it used to be more common, maybe people have wised up. and gen 4 has a larger 12v, which helps. but there is a battery management issue, in the sense that the engine charges the hybrid battery, and the hybrid battery charges the 12v battery, and if it's in neutral, none of that is orchestrated.
It's not the 12v, but the hybrid battery which will deplete when in "N" (tho maybe eventually the 12v could be affected too if ancillary items were on too).
Any "gear" other than "N". If it got critical, I wonder if you could carefully put it in "D" and very carefully modulate movement using the brakes? Never having used an auto car-wash, I don't know.
Yeah, but I think we are talking about the typical pull through automatic car wash here. Not the pull in an park, and it works all around you type. And in that case, putting your Prius into park could be disastrous.
You never run out of juice. The battery only gets low. When the battery gets to two bars usually that's when the engine kicks in to charge the battery. In park, the engine can charge the battery just like in Drive. In neutral however you can't charge the battery. That's why it's important to stay in neutral for a short time. My problem with the car wash is that I sit still in park until I can get into the car wash. While I'm sitting, the battery can get down to two bars and once I get into neutral the car warns me that you don't have much charge left. It warns me because the engine doesn't charge the battery in neutral. I think I made it seem more complicated than it is.
At least on second gen, I believe extended time in Neutral can run the charge so low that you can't recover, without a tow to the dealership and a special charger, that they likely have to bring in. Third gen and onward I think the car will just shut down when this threshold is reached. So in a pull along car wash, it becomes "drag along".
