Yaris Hybrid and constant average speed 30mph

[Sandor77]

I'd like to ask if maybe someone has experience driving Yaris Hybrid at average speed not exceeding 30mph. I live in Malta where covering 7-10 km may take up to 40-60 minutes in rush hours at very low speed. Sounds like a good condition for a Hybrid engine. But I am concerned if batteries will get enough charge. In one of my cars I had to replace the battery after using it for 3 years because it was constantly undercharged. I wouldn't' like to get in a situation with Yaris Hybrid where eventually batteries are not used due to being not fully charged. We have hills here but they make up max 5% of may daily route so I am not sure if frequent decelerations would create conditions in which the drive system can recuperate the kinetic energy of the vehicle. 

There are no condition to run a car at higher speed or maybe juts once or twice a week for 5-10 minutes max.

Thanks in advance!

[FROSTYBALLS]

Moved to the Yaris club

[Cyker]

If the big traction Battery gets too low the petrol engine will start up to power the car and charge the battery; The mpg will take a nosedive in that scenario but you don't need to worry about the Battery degrading early due to it being underutilised.

That said, if you are doing lots of long gentle braking as part of the traffic crawl, that will recover huge amounts of energy and charge the Battery.

To be honest, I don't think it'll be a problem for you; The only time they tend to less optimal is long motorway runs where little -to-no regen takes place so the petrol engine has to do all the work, but in urban environments where you're not accelerating too hard and are constantly slowing down for traffic lights or congestion, the hybrids have lots of opportunity to charge the battery through regenerative braking.

 

[Anthony Poli]

No need to worry, the computers will take care of the batteries and keep them going. Toyota will even extend the Battery warranty for up to 10 years.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[FROSTYBALLS]

42 minutes ago, Anthony Poli said:

Toyota will even extend the battery warranty for up to 10 years.

 .... subject to the car having annual Hybrid Health Checks, and applies to the hybrid Battery (one year/10,000 mile extension) once the new car warranty expires (5 years/100,000 miles). If a Hybrid Health Check is done immediately  prior to the vehicle's 10th birthday the hybrid Battery warranty extension can be up to 11 years.

[YarisHybrid2016]

The speed the car is driving at will not make any difference to charge rate.

It is good that your journey is a reasonable length in terms of time, as it is time that dictates whether the 12V Battery can obtain sufficient charge to keep it topped up (in your case, it can, so it isn't a problem).

Note that the hybrid Battery is completely different (much larger!) than the 12V Battery. If the car is not used at all for 3 or more weeks then the 12V battery is likely