The other day I was driving up a hill and changed lanes to pass a bunch of slow moving cars. I floored the accelerator and the car didn't have that zip it normally does. As I was almost ready to pass the red triangle of death popped up for a second or two and then went off. The charge meter sat at a single purple bar for quite some time. Even through a long glide downhill that would usually put two bars on it. Plugged in my bluetooth OBDII reader (while still moving) and there were no battery or engine codes. Using the Dr. Prius app the battery bars kept fluctuating from green to yellow and when I'd hit the brakes they'd go red for a second. I noticed the battery 1, 2 and 3 temps were over 100°. Got to my destination where the car sat for about 6 hours. When I took off that 6 hours later the battery temps were in the 90s and I heard that fan running the entire 30 minute drive home and occasionally the voltage bars would go yellow for a second. Here we are two days later and no more yellow/red bars on the Dr. Prius ap. When I drive the temps start out at outdoor temp and slowly rise to 90° +. Questions are these: 1. Any idea why the red triangle popped on for a second? 2. The Dr Prius app shows 14 cells. I thought there were 28. What am I missing? 3. What are the Battery 1, 2, and 3 temps on the Dr Prius app? 4. Anyone got a quick rundown of that main page of the Dr. Prius app? I don't know what all the fields mean.
14 blocks of 2 modules each . So 28 individual prismatic modules. Each module houses 6 cells that we cannot access
A little over is fine. For about half the year when I start our Prius the temps in the HV battery are already that high. It gets toasty in there sitting out in the hot sun. Up to about 80F I can get by with the windows down and the HV temps are fine, but above that it is time to put the windows up and the AC on. As for why the problem going up the hill, not sure. It could be there are one or more marginal cells in the modules and the current demand climbing that hill was just too much for it. Would have thought that would have set a code, but maybe not if it was just a transient out of range voltage. I tend to take it easy going up hills, especially long steep hills, so as not to stress out the HV pack.
Clean out your cooling fan and pathways. Have anyone ever been inside your traction pack? There's air baffles in there; if someone tossed them out - the cooling air flow through your pack isn't going to cool properly. The charging ECU isn't going to push energy into an already overheating battery. You already know why you couldn't pass - your pack was near empty. The ECU always maintain a pack minimum charge to crank the engine a couple dozen times.
