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Hybrid TechnologyUnique topics related to the 2016 up RX450h model hybrid drivetrain and other features/options found only on the RX450h. Please use the main forum for discussion about shared components with other fourth generation RX models.
I have my 2017 RX 450h for about 7 months now. I have wondered on the battery status display. According to the manual. These are the options:
In my experience, I have never seen it fully charged, even on trips with several hours of highway driving. The greatest number of bars on the battery status display I have seen is six bars, even though the battery indicator has capacity for 8 bars. I have not seen the last two bars ever light up. Also, the gas engine always comes on when the battery status shows two bars. Is this pretty normal?
I have my 2017 RX 450h for about 7 months now. I have wondered on the battery status display. According to the manual. These are the options:
In my experience, I have never seen it fully charged, even on trips with several hours of highway driving. The greatest number of bars on the battery status display I have seen is six bars, even though the battery indicator has capacity for 8 bars. I have not seen the last two bars ever light up. Also, the gas engine always comes on when the battery status shows two bars. Is this pretty normal?
Never seen the battery indicate full on either of my 450h vehicles. The engine comes on at a couple of bars out of safety as the brakes, steering, a/c and everything electrical is depending on electricity. There are no belts to rob any horsepower.
I have my 2017 RX 450h for about 7 months now. I have wondered on the battery status display. According to the manual. These are the options:
In my experience, I have never seen it fully charged, even on trips with several hours of highway driving. The greatest number of bars on the battery status display I have seen is six bars, even though the battery indicator has capacity for 8 bars. I have not seen the last two bars ever light up. Also, the gas engine always comes on when the battery status shows two bars. Is this pretty normal?
Your car is acting Normal (not the Normal as in "it is normal for a 99-year-old to die soon", but Normal as in "it is normal for a healthy athlete's heart rate to beat slower than that of a Couch Potato").
In order to prolong the traction battery's life, the computer maintains its state of charge at a conservative level. You're seeing that as 6 bars.
The state of charge is maintained so that - in the event that you're decelerating downhill, or braking - and the battery is at that 6-bar level, the battery has the additional charge capacity (read: ability) to accept the additional charge and keep the car acting "normal" to you, the driver.
You WILL see the next one and even two bars lit during downhill stretches.
To help eliminate any likelihood of damaging over-charging of the battery, you may also feel/hear the engine (ICE) raise in speed during those long down-hill-fully-charged situations -- whereupon the computer will use the MG1 to 'waste' energy by spinning up the engine to, in effect, "Bleed Off" electricity that would otherwise overcharge the traction battery.
On the other end of the spectrum, once your traction battery depletes to the two-bar level, the ICE will start and cause MG1 to charge the traction battery - UNLESS YOU'RE SITTING IN A CAR WASH IN 100 DEGREE TEXAS WEATHER AFTER GETTING GROCERIES AND LEAVING YOUR TRANSMISSION IN NEUTRAL WITH THE ENGINE AND A/C RUNNING - because the MG1 needs to have something to pull against (read: Park, Drive, or Reverse) in order for the MG1 to generate electricity).
If you're still of the "gee, I'll see how far I can go in electric only" phase (it took me almost two years), you will likely not see the charge approach 7 or 8 bars; but once you've decided to simply drive the car as though it was, well, a Car - you may/will find occasion to see the top two bars lit (since the car will try to maintain 6 bars when in routine driving).
Lastly, you have the last two bars of capacity hoping that you, during the time that it takes for the traction battery to wear down those last two bars, discover the dashboard message to "take the car out of Neutral" - else the traction battery will deplete to a level insufficient to spin up MG1 and start the engine.
P.S.: I did a little test tonight - sat with the A/C, headlights, seat heater (yes, it's summer here too), and blower blasting - IN NEUTRAL - until the bottom two bars were the only ones lit.
After the next-to-last bar went out (leaving but one purple bar lit), a message on the dashboard told me to take the car out of Neutral. I did (put it in Park) - and it took several minutes for the battery to charge up to three bars lit.
During that time (charging) nothing I did to the throttle (as in "floored it") made any difference on the engine's speed. Once the battery charged to three bars, I was able to quickly charge it to four bars by "brake-torqueing" it with part-throttle.
Helpful?
Last edited by NateJG; 08-03-17 at 05:08 PM.
Reason: Added P.S.:
The state of charge is maintained so that - in the event that you're decelerating downhill, or braking - and the battery is at that 6-bar level, the battery has the additional charge capacity (read: ability) to accept the additional charge and keep the car acting "normal" to you, the driver.
You WILL see the next one and even two bars lit during downhill stretches.
To help eliminate any likelihood of damaging over-charging of the battery, you may also feel/hear the engine (ICE) raise in speed during those long down-hill-fully-charged situations -- whereupon the computer will use the MG1 to 'waste' energy by spinning up the engine to, in effect, "Bleed Off" electricity that would otherwise overcharge the traction battery.]
The electronics would not overcharge the battery if they do not have too. No need to waste energy, the electronics would just disconnect the path to battery and not charge. This is typically done in all battery charging circuits.
Batteries when close to full are charged at much slower current (trickle charge) vs fast charge at high current. I expect what we are seeing that after 6 bars, the electronics go into a trickle charge mode and takes much longer to charge. Thus might only see the additional bars fill up on long downhill braking.
