My starter battery died. Confused.

Are you saying that sometimes while parked, even though you have EV miles remaining, that ICE still sometimes cycles on and off? I have not experienced that. In two years I cannot think of a single time that ICE turned on while I was parked, except for those times when I had 0 EV range and my SOC had dropped to low single digits. Then again where I live winter temperatures are mild, it can get below freezing overnight, but typically if I am sitting in my car parked it's during the day or early evening when temperatures are usually above freezing. Do you think the situations that you experienced may have been during very cold weather?

 

Well, winters are not too harsh here either (Maryland). It was 'cold' causing me to have the heater on.
Yes - while parked with positive EV range (but commanded to be in HV mode) I have had the engine cycle.
It's obviously a combination of how cold it is, and how long you sit there.
I wish I could remember the SOC, but I am thinking 6-8 bars.

It would be nice to have corroboration because I don't do this often and my memory has faded some. Try this if the opportunity arises.

 

Sounds like it must be related to being in HV mode, because when I am parked I am always in EV mode if I have miles remaining. I will try it in HV mode sometime.

It seems like it would also happen running AC, because AC uses a lot of power also, not as much as heat but AC does drive down the EV range somewhat when parked.

I think what is interesting is that in normal driving in EV mode, ICE comes on when EV range reaches 0 and SOC is around 10%. However if you turn off the car with less than 15% SOC, which is about 2.5 EV miles of range, the next time that you turn on the car it will show 0 EV range and you will be in forced HV mode, even though you might have an SOC of say 14%. My theory on that is they figure that if you start the car with that low of SOC then you will soon be needing ICE so it goes ahead and starts you out in forced HV with 0 miles.

But then when parked, or in stop-and-go traffic at very low speeds, it allows SOC to drop as low as 1%. I have no idea why, and I sometimes wonder if even with a lower end buffer it is good for the battery to go that low on a regular basis. I'm sure it doesn't hurt it since it allows it, but still when possible I try to avoid sitting parked in READY mode when I don't have any EV range.

 

I remember laughing when I read about the "new" Ford Thunderbird (2002-2005) having its 12-Volt battery in the trunk but operating the electric trunk latch required power from the 12-Volt battery, which presented a problem when the battery died.

Then, after not driving our Clarity for a couple of months during the pandemic, its 12-Volt battery became discharged. The over-hanging shelves at the rear of our tiny garage prevented me from opening the hood to attach my battery charger, but I couldn't put the Clarity in neutral to push it back because shifting requires power from the 12-Volt battery. I ironically recalled the T-Bird's battery in the trunk.

Fortunately, the shelves allowed me to raise our Clarity's hood 6 inches. I propped it open with a small cardboard box and crawled along the right side of the car between it and our Honda lawnmower and Honda snow-blower to get to the front. There, I managed to contort my body enough to attach the battery charger cables. Since then I've made a point of driving our Clarity every week even if I have nowhere I need to go (yet another burden of fist-world life).

 

My seat warmers work in ON mode.

Thanks to Theoburns for the explanation. I’d never actually, knowingly, put the car in ON mode. The dash lights up like a fireworks display. I did it 2 days ago.

I had based my earlier, incorrect, statement that ON was the same as Ready, on the owners manual page, attached by MrFixit, that claimed in ON mode (blinks red) “All electrical components can be used”. That statement isn’t entirely accurate, in my opinion, since cabin heat and A/C can’t be used, and I would consider those to be electrical in nature. The sidebar on that same page states “The power button is on (in red) if the power system is on”.

This begs the question, Are there 2 stages of ON, blinks/steady, neither of which is “Ready”, where one charges the 12V and one doesn’t?

The manual also explains that the battery indicator will illuminate when you set the power mode to ON and goes off when the power system is on. And follows that up with “The battery indicator light will be on when the 12V battery is not charging”.

Additionally, on the When Driving page, under Turning on the Power, in the sidebar, it states “Keep your foot firmly on the brake pedal when starting the power system”. So there is a bit of head scratching language, and a vague or nonexistent definition of the Power System. The telltale signs would be the Ready indicator, as previously mentioned, or the Battery indicator, as to whether the 12V is being charged or not.

 

We’ve all probably had at least one “lesson learned” episode with this car. Whether it was burning EV range after a fuel stop on a long road trip because we forgot to press HV, killing a 12V battery, or something else.

