Okay, so here goes my story, I was backing up my driveway in reverse, kinda steep, but not crazy steep, battery is 2 bars to full, gas is low (trip meter says 35 mi to empty), backed up once but got it wrong, so I pulled out again, and then backed up again, halfway up I heard the fan from within the rear seat turn on to I believe its high because its kinda loud, then I had no reverse. Battery is still at 2 bars to full and I just started the car prior to backing up. So I told myself, could it be because I'm low on gas? Went to get gas for a 2 mile drive, EV never kicked in even at the light. Waited in line for gas and EV never kicked in. Is this something that I have to be concerned? I don't have any warning lights, if that would help.
Sounds like you pushed the battery too much by reversing on a steep hill. Shouldn't be anything to be concerned about. Just let the computer do its thing.
I believe you live in a hot climate, so I assuming the inside of the car was pretty hot when you got in. You did something that requires a lot of work from the battery (high torque for hill climbing means many amps in forward or reverse) warming it further, then went back down your drive (presumably holding the brake, there fore regenning lots of amps back into the battery, warming it further) then tried reversing up the slope again, again demanding many amps from the battery, warming it further. At this point it got annoyed and turned on the fan to protect itself, and locked you out of EV mode again to protect itself. That's all normal, and how the system is designed to function. It would not cause any warning lights or problem codes, as it's not a problem. Hope that helps!
drive it normally for awhile and see if everything is all right. if not, take it to the dealer. if so, it's probably what the above posters said.
Thank you for all the replies! I'm gonna go ahead and observe it today and hope it goes back to normal.
Once when my battery overheated, it did disable the hybrid system (ie ICE on all the time and loss of power), but it didn't prevent me from backing up in my flat driveway as I would not be able to leave. OP: If reverse was disabled in yours, how did you leave the driveway?
Never made it up my driveway. Then when I got home, I parked facing front. Have tried backing out yet as of the moment. I'm hoping that everything's back to normal now.
Glad everything is working well again. In general, it is recommended to park such that you start forward and down hill if at all possible.
