Has anyone's battery ever completely charge up? Mine has never ever gone up to full charge. The most I could get was 1 bar away from full charge, and even that didn't last long.

 

I haven't had my TCH for that long, but on one occasion my battery power indicator turned green and was fully charged. This lasted for about one mile of driving. Other that that it has always been blue minus one or more bars.

 

Had mine since mid-may and have around 3500 miles and have NEVER seen it fully charged.

 

Keep in mind to improve battery life the battery is never allowed to fully charge or discharge. The computer keeps the battery in a relatively small range of its total charge. So when you look at the display the minimum charge is the minimum the computer will alllow it to get down to and the max is the maximum allowable. The car generally will not allow it to get to the ends of the range.

 

That's interesting. In the manual, the show the different levels of charge, I believe going from Level 0-8. There's no indication that Level 8 will never be reached. Oh well, thanks for the confirmation, at least I know it's not just me.

 

I have the non-NAV version with the much simpler energy flow display. I'm not saying that it will never be reached, but probably under fairly rare conditions. For instance a long time coasting down hill using regenerative braking. Under normal driving conditions the engine will also regenerate the battery. I don't believe the computer will allow the engine to charge it to the top of the display. I have had times that I've seen the display get to within one bar of the top, but that's usually when it was already pretty high and I then coast for a while.

 

I don't need too technical of an explanation, but can anyone tell me why letting the battery get fully charged can decrease its life?

 

I've wondered this too. With other rechargable devices I've the owner's manual recommended letting the battery drain down all the way at times. Otherwise it would develop a memory and only provide power down to the point that it was normally drained. I believe this was usually for Ni-Cad batteries, but I'm not sure.

 

NIMH batteries have much less "memory" than Ni-cads do.

Fully charging or discharging NIMH batteries is harmful to them.

 

It will be sweet when we can get an affordable upgrade to Lithium Ion batteries. Should increase the available use of EV mode as well as save weight in the trunk.