In your case, the car was doing what it was set to do, even if that was not what you intended. Why wouldn’t it engage the power system to maintain the charge on the 12V battery? Probably for the same reason a conventional car won’t start unless you turn the key to the start position, or press the brake and push a button. The car would then be in the Ready to Drive mode, which is not the mode in which it was placed. That would then, turn on any climate settings that had previously been on and, given sufficient time, perhaps weeks or months, it would deplete the HV battery and use all the gas.

Of course, with the key not in or near the car, this would not be possible. So the car sacrificed the 12V battery. Your wife had 2 options, stay in the car until you returned, or go inside to get he key.

 

It will shut down after 30-60 minutes in accessory mode. In On mode it will stay on indefinitely. This is the way our robot is designed. If an owner wanted the power to stay on indefinitely, they might be annoyed if it went off every 30 minutes or so.

Personally, if I were to create a ranking system, the list would put robots below all living organisms, including reptiles.

 

It's a very easy mistake to make so don't feel bad. When driving no one accidently leaves it in ON mode because if you do you won't be going anywhere, and anyone will realize "Oh yeah I have to press the brake pedal" (plus it tells you that on the screen).




But when turning on the car temporarily it's easy to get fooled into thinking it's running since the display fully powers up and looks similar to how it looks when running, even though there are some differences, like the aforementioned warning message as well as some warning icons like check engine, etc. and also the absence of READY on the display. However someone who is not looking directly at the display probably won't notice any of this, which is likely if you aren't going anywhere soon.

If you have your seatbelt on when you put the car into ON mode you will immediately see the warning message shown above. Which again is the scenario where you are getting ready to drive off. However get this, if you don't have your seatbelt on, which is likely if you got in your car and plan to sit for a while, then after powering into ON mode you first get a fasten seat belt warning for the first five seconds, only then followed by the message to press brake to power on. But by then you probably won't be looking at the display. They should change that as there is no reason to display a seatbelt message in ON mode since you won't be going anywhere, it should go straight to the press brake to power on message. If the driver does then press the brake and power on then it can give a seatbelt message.

And if you open the car door to turn on the car, which is another likely scenario, for example there is a passenger who will be remaining in the car like in your case and you realize after getting out of the car that you want to turn the car on for them, in this case after pressing the power button and putting it into ON mode you get a door open message for the first five seconds, which you will of course ignore since you obviously know the door is open, this is followed by five seconds of seatbelt warning (even though you aren't sitting in the seat, plus again this is ON mode so seatbelt is not needed). Only after those two messages appear does the message to press brake to power on appear. Of course by that time you are well on your way into the shopping mall.

By the way the reason that I always capitalize READY is not for effect, that is how it appears on the display and is also how they word it throughout the owners manual. And ON mode is capitalized in the owners manual also. This topic is confusing enough, so for consistency I just stick with how they show it in the manual.

Seat heaters, that's a good question, so I just ran out to my car and tried it. Yes the seat heaters work in ON mode but it seems to be at reduced power. I had it set for maximum, which I usually find to be too warm, but it just barely heated the seat. Presumably that is to lessen the drain on the 12 battery. Even in READY mode the seat heating is using 12V, my understanding is that there is no high voltage power coming into the passenger compartment. That's one reason why the resistance heater, which is high voltage, is located in the engine compartment.

 

Wait...is there a way to have it in "on" mode without the DRL?

My 12v battery is weak these days (because of not using the car much in COVID, not having charging at home, and not going to work (where I have charging) - it's never blue anymore). I'll either replace it soon or see if my dealer will do it under warranty.

Tonight, we're at a drive in. I'd use ACC mode (and probably will), but if I can run the traction without the DRL and not discharge the 12v, I might keep it in that mode.

 

Sounds like the 12V reset. It should all clear.

 

When you get to your spot at the drive-in, turn off the car, then set the parking brake by pulling up on the P selector. You should now see BRAKE in red letters on the dash. Now turn on the car normally (press brake pedal and then power button) and the DRL's will not be on.

The dash lights may be somewhat annoying though while you are watching the movie, turning the brightness down only helps some. Might want to cut out a small piece of cardboard to stick into the instrument panel, and maybe a piece of cloth to cover the infotainment screen.

