't remember if 50% is green, but I'm pretty certain all the 40s are shown as yellow and then red when you get down to 40%. But this is normal operation. The car always does this, so it seems to me that a warning colour is not warranted. The car wants to run the charge down to 40% before starting the engine. This is normal. As for the battery temperature, I haven't paid a lot of attention to the colour. The temperature to the left of the battery temperature is the intake cooling air temperature. Is this a lot different from the outside temperature? On the IS300h the intake vent is in the cabin, so you might expect the intake air to be a similar temperature to the cabin temperature. Have you tried using Hybrid Reporter to look at data from earlier trips? This used to be a separate app but I think is now integrated into Hybrid Assistant. You could check if the battery is always 15 degrees higher than outside temperature. I've had a look at an old journey that I have stored and on a one hour journey cruising at 70mph the battery started at 35C and after an hour had risen to 39C. But the outside temperature was around 20, so the conditions were cooler than in France. Also the battery would, I imagine, have little use when on cruise control at 70 mph. It discharges a little bit then recharges a little bit. I would guess these minimal adjustments don't have a big impact on its temperature. In hilly terrain in hot weather, I imagine the battery would get a lot more use and reach higher temperatures. One other thought. If the fan is at setting 3 that suggests the car computer is happy with the temperature, assuming it can go up to 6 if necessary as on the IS300h. You already know you can increase the fan speed by tapping the fan symbol on the HA display. Although you can't feel much effect on the air flow, does the battery temperature change if you leave it on 6 for a while? Here's a 10-year-old Prius thread which suggests near the end a maximum 55C for the battery for cars at that time.

With at least an hour to kill, waiting to give someone a lift, I thought I'd do a test to see how much impact the radio has on the 12v battery. This is on an IS300h but I expect other hybrids are similar. I checked the 12v battery voltage. It was 12.5v. I pressed the Power button once without pressing the brake pedal and the Accessory mode came on. (If you press it twice the Ignition or On mode comes on.) With "Accessory" displayed next to the speedometer, I turned on the radio. Within a minute or so, the battery reading was 12.4.v. I thought this might be a sign that the voltage would start declining and waited to see what happened. But the voltage stayed at 12.4v and then dead on twenty minutes later the radio turned off. The manual says it will do this in Accessory mode and it seemed to be almost exactly 20 minutes that the radio was on before it was switched off. With the radio off, I checked the voltage again and the battery was back to 12.5v. This doesn't tell you much about what the impact would be if you listened to the radio for 40 minutes or an hour. But it does seem that if the 12v battery is in reasonable condition, the radio in Accessory mode has very little impact on the voltage of the 12v battery and there seems to be virtually no risk that the car wouldn't start after 20 minutes of radio in Accessory mode, unless the battery is on its last legs. The advantage of Accessory mode is that the lights don't come on, which might be irritating if you're just having a picnic or a break from driving and don't want the headlights on. I also suspect that in On mode when the lights and other things do operate, the 12v battery would be run down much more quickly. But that test is for another day.

It's interesting to investigate the various features on this website. I'd noticed one option that is called "Ignored Users". I didn't know what it did so I thought I would try it. It works really well. Any user whose posts you don't want to waste your life reading simply disappear from the thread! It's great! I recommend it!

It's one thing for Linas to say he would drive 100mph in a 50 mph zone. But saying he would knock another road user unconscious (I imagine that's what he means) if they were stationary on the road seems a bit too extreme to be even slightly amusing.

Whereas the Land Rover Defender has a very high air intake...

At least, that's the case on some models. So, strangely, the car knows where the cameras are but doesn't seem to provide an option for making them visible on the satnav maps. Instead, it just confuses some new owners by beeping a bit before a speed camera and you'll see lots of threads on the forum where people are asking, "What's that beep for? I don't know what it means. How can I turn it off?" And as far as I know there's no reference to this function in the manual.

If you turn off your key or put it into a Faraday pouch, don't forget about the second key if it's also in the house. It also needs to be in a pouch or turned off.