Wheels -> MG1 -> ICE (ECU - Electronic Control Unit - uses MG1 to spin ICE which drains battery – allowing more charge from MG2, and also links ICE to wheels causing "engine braking" ICE RPM increases when charge level of HVB is too much to accept regen electricity from MG2, or increasing effort from driver pushing the brake pedal)
Sorry to bump an old thread. This is excellent information. We've owned the rx450h for about a month now and I have not seen the battery status goes to full mode ever. Thanks to this thread, I now know it's completely normal and not a defect with the battery.
As I understand it, the computer attempts to keep the battery in the 20-80% range of capacity. Batteries maintain their longevity and capacity if they are not over charged or drained. I have seen the 100% on both our Rav and Lexus, but for the most part they both run in the 20-80% range and that is a good thing. You can search on this topic and find lots of info.
We are used to levels having absolute extremes - "bone dry" or "cup runneth over".
Our gauges came close to representing those conditions - E and F on a fuel gauge.
As mentioned before, batteries do not become completely inert or furiously active because
those conditions would ruin them. The charge level graph reflects the 20-80% margins as
a way of enlightening the driver about trends but not limits of the charge available.
Your car is acting Normal (not the Normal as in "it is normal for a 99-year-old to die soon", but Normal as in "it is normal for a healthy athlete's heart rate to beat slower than that of a Couch Potato").
In order to prolong the traction battery's life, the computer maintains its state of charge at a conservative level. You're seeing that as 6 bars.
The state of charge is maintained so that - in the event that you're decelerating downhill, or braking - and the battery is at that 6-bar level, the battery has the additional charge capacity (read: ability) to accept the additional charge and keep the car acting "normal" to you, the driver.
You WILL see the next one and even two bars lit during downhill stretches.
To help eliminate any likelihood of damaging over-charging of the battery, you may also feel/hear the engine (ICE) raise in speed during those long down-hill-fully-charged situations -- whereupon the computer will use the MG1 to 'waste' energy by spinning up the engine to, in effect, "Bleed Off" electricity that would otherwise overcharge the traction battery.
On the other end of the spectrum, once your traction battery depletes to the two-bar level, the ICE will start and cause MG1 to charge the traction battery - UNLESS YOU'RE SITTING IN A CAR WASH IN 100 DEGREE TEXAS WEATHER AFTER GETTING GROCERIES AND LEAVING YOUR TRANSMISSION IN NEUTRAL WITH THE ENGINE AND A/C RUNNING - because the MG1 needs to have something to pull against (read: Park, Drive, or Reverse) in order for the MG1 to generate electricity).
If you're still of the "gee, I'll see how far I can go in electric only" phase (it took me almost two years), you will likely not see the charge approach 7 or 8 bars; but once you've decided to simply drive the car as though it was, well, a Car - you may/will find occasion to see the top two bars lit (since the car will try to maintain 6 bars when in routine driving).
Lastly, you have the last two bars of capacity hoping that you, during the time that it takes for the traction battery to wear down those last two bars, discover the dashboard message to "take the car out of Neutral" - else the traction battery will deplete to a level insufficient to spin up MG1 and start the engine.
P.S.: I did a little test tonight - sat with the A/C, headlights, seat heater (yes, it's summer here too), and blower blasting - IN NEUTRAL - until the bottom two bars were the only ones lit.
After the next-to-last bar went out (leaving but one purple bar lit), a message on the dashboard told me to take the car out of Neutral. I did (put it in Park) - and it took several minutes for the battery to charge up to three bars lit.
During that time (charging) nothing I did to the throttle (as in "floored it") made any difference on the engine's speed. Once the battery charged to three bars, I was able to quickly charge it to four bars by "brake-torqueing" it with part-throttle.
Helpful?
I have a 2016 RX450h FSport and it's "normal" state of charge is 6 bars. I first noticed this phenomenon with our previous 2010 Prius that also showed 6 bars of charge most of the time. This puzzled me at first, but I soon realized that if the car routinely charged to 8 bars (ie "full"), there would be no battery capacity available to take advantage of regenerative braking, so I concluded 6 bars is the normal charge state by design. I occasionally see 7 or 8 bars of battery charge on my RX or the Prius, mostly while descending a long grade.
Only thing I would add is that I believe the NiMh traction battery is used between 40% (not 20%) and 80% of the maximum capacity.
The idea, of course, is that based on lots of testing Toyota found out that keeping the charge in this range would allow the battery to last pretty much the life of the vehicle.
The very top bar represents the 80% level and the lowest bar represents 40%. Upon reaching the 80% level (say, braking down a long hill) the computer spins the ICE with fuel turned off and throttle closed, turning the ICE into basically a vacuum pump, which takes a lot of energy to spin. But that's the point, to keep the maximum charge at 80% or less.
If you leave the airconditioning running at the lowest possible setting, but car stationary for long time, e.g. foot brake on and transmission in Park, at some point the hybrid battery is totally flattened and the engine is started to charge the hybrid battery. I found after that, the ECU then goes into some kind of mode where it will charge the hybrid battery to full bars when driving steadily on the highway, and keep it that way for quite a while. That's been my experience anyway. At all other times, I very very rarely ever see full on the battery, unless going down a very very long downhill stretch.
07-04-17, 11:12 AM
Hybrid battery status
