brooklynux

the highest i have ever seen the battery was 6 bars out of 8 and that was only for a few seconds. its usually between 3 and 4 bars and sometimes gets to 5. i do tend to drive more on the highway and i do use the adaptive cruise most of the time. has anyone noticed similar battery activity?

rickeveru

The batteries are always being used so makes sense that they're never fully charged. Logically, the only way to fully charge them is in having the engine only running for an extended period of time, which never happens because the hybrid batteries always kick in. Suprisingly to me, even on the highway at a steady pace without accelerating, the hybrid batteries kick in.

offroad200

It's completely normal. You get longer life out of the battery if it's never fully charged or discharged.

mcomer

We are used to thinking in terms of "bone dry" or "cup runneth over" when looking
at conventional liquid tank volumes. A battery is never going to be completely dead,
it would be ruined and not take a charge. It would explode or melt if it were completely
excited or "Full". The graphic we see displays a sizable middle range of charging and
at best guides us as to more or less available energy.

Maikerusan

Have a Toyota Hybrid for 8 years. Once and only once have I seen the hybrid meter at full bars...and that was when I was in the mountains on about a downhill drive of about 9 solid miles..finally the engine braking brought the meter to 100%.

E46CT

There's two distinctions people aren't making here.

"Fully charged" in terms of the meter

"Fully charged" in terms of actual SoC (state of charge)

The former, just let the car do its thing. Depending on necessity and conditions, the car may display various levels of charge. Going downhill is more than likely guarantee "full" bars.

The latter, as said, is by design. Batteries last longer and are more stable when they're 3/4th charged or 1/4th charged. Never less or more (roughly). Being fully charged is dangerous and can lead to "thermal runaway" which would basically mean fire. Even when going downhill and the meter shows "full bars," that really means an actual charge of 75% or so. Not actually full.

At the end of the day just drive your car and let the car be concerned about its charge. To put it frankly, its charge level is none of your business. LOL (that's how Toyota designed it)