Just bought a 2008 Prius with 111,000. After the first 150 miles, I averaged 44mpg. My question is about the hybrid battery display. I'd say 85% of the time it is blue and at 6 bars. If I'm running the A/C, it may drop down to 3 or 4 bars at some point during the ride. I have only ever had green bars like 4-5 times and those were for very brief amounts of time (2-3 minutes maybe). My driving is like 85% sidestreets and 15% highway. Is that normal? I just want to know if that is a good baseline, or if I should be in green more often.
Totally normal to cycle all the way from 1 bar up to 8 bars, depending on driving. It targets 5-6 bars, but will drop when climbing hills or using AC for example, and will climb up into the green with a lot of regenerative braking. 1 bar is actually about 40% state of charge of the battery and 8 bars is actually about 80%. The ECU (computer) only uses 40% of the true battery capacity as this lets the battery go through thousands upon thousands of cycles without losing much capacity.
normal congrats and welcome! my daughter has same car, same mileage. you got a good one. all the best! baseline isn't really helpful. the only time the display will tell you the battery is getting weak is when it starts going up and down quickly.
That behavior is totally consistent with that I have experienced on my 2009 for the past 120K miles. I do remember distinctly the first time ever it went purple (it did freak me out)! I still prefer it to be in the blue.
