I suggested this last week in the Prius II main forum but it passed without reply. Sorry to re-post this but I thought I'd try one more time before giving up. I realize this test might take an hour or so to plan and carry out so there may be a delay (until various people have the time available to do it) before any results roll in. But in principle is anyone else interested in some sort of test along the lines proposed. I think it could provide some really interesting data with regard to how the HV batteries are holding up with vehicle age and miles. Direct re-post of previous thread :
Well, I would be interested in reading the results. Not sure the method is standard enough to give good data, but worth a look... The problem I have is that most of us Gen II North American users don't have an ev mode switch (unless we added a mod for it) so it would be hard to do the test as described.
Ok I see, that was an oversight on my part. Little wonder no one responded before. Yes I think the test is not going to reliable enough to get any meaningful results without being able to force it to run "EV" mode. Oh well it was just a thought. BTW I'm in Australia and have only had the Prius for a few weeks. Since it's a 2004 model and has an "EV" switch I just assumed that everyone had them.
I have considered similar tests; possibly more consistent because of no human involvement. Make the Prius "ready", with base electrical load (or with headlights on) measure timing of several engine on/engine off cycles. At an adequate external temperature the cycles will be controlled by HV battery discharge rate. If all do this with the same Prius electrical load, the "engine offs" would be shorter in Prius with weak (rapidly discharging) HV batteries. There are several variations on this theme - the problem has always seemed to be getting many people to perform consistent tests.
I think the battery SOC indicator is too vague to judge the stable SOC level. We'll need ScanGauge or other instruments to see the SOC in 0.5% unit. Ken@Japan
