Mine seems to be. I'm still not in EV mode very long, but there hasn't been a relapse in the shuddering at startup.

 

I have something to add to this. I'm not sure what thread it was in, but somebody provided block voltage data during driving, which exhibited substantial deviations, particularly at the outset, but they narrowed during driving.


I have now seen a Prius behave like the GM. It was a 2010 model with 120K miles on it. The 2010-2014 models have had a safety recall due to inverter failures. As a result, it appears that the batteries get severely deteriorated, possibly from overuse (speculation on my part).


Gen3 prius (2010+) and other Toyota hybrids using the generation 3 system (07+ Camry, GS450h, etc.) exhibit similar issues - severely degraded batteries without individual cell failure, i.e., the CAPACITY of the battery or portions thereof, drop to such low levels, the pack has little to no USABLE capacity. When the packs are disassembled, only a handful of them (maybe 4-6 out of 28/34) are suitable for re-use with any expectation of reliability.


The 2010 had a block deviation of 2.2V. The in-car discharge test was so poor, I could not compute a meaningful state of health. Battery error codes were intermittent.


Upon installation of a brand new pack, the block deviation dropped to less than 0.2V THROUGHOUT the entire range. I even drove the battery below the normal 40% SoC lower limit to 27.5%, and the block deviations remained <0.2V.

 

Has anyone found the root cause of the stalling issue called out above?

 

If the P061B shows up... it's almost ALWAYS HV battery issues!!!!!!!!!

 

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Well, I've had some progress. Guy that fixed my ICE sucked. Turned out he had a wrong plug in a cylinder. Now that my ice is working well, next step is to ensure communication between all the modules is functioning.

On the GM, I believe we've established that for the hybrid to work well, it needs a solid 12v system. And a solid 12v system requires an internal combustion system that is without issue. I think I finally have a solid working engine. Now, all the electrical components need to talk to each other without issues.

I was able to scan my batteries individually while driving, though unable to save the data. Had one module noticeably HIGHER than the rest..

 

Even under maximum currents of EV or Re-Gen, those modules should not have much difference. 1.5 V max for healthy battery.


If you can gather data and get it into EV try this.


If you can read State Of Charge in percent, get into EV around 50% or slightly lower if possible.


Then real easy on a very slight up-hill incline ( back lot at Wall-Mart ) increase vehicle speed to around 15 mph. Then just before engine starts and or SOC falls below 46% push the gas pedal abruptly to about 50%. Don't floor it!


This maneuver will be drawing many more kilowatts while in EV. The sudden and abrupt pedal input will immediately try to accelerate the vehicle while trying to start the engine.


This maneuver can pull over 40kW. The internal voltages will diverge and the lowest one may hit low single digits... if this maneuver doesn't shut you down right there.


This is a "Stressed Auto-Start" it will expose any weak cells immediately.


If you can get the block with the low cell, you have isolated the weak one to a choice of two 6-cell modules.


Since that battery is all series wired, any one of the 240 cells in the 40 modules can go bad and take you down.


NOTE: if communication between modules goes down for even 75 milliseconds... that CEL is coming on. And you will feel it.

 

HH, that's just not true. While the GM system may permit voltage deviations to that level, a healthy battery will not be much above 0.6V under max assist/regen, and that's MOMENTARY. I routinely record 140-150A discharges, and that's what I see.


For the vast majority of normal driving, it's going to be under 0.3V. A truly healthy battery will be under 0.2V at currents under 50A or so.


We can argue that GMs aren't Priuses, but the fact remains that the battery "health" is independent of the vehicle in which it is installed.


Data acquisition rate obviously impacts this, so there has to be some allowance. I have found that a 2Hz rate, i.e., all readings taken 2 times per second, is sufficient. Data rates can be slower IF you are able to test at a constant current. Furthermore, as I recall, each block reading also has a timestamp associated with it. If one were to load that into excel and plot in accordance with the timestamp, then that would give a much better picture of the actual response.


Your prescribed test sounds like a great way to identify bad blocks.


The LAST thing you want to see in a NiMH battery is all 20 blocks evenly spread across the deviation range. This SCREAMS severe deterioration across the entire battery. For a conclusive failure of a single cell, you want to see 19 blocks very near one another with one outlier. That outlier tends to be the high during charge AND the low during discharge.

 

I think I'm getting to the root of the issue now. Note, after getting a healthy ICE, I haven't experienced The Terrible Two Codes yet, but I do feel some periodic sluggish hesitation. A couple of times, my transmission just started shaking like crazy.

Now that I can access the the data, I need to find a way to capture out and export it.

Throughout this whole episode I don't doubt that, particularly considering the rest of the condition of the vehicle, there is an issue with the hybrid battery. But I can function so long as the ICE is working well. I've already dumped $4K into the ICE, I'm ready to chill for a bit before repeating with the battery. I'll never recover this in fuel savings.

 

All I can seen to export at the moment is screenshots. This one shows the rogue module, HIGHER than rest of the pack.