 

Yes -- if you turn off the car, make sure the parking brake is ON and the headlight switch is OFF (not Auto), and then start the car (brake+power to get to full Ready mode), the DRLs will stay off. They come on as soon as you turn the parking brake off, and won't go off again even if you set the parking brake (until the car is shut off again).

(Theoburns beat me to it, and has more advice on other distracting illumination)

 

I keep a blue blanket in the trunk to cover things so that they're not visible through the glass. I can just drape that over the dash

Thanks to both of you.

 

If your 12V battery is weak and you don’t drive the car for several days, you can keep the 12V battery charged by turning the car on to READY mode for 30 minutes or so, that will charge it. Do this maybe every few days. And you can use the parking brake trick to keep the DRL's off and save a little power while it's charging.

If you don't have any EV miles when you do this the gas engine will come on every few minutes to keep the HV battery charged. No big deal if it does as long as the car is not in an enclosed garage. Also keep in mind that while it's in READY mode there is no way to lock the doors from the outside.

You can also use a battery tender to keep the 12V charged. I use one on an older car that I don't drive very often.

If you are never charging the HV battery, what you can do is when you are out driving you can use HV Charge mode (press and hold the HV button) that way you will build up some EV miles. You can charge the HV battery up to just over half full this way. Then you can at least do some driving in EV. There will be a small overall hit on mpg but not that much.

Sounds even easier.

Also if the car is in READY mode while you are watching the movie you can use the heater. It will use up some EV miles but not all that much. If you run out of EV miles it will run the gas engine for a couple of minutes every ten minutes or so. Hopefully it won't be loud enough to bother other moviegoers, but then again I suppose it's common nowadays at drive-ins for people to run their engines. Last time I went to a drive-in movie they still had the speakers that you hung onto the side window (and had to remember to remove before you drove off).

 

You aren't the only one who has wondered how you can wind up needing a jump start when you have a perfectly functioning high voltage battery sitting there. From what I understand it's for safely reasons as they want the high voltage system to be completely deenergized when the car is not running. To reenergize the high voltage system some solenoids have to be activated, that is done by the 12V system after first powering itself up and checking things out. Once the HV system has been activated the 12V battery's job is done, as the HV battery now takes over and powers the 12V system through the DC-DC converter (and recharges the 12V battery in the process).

As MrFixit indicated you can get a portable jump starter, the lithium ones are very portable, small enough to keep in the glove compartment, although I keep mine in the trunk. They can even be used to jump start regular gas cars in many cases, but they can easily jump start a hybrid since hybrids use the HV battery to spin the engine and the 12V battery is just used for the initial powering up.

The Hyundai Ioniq hybrid (the regular hybrid not the plug-in) actually does have a feature that lets you do sort of a "virtual" jump start, there is a 12V battery reset button under the dash next to the fuel door button.



Although contrary to popular belief this does not use the HV battery to jump start the car. Instead the Ioniq hybrid has a small lithium ion polymer 12V battery in place of the usual lead acid battery, similar to the jump start batteries that we were just talking about although larger. The Ioniq also has a 12V battery monitoring system that operates while the car is turned off. If the lithium 12V battery gets too low it disengages the 12V from the vehicle to stop further discharge. When the owner returns to the car, it won't start. However they can press the 12V battery reset button which reconnects the 12V to the vehicle for fifteen seconds, allowing them to press the power button and start the car with the remaining charge that was preserved. If they don't turn on the car within fifteen seconds then it disconnects the 12V battery again to conserve it, and they have to press the button again. All hybrids could conceivably use this system, hopefully it is an idea that will catch on. It also reduces weight by eliminating the heavy lead acid battery.

The Ioniq PHEV works differently. For some reason it has a lead acid battery, which is odd because like the regular hybrid the PHEV's 12V battery does not spin the engine. And the PHEV does not have the 12V battery reset button. However what it does have is something more along the lines of what you were asking for. It is called Aux. Battery Saver+ (Aux referring to the 12V battery). This system also monitors the 12V battery when the car is not on, however this system is proactive. If it detects that the 12V battery is getting low, it powers up the HV system and the DC-DC converter and charges the 12V battery for up to twenty minutes, then the HV system shuts back down again. When the driver starts the car an indicator on the dash informs them that the battery saver system had been activated.

In both systems (regular hybrid and PHEV), if the 12V battery is too far gone and the car won't start then they will need to get a regular jump start.