I was reading for the Prius that the battery will never be completely full and never completely deplete. It helps the battery's life span. My battery never depletes all the way but once in a while my battery will be full max all bars. This has just started happening ever since I drive my car in power mode at all times. Does anyone else's battery indicator do that for anyone else?
Oh yeah, going down a steep hill you will see "max" charge... which really isn't max charge at all (~80%). Same as completely depleted (~20%). The lowest I have seen mine is two bars.
The most mine had was 7 bars out of 8. The gasoline engine turns on automatically when 2 bars are reached to recharge the battery.
I've already found out about the 2 bar limitation with the engine coming on. I have seen max number of bars when traveling downhill - can't say if it's been a problem, mine is less than 2 weeks old.
Don't worry about the HV battery too much - the car looks after it. If you go down a really long hill all bars will light up. If you still keep decending this long hypothetical hill the HV battery will eventually reach its maximum and will stop recharging and will probably rev the engine to 'burn' off excess charge. This is a weird situation as the engine will be running but won't be using fuel. If you go down lots of hills you might want to use the 'B' function (next to D on the gear selector) as this uses an engine brake and stops too much charge going into the battery. Be prepared for the car to rev like crazy but this is normal. In other words, even in extreme situations the car is designed to look after itself