An alternative to the Faraday pouch is to turn off the key's radio signal. Press and hold the lock button while double-pressing the unlock button. The red light on the key fob will flash four times. With the key's radio signal turned off, thieves can't pick up the unlock code from the key. You can test it works by turning off the key and then trying to open the car by touching the door handle. These instructions are in the manual but labelled as a battery saving option. To turn the key back on, you just use the key fob to unlock the car. The key will then stay turned on until you turn it off again.

There was a thread a couple of years ago where someone else also had "no signal" for DAB radio. This was on an IS300h so it may not be the same. But just in case it's any help here's a link to the thread. Scroll down to the sixth post for my explanation of the problem.

Driving attitudes vary across the continent. I had two British born friends - one moved permanently to Paris, another to Germany. The one in Paris said the British don't understand French driving. Crossing the road is perfectly safe in Paris. The French don't follow the rules so they don't stop at pedestrian crossings - they just drive round you. So as a pedestrian you ignore the pedestrian crossings and just set off wherever you like across these eight lane boulevards and you'll be quite safe as French drivers swerve around you. He demonstrated this several times but I was too scared to follow. Whereas the friend who emigrated to Germany said the thing about German drivers is that they follow the rules. When they drive up to a pedestrian crossing they'll stop right on the white line because that's the rule. If, unfortunately, you've strayed across the white line as you cross the road, they'll still drive up to the line and run you over because they have the right of way. Apologies if these stereotypes are unfounded. I'm sure they don't apply to any forum members, as fortunately all forum members are above average drivers.

If it was me, I'd be less worried about the stone chips than about those big yellow circles someone's drawn on the bonnet with a marker pen. Not so much because it looks unsightly but because someone's obviously put them there in preparation so that they can be seen from the missile launching drone.

Even though it's 50 years ago that OPEC quadrupled oil prices - from $2.50 a barrel to $10 if I remember rightly - it's still having an impact even now. As a result of the surge in oil prices, the SNP, then not a very prominent party in Scotland, began in the early 1970s to campaign on the basis that the UK's North Sea oil belonged to Scotland. This began to persuade a lot of people that Scotland would be economically better off outside the UK with all the benefits for itself of the growing oil industry and rising oil prices. It's ironic that it's taken so long to nearly persuade the people of Scotland that they'd be better off outside the UK just when the Age of Oil is coming to an end.

Yes, I would guess that torque is only applied to MG2 when the engine is running, and just enough to counter-balance the torque from the engine. So the parking pawl still holds the car stationary if the parking brake isn't on, whether the engine is running or not.

I think the problem in my mind was that I wasn't thinking about the difference between torque and rotation. Torque is applied to MG2 when the car is stationary and the engine is running but MG2 doesn't move. If there was no torque keeping MG2 stationary then the engine would tend to push the car forwards. But what I'd forgotten to pay attention to was that in a motor electricity is converted into rotation, whereas in a generator rotation is converted into electricity. So in a motor if you don't have enough electricity to cause rotation you still nonetheless have torque - just not enough to cause rotation. Whereas in a generator if there's no rotation, there's nothing to be converted into electricity or to create any torque. Incidentally, it's impressive how subtle the control of MG2 is. There's no sense in the car that it's doing anything but resting stationary while the engine runs. And yet MG2 is applying just enough force to prevent any movement of the car and doing it exactly the right amount to balance any slight variations of output from the engine.

Thanks for that. This document (Hybrid Transmission System Details MG1 and MG2) seems to confirm that MG2 can apply torque while remaining stationary. It says, "When three-phase alternating current is applied to the three-phase winding of the stator coil, rotation of the magnetic field is created in the motor." So the magnetic field is rotating rather than the motor. But it also seems to suggest that it can't create torque if it's stationary when acting as a generator. It says, "When generating power, rotation of the rotor creates a magnetic field, inducing current flow in the stator coil." So it would have to be spinning, as when braking, for MG2 to generate current. If I've misunderstood this, maybe someone who knows about electric motor/generators can correct my interpretation!

