So this was unexpected. I didn't know the battery could drain out this quickly.

I decided to run the car through a car wash on my way home from work. It's one of the type that you sit inside, put the car in neutral and it pulls you through the rotating brushes and out the other end. About 4 minutes long.

I entered the car wash with the needle about 1/2 of the way in the blue section of the battery bar. I watched the battery indicator start to drain very rapidly. It hit the tick mark at the bottom of the blue section and a buzzer came on. The screen under the speedometer told me to put the vehicle into park. About 45 seconds later it went from that tick mark to the very bottom tick mark of the battery meter, and my HV Battery warning light came on just as I got the green light to drive away at the end of the car wash.

Once I put it in drive, the ICE started up and began charging up the battery, but it took about a minute for the HV battery light to turn off.

I've read some from drivers who couldn't start their vehicle after the HV battery is fully drained. If I had taken a full service wash and an attendant had pulled it over to an interior cleaning station 20ft away and shut off the motor, is it possible it might not start back up.

 

Hi,

Hitting the bottom of the gage is NOT fully discharged. The gage shows nether full nor empty. Hitting the bottom of the gage just means your engine will come on to bring the charge back up. As long as your car engine is on you are fine until you completely run out of fuel and the charge goes to true zero, something that will never happen in any car wash.

 

That's kind of the point. The engine would not start while it was in neutral, and if an attendant had turned off the engine, would it have started again?

 

As long as your car has gas, the computer would just tell the ICE to run and the car should start fine. I don't know why your charge went down so fast (you weren't blasting AC in the middle of a car wash...right?). I have had my NAH in many car washes and it was never a problem. I also don't know why your engine didn't come on in neutral. I'm pretty sure mine has.

I know I have been stuck in many NJ traffic jams where my charge has gone to bottom and the engine has come on only to have the charge go back down several times in a row.

The warning lights are not a great sign. Maybe you should have Nissan take a look.

 

I believe it is documented in the owners manual (I'll have to check) that the charging system does not work in neutral. Me thinks you had the A/C on. There is nothing else that would draw the hybrid battery down so fast.

 

It may not send a charge to the battery while in neutral but the ICE should still come on if there is no charge. I have seen the ICE even come on in Park.

 

It is supposed to come on in park, as well as drive, but the manual explicitely cautions against using neutral.

 

The manual says:

The Hybrid System recharges the high volt-
age battery as necessary. However, the Hy-
brid System can not charge the high voltage
battery when the transmission is in the N
(Neutral) position even if the engine is run-
ning.

Which clearly shows the ICE can be on when in neutral, but it does not charge.

 

Right, but the real question is...

Will the engine start on it's own when in neutral if it was not previously running? And even if it does, what good does it do? Why would it even
bother to start the engine if it has no work to do? It can't propel the car, it can't charge either battery, it can't "do" anything worthwhile. So I doubt it would start it.

 

Steve,
I got to the low end of my battery charge once while climbing a hill at 2mph due to horrid traffic. I didn't want the ice to turn on so I figured "since it doesn't charge the battery in N, if I shift to N theres no point for the ICE to start". Well I was wrong. The ICE started and just kept running without doing anything, so I had to put the car in park and press the on/off switch to get it to cooperate.

Stephen,
I am highly surprised that 4 minutes of a car wash took so much juice out of your battery. I fill up gas at Costco and the wait line is usually around 10-15 minutes, during which time I am in EV Mode, slowly creeping forward, with AC set to 60 and running at 2 fan ticks, with the stereo on and my battery charge barely even moves a noticeable amount - prb looses around 1/10.