I always want to know how long does the battery last between charging. One day I was waiting for my fast food, I shifted to P, air con was running (about 50% of capacity) with the CD player on also. I had 50% of battery before shifting to 'P' and 5 mins after it drops another half, leaving 1/4 approx in the battery.

I wonder how long the car can run with battery during a stop. Does anyone has an answer for that?

Also as I am using a lap top computer now, it makes me think: will someday the battery in my TCH be the same as the battery inside my computer, which the battery is no longer efficient as it used to be? The computer used to operate for at least 4 hours with battery alone, while 1 year after it can only support the computer for 2 hours. Will the battery in my TCH have this problem in the future... ?If yes, approximatly when?

Fortunately the control function of a laptop battery is different that the TCH. Alas, my 3 hr battery only gives me about 30 min now.. Anyway, a laptop battery goes thru hundreds of cycles from fully charged to fully depleted. This is what wears a battery out. The TCH never fully charges or allows to be discharged the traction battery. As per the battery level indicator, full actually equals 80% charge. Low actually equals about 60% charge. Even then, only under poor driving conditions does the battery actually move much in this range. I have never seen mine get under 1/2 as I don't need A/C much in stopped or very slow traffic. This is what keeps the battery from wearing out. If the battery falls below 60% due to malfunction, the HSD will shutdown to prevent you from draining and thus causing damage (wearing out) the battery.

Two climate control systems, one inside and the other at the tailpipe.

2007 Camry Hybrid (in service June 2006)
FE: 6.67L/100km or 35.3 mpg (6.11L/100km or 38.5 mpg in summer)

Exactly. Toyota has carefully calibrated the battery system to prolong the life of the HSD battery, in order to reach AT LEAST the end of the warranty period, hopefully beyond.

They sacrificed MPG for battery longevity. Business decision.....

Not at all. How many satisfied customers would they have if 2 years down the road we were all replacing batteries. And if that happened all the naysayers that claim that hybrids never pay for themselves would be correct. I actually applaud them for doing what is necessary to not build "planned obsolescence" into the product.

I wish they would have made a plug in for booster batteries in case someone wanted to give up extra trunk space and add batteries in parallel at a later date.

Would have been nice to someday go to the junk yard and pull a battery pack from a wreck and add it on.

Not to be argumentative, but which part of my statement are you "not at all"ing?

They could have programmed the HSD cars to use EV mode much more often than they do now, which would have increased MPG. They could have given the USA Prius an EV mode button.

Instead, they chose to control the SOC very carefully to lengthen the life of the battery.

Is that not true? If it's not true, I'd like to know what is true.....

Ian,

Your TCH treats the traction battery very carefully. The peak currents are limited (lower limit if temperature increases) and the battery is never fully charged (about 80%, note: this shows as full on your screen) or discharged (about 20%, note: this shows as empty on your screen)). If your Laptop did this the battery would last for many years (as will the one in your TCH), but have about half the capacity (hours of use without charging).

If you stop in P and leave your TCH in READY mode, the battery will slowly discharge until it is low and then the engine will start to charge it for a short time. This charge-discharge cycle will continue until you eithe shut yout TCH off or drive away (the engine will then have to run a little extra to get the battery charge back up to its normal level).

NiMh batteries do lose capacity slowly as they are cycled. They will get down to about 80% after 1000 DEEP cycles. Since your TCH will never deep cycle its battery (unless you run out of gas - not a good idea), The battery should last for more than 200,000 miles (I have 63,000 on my Prius with no indication of weakening battery capacity). Enjoy your great car.

JeffD

Didn't take it as argumentative. I was "not at all"ing the "business decision" comment. You can argue that all decisions are business decisions, but I don't think they made this as such, at least not in a negative way. Yes they could have provided higher mileage and made it more attractive, at least at first. Instead of cycling between 60 and 80% of charge they could have had it cycle between 50 and 90%. That would have provided a higher mileage, and more attractive product to the market, but they decided not to provide a product with lower long term reliability.