How "Full" should my Battery Icon Be?

Never EVER EVER let your battery get totally full or the electrons will have no place to go and will overflow and kill you and any other occupants in the vehicle Just could not resist.

SERIOUSLY NOW --- Actually the best thing you can do is just drive the car and forget about all that stuff until you get used to it - the computer will control everything quite well. The computer keeps the battery in the 40%-80% state of charge all the time. When you see it full it is only at 80% and when it shows empty it is still at 40% - this is done to protect the battery and provide long life. If you ever get it to show full that is actually slightly bad, as when you brake you will be using just your friction brakes as there really is no place to put those electrons I was joking about.

The highway / city split you talk about can give you any mix of battery level. If you did your last mile in your development in EV mode you would tend to drain down the battery. Don't worry about it and just enjoy your new car. Remember that all battery power comes from gasoline, so you really don't want to use the battery. I know you are thinking that it is braking that charges the battery, but where did that motion come from - burning gasoline. So, in a perfect flat world where you would never stop you would never want to charge or drain the battery. We live in an imperfect one, and the batter gives you a place to dump otherwise wasted energy and then recapture it at a later time, but there are losses in going from motion to energy and then back to motion.

 

This thread should answer your questions very completely. Basically, your battery is very normal, and just fine.

For the very very technical info behind the battery gauge, take a look at this thread.

 

My car decide to do a battery refill cycle during a traffic jam on the way to work the other morning. I noticed the MPGs dropping even though I was crawling along, and realized I wasn't using the battery but was filling it. The battery showed at least 5 bars, yet the engine kept running. Even when I did push the accelerator, no assist was coming from the battery, it was all engine. Lost a full MPG from the average.

So while you can count on the car to maintain the battery, don't expect to understand the way it does it...

 

Your car purposefully tries to keep the SOC at 6 bars. As the SOC rises above 6 bars, the car uses the battery more. As it falls below 6 bars the car uses the battery less and charges it more.

For example, the road entering my neighborhood is a fairly steep hill for about 500 yards or so, and I travel 20 mph on that road. If I enter the neighborhood with 7 or more bars, the car will use the electric motor only to drive up the hill without me even trying to make it do that. If I only have 6 bars or fewer when I enter the neighborhood, it refuses to use the electric motor only to go up the hill, no matter how hard I try.

 

Yea, but the reason I rarely look at the Energy display is because one time (waaay back) it dropped to 3 bars, and stayed there despite my coaxing it by idling in a parking lot for 5 minutes. I thought something was broken. It got better.

That kind of stuff will worry people, unless they're told it's not uncommon...

 

Wow. As a guy who just got his car, and am still amazed at the car, I am blissfully unaware of any problems with any battery bars. I just think it's a cool screen saver.

Okay, maybe more then that. I like the part when it reads '99.9' MPG. That kills me.

 

Just let the car do its own thing. I rarely even glance at the MFD anymore, though if I have passengers they are for some reason thrilled beyond words just gawking at it.

If you want to see all green bars, visit me in Winnipeg in January when it's -40. At those temps, the ICE never shuts off in city traffic, and the motor runs all the time.