Many thanks for these. I haven't found anything in them that directly answers the question that I was wondering about but there's a bit that gets close to the question. In the first document (Hybrid Control System Description), paragraph 1.b.(iv) talks about what happens when the engine needs to start. It says, "While the engine is cranking, to prevent the reactive force of the sun gear of generator (MG1) from rotating the ring gear and driving the drive wheels, current is also applied to motor (MG2) in order to prevent motor (MG2) from rotating. This function is called 'reactive control'." This is in line with what I described above. But I think that by using the word "cranking" they are just talking about the moment when the engine is started and MG1 is generating the torque rather than the engine. It may be that the "reactive control" is the same whether the engine is starting or the engine is running and it probably is. But it would still be interesting to know if a stationary MG2 can produce a "reactive control" when it is stationary but acting as a generator rather than a motor. Thanks for producing these documents. They certainly help to clarify what is going on in the power-split device.

I thought I'd finally got to grips with understanding the general principles of how the hybrid system works on Lexus and Toyota cars. But today I found a new puzzle. Can anyone help with this? When the car is stationary in Park and the engine is spinning at around 1,000 rpm, motor/generator 1 (MG1) spins at around 3,600 rpm and generates electricity which is stored in the hybrid battery. So far, so good. But some of the engine's torque is also transmitted through the planetary gearset to MG2, which is connected to the road wheels. So without some sort of adjustment, the engine's power would tend to make the car move forwards, which doesn't happen when the car is in Park. I had realised that for the car to be stationary with the engine running and the car in Park, MG2 needed to exert some force to prevent the car moving forward. I had assumed this would be by applying some of the electricity generated by MG1 to push MG2 in reverse to counter the force from the engine. That seemed fairly straightforward. However, I was looking at the Hybrid Assistant app today and I noticed that with the engine running and the car in Park, the app was registering torque of around minus 9 for MG1. (I don't know what the units are - it doesn't say. Probably Newton metres). At the same time MG2 was recording torque of around minus 7. A quick test showed that MG2 showed minus figures when Reverse is selected and plus figures when Drive is selected. So it seems obvious that this just shows the counter-force that MG2 exerts when in Park to stop the car edging forwards. But it occurred to me that if MG1 is showing minus figures when it's acting as a generator, maybe MG2 does too. So the question is whether MG2 can act as a generator when it isn't spinning, just as it does when applying braking force to regenerate electricity. It can certainly exert torque when it isn't spinning. But is this because it's using electricity to stop it spinning or because it's creating resistance by generating electricity, again to stop it spinning? It would be more efficient to have both MG1 and MG2 generate electricity when the engine is spinning and the car is in Park, compared with generating electricity in MG1 and then using it in MG2 to keep the car stationary. So does anyone know the answer? Is MG2 acting as a motor or as a generator when the car is stationary in Park?

Congratulations! Just for the record, which model is this? At the moment, your profile says 200h. Should that be 300h or 200t?

Route 66 Note the opening sequence in days before drones and steadicam... Nelson Riddle is the composer at the end of the era before The Beatles. https://youtu.be/Pmc6-09PnCM

I was surprised to read Elon Musk's comment quoted in this article about a recent Tesla car crash where no-one was in the driving seat. He said that even if the autopilot was turned on, (which he says it wasn't), "standard Autopilot would require lane lines to turn on, which this street did not have." Many years ago, those early races in the desert of self-driving vehicles didn't depend on white lines on the road. Surely Teslas aren't totally dependent on white lines on the road? In France, for example, there are plenty of roads which don't have white lines. Or is he saying there is something better than "standard Autopilot"? If Teslas depend on white lines, it rather sounds as if the autopilot has been promoted as being more capable than it really is. Can anyone explain what Musk is talking about?

Is it just the lighting or is the driver's door a different colour? Check VIN stickers are on the door. Non-Lexus body shops often don't bother to replace the VIN sticker after respray.

