Traction battery charge level

[Herbie]

Sometimes we'll park up on a Promenade or sea front somewhere and just watch the world go by. We always have the radio on or music playing from some other source so I have the transmission in 'P' and the car in the 'READY' state, so that the ICE will fire up when necessary to stop the traction Battery from discharging too much.

Usually the charge indicator will go down steadily over time until it reaches 2 or 3 bars and they also change from blue to purple, and it's usually at this point that the ICE kicks in and brings the charge back up to 3 or 4 blue bars.

Recently though, the ICE has been firing up far earlier than normal - the photo below shows how many blue bars were visible when the ICE has kicked in over the last two or three days. What do you think - just an anomaly or something I should worry about? On Monday I'll be ringing the dealership to book the car in for its 50k/5-year service so I'll mention this to them (unless the general consensus is that it's nothing to fuss about).

 

[NemesisUK]

The ICE will kick in earlier if the outside temperature is low, as the cabin heater is taking heat from the engine coolant, if the inside temp drops the ICE fires up to warm the coolant

Possibly?

I know I can sit much longer in the summer compared with autumn winter ...

[Odysseus]

Do you have the climate control active when you’re parked up enjoying the view? Since the weather has generally started getting cooler you may find your engine is kicking in to provide heat for the cabin which it wouldn’t be doing in warmer months.

Coincidentally this is one reason why hybrid economy is generally worse over autumn and winter.


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[Herbie]

Thanks Peter and Andrew - but I don't think it's that.

I usually turn the climate control off when parked up and although the weather has started to get generally cooler, it's still warm enough to have the windows open when sat there people-watching, so that's what we've been doing - CC off and windows open.

[BROUWERS]

There are no other variables other than the coolant temperature as far as I know. All electrics feed off the traction Battery in READY state, so the 12V Battery voltage can't drop too far either. It might be useful to download the Android app Hybrid Assistant to further investigate the issue. You will need a Bluetooth OBD adapter for this though, but these can be had for GBP 10 online. It will show you the coolant temperature in real-time as well as many other hybrid specific data.