I've had my TCH for just over one week. Drove it to Florida and back to Georgia last week, and have been driving local roads this week. I've noticed that the battery on the screen that shows the engine and battery usage never shows a fully charged state. Is that normal? It stays around the Level 2 status (comparing it to the pictures in the owners manual). Should I be concerned that something isn't right? Or should I just keep driving and not worry so much?

 

never charges big battery over 80% and never totally discharges it either, that is how they are abtaining long battery life.

 

Mine regularly shows all bars but as skywagon says the battery may not be fully charged even with all the bars on.

 

The only time the battery is 100% fully charged is typically going downhill that provides you with the chance to do a fair bit of brake regen. The TCH will not fully charge the battery using the engine, always leaves room for regen braking. If you do get the charge up to 100%, the TCH will quickly use up that extra charge doing just about anything so it won't last long.

FYI, the battery charge display does not corespond will actual battery charge. The display actually correponds between roughly 60% (empty on display) and 80% (full on display) actual battery charge. The battery is never actually fully charged or discharged to avoid damage.

 

20% / 80% sounds better.

 

Khabita — Level 2 (i.e., only 2 bars above "zero" on the display) sounds too low to me. As mentioned already, you will rarely see all 8 bars ("full" on the display), but likewise you should only rarely see 1 or 2 bars — I don't think I've ever seen only 1 bar. I believe that the portion of the actual battery capacity that is being displayed, and which represents the only portion that Toyota actually uses (to achieve maximum battery life), is more like 40% - 80% of full charge. I think that you should have your vehicle looked at. I take it that you don't sit with the gear shift in Neutral much? (The high-voltage battery will not charge when the car is in N.)

Stan

 

Most of the time my battery sits at level 6. On occasions my battery will get up to level 7. I don't think I've ever had it full (level 8). I think it got down to level 5 once for a brief period of time.

 

Thanks, all! I got the number wrong -- my battery is at 7, not 2. Had the top and bottom numbers backward. It's just below fully charged.

Now I understand better about the battery, and I won't worry about it.

 

The only time mine comes down to aprox 40% is when i idle around the parking lot for 1/2 hour waiting for the old lady to spend my money lol.

 

I regularly get it down to 1-2 bars by running in forced-EV mode in heavy traffic. On a bad day, it'll drop low enough to need to run the engine to charge; normally, I'll get past the usual jam before that point and recharge on open road.