Here's a report on car depreciation which puts the IS300h at retaining 51% of its value after three years but in cash terms losing nearly £18,000 - that's £6,000 a year, which of course is best borne by companies who can set it against tax. And the report seems to imply that almost all other cars are worse than this! So if you're buying a used car with cash, the only time you have any control over the depreciation is the moment when you buy it. If you pay too much, that's an instant loss which can never be made up. But the good news is that when you're buying, this is the only moment when you're in control of the costs - if it's too expensive, walk away. On the other hand, as you've found, when you're selling you have no control at all. And in any case, the numbers on an old car are so low that any improvement in the offer will have a minimal impact on the depreciation over the period you've owned the car. So waiting to find the right buying price is the way to reduce depreciation. You don't get a second chance. It used to be that you might get a good deal if you could time buying the car at the end of the firm's accounting quarter when they're under pressure to meet selling targets. So that might be at the end of December, March, June. Maybe someone has inside information on whether that's still the case.

The big advantage of CVT is that the engine can always operate at its optimal speed. With a manual gearbox the selected ratio almost never allows the engine to be operating at its optimal speed for maximum power output. On small cars, this means that a CVT allows a smaller lower powered engine to be installed because maximum power is always available if it’s really needed. It also means Formula 1 cars would be faster if CVTs hadn’t been banned. Even though the cars could go faster than conventional cars my guess is that the race would sound so different that the fans wouldn’t like it. The disadvantage of CVT is that people think they want maximum power but they don’t like it when they get it because petrol engines are noisy. Maximum power for the IS300h is around 6,600 rpm and maximum torque around 4,400 rpm. Hence the complaint from journalists trying out the Lexus hybrid drive that the engine is noisy when they put their foot down. They prefer a more powerful (and less frugal) engine which you don’t have to rev a lot to get a reasonable response. But this is partly because that’s what they’re used to. I doubt that many people feel the same way about planes which are also able to apply maximum power almost instantly like a CVT. Imagine a plane lined up with the runway and coming in to land. Tower: Tower to ZZ12345. Abort landing. BMW parked on runway. Co-pilot: Aborting landing. Maximum power to go around. Pilot: No, I don’t think so. That will be very noisy if you do that. The passengers won’t like it. And we’ve got a party of car journalists on board. We don’t want to get a lot of bad publicity for bad driving do we? Co-pilot: But sir, we’re just four seconds away from hitting that BMW. We need to apply maximum power. Pilot: Let’s not get excited about this. We’ll just apply a little more power… Co-pilot: Yes, that’s it. But we need a lot more. Pilot: … and then we’ll just ease back on the power and shift into third. Co-pilot: But sir, we don’t have gears. We can surge up to maximum power and with three seconds to go we can just clear the BMW if we do it now. Pilot: But maximum power is so noisy. The passengers won’t like it if we go straight for maximum power. Co-pilot: They will like it, sir. I can hear them shouting in the cabin. They’re saying “Why don’t they apply maximum power?” Pilot: They’re just car journalists. They don’t understand how to use a plane’s gearbox. Let’s just increase the power gently and then we can ease off and shift into fourth and we’ll just clear the BMW. Co-pilot: But sir, we’ve only got two seconds left (and that’s not taking into account that it’s taken 35 seconds for us to have this conversation)… Pilot: … time flies when you’re having fun… Tower: Last chance to go around. The BMW driver hasn’t come back. Co-pilot: Please sir, let’s apply maximum power. Cabin loudspeakers: Brace! Brace! Fire engines: Nee-naw! Nee-naw! (Note: No BMWs were damaged in this sketch.)

Yes, that's right. As Britprius says above, if you have the engine running while reversing it is pushing the car in the opposite direction to the electric motor. If you add the force of gravity while trying to reverse up a hill then the electric motor has to work even harder. But I imagine the Prius MG2 motor is smaller than in the RX 450h so the chances of an RX 450h not being able to get up a hill are probably not very great.