Single Bar Battery Level

[Geor99]

Normally when my ev range goes to 0.0, my battery level stays at 2 bars.

The other day, I was in stop and go with the ac pumping, and I noticed that my battery level got to 1 bar.

Shortly after, I got home and opened the Honda app. It had the battery charge at 3%- the lowest that I've ever seen. I've never written it down, but I believe that a 0.0ev is normally above 10% on the Honda app.

Anyone else ever been in the single bar club?

And do you guys think that the battery charge really got down to 3%?

Thanks,
George

 

[2002]

Normally when my ev range goes to 0.0, my battery level stays at 2 bars.

The other day, I was in stop and go with the ac pumping, and I noticed that my battery level got to 1 bar.

Shortly after, I got home and opened the Honda app. It had the battery charge at 3%- the lowest that I've ever seen. I've never written it down, but I believe that a 0.0ev is normally above 10% on the Honda app.

Anyone else ever been in the single bar club?

And do you guys think that the battery charge really got down to 3%?

Thanks,
George

0-10% is essentially the hybrid battery. Normally after you get to 0 EV range it tries to keep it around 10% but it's not uncommon to see it at 7 or 8% after you shut off, just because it didn't have a chance to get back to 10% by the time you shut down. But sitting in a parking lot or in stop and go traffic it will let it get much lower before turning ICE back on. I think I may have seen 1% one time sitting in a parking lot with AC on. My Prius worked the same way, while driving the battery always stayed relatively high but parked or in stop and go traffic it would go much lower.

 

[UncheckedException]

Normally when my ev range goes to 0.0, my battery level stays at 2 bars.

The other day, I was in stop and go with the ac pumping, and I noticed that my battery level got to 1 bar.

Shortly after, I got home and opened the Honda app. It had the battery charge at 3%- the lowest that I've ever seen. I've never written it down, but I believe that a 0.0ev is normally above 10% on the Honda app.

Anyone else ever been in the single bar club?

And do you guys think that the battery charge really got down to 3%?

Thanks,
George

I managed to get down to 1 bar once. That was the only time I’ve heard the oft-mentioned “angry bees”.


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs

 

[ClarityBill]

I have gotten down to 2-3% battery remaining several times, but never saw one bar. My low-charge experiences are brief, during hilly back road driving.

 

[Dan Albrich]

I'm sorry I don't recall specifically number of bars displayed on dash, but I definitely have seen 3% on my Clarity, and even 1%. Anyway, when that occurs, my car did do the loud angry bees sound. I literally cannot make my car do that now, but am not trying to either. I went through about a 5 month period where this was my normal and did not enjoy it. During my 5 months of less fun, this happened to me even on flat ground any time my EV range hit zero. Also, my EV range would start ticking down even in HV mode (which I realize should not happen). It would tick down to zero even on flat highway, within 100 miles. I could still avoid angry bees sound by HV recharge mode-- which did work.

Rebooting my Clarity (remove 12v battery, re-attached) seems to have fixed things.
Since my 'problem times' I haven't been tracking this as closely but have not observed less than 7% ev range in the Honda app.

Anyway, perhaps like others here, I personally believe the 'angry bees' is directly related to the EV battery getting lower than expected (and maybe lower than design was supposed to permit). i.e. the car tries very hard but cannot maintain equilibrium with 0 EV hybrid mode.

Yesterday I drove another 250 miles much of it with 0 EV, and it's just a non-issue for me now. Car was quiet at all times. If one tries to hear the engine, they can but it isn't loud now.

Anyway, keep an eye open. If you get this behavior often (as I did) you may wish to "reboot the car" by disconnect then reconnect 12v battery. If you do, note you'll have to continue driving it with scary warnings until they clear. i.e. do when you have time to mess with it.

 

[2002]

I'm sorry I don't recall specifically number of bars displayed on dash, but I definitely have seen 3% on my Clarity, and even 1%. Anyway, when that occurs, my car did do the loud angry bees sound. I literally cannot make my car do that now, but am not trying to either. I went through about a 5 month period where this was my normal and did not enjoy it. During my 5 months of less fun, this happened to me even on flat ground any time my EV range hit zero. Also, my EV range would start ticking down even in HV mode (which I realize should not happen). It would tick down to zero even on flat highway, within 100 miles. I could still avoid angry bees sound by HV recharge mode-- which did work.

Rebooting my Clarity (remove 12v battery, re-attached) seems to have fixed things.
Since my 'problem times' I haven't been tracking this as closely but have not observed less than 7% ev range in the Honda app.

Anyway, perhaps like others here, I personally believe the 'angry bees' is directly related to the EV battery getting lower than expected (and maybe lower than design was supposed to permit). i.e. the car tries very hard but cannot maintain equilibrium with 0 EV hybrid mode.

Yesterday I drove another 250 miles much of it with 0 EV, and it's just a non-issue for me now. Car was quiet at all times. If one tries to hear the engine, they can but it isn't loud now.

Anyway, keep an eye open. If you get this behavior often (as I did) you may wish to "reboot the car" by disconnect then reconnect 12v battery. If you do, note you'll have to continue driving it with scary warnings until they clear. i.e. do when you have time to mess with it.

The time that I got down to 1% in a parking lot I didn't have the angry bees when I drove off, maybe the engine was a little louder than normal, I don't remember it was a while ago, but I'm sure it was nothing like what you experienced back when you had the problem.

You mentioned that back when you had the problem it occurred anytime you reached 0 EV range, and I think an interesting clue is when you said that EV range dropped steadily when in HV mode. This makes me think that the software bug whatever it was kept your car from charging at the rate that it should have, causing EV range to slowly but steadily go down, and then after you reached 0 EV range and the SOC continued to decline below the normal 7-8% and even below 1% and as it eventually reached 0% the system panicked and did the only thing it knew to do which was to run at maximum RPM as a way to keep the battery from draining any further. Whether the super high RPM did at least help keep the charge from dropping below 0% I don't know (0% SOC of course the battery still has some charge remaining). Meanwhile charge mode apparently wasn't affected by the software bug since it probably uses a different section of code even though some subroutines might be shared with regular charging. That's why you were able to recover using charge mode (if I understood you correctly).

Since rebooting the system seems to have fixed it, the problem was like a data parameter that got set incorrectly somehow, which caused the system to refuse to charge at more than about half normal charge rate, leading to the problem. Rebooting cleared the parameter, and perhaps subsequent software updates have solved whatever problem caused the parameter to get incorrectly set in the first place, since we don't seem to hear about the problem anymore.

Total conjecture on my part, but based on your past situation and a few others it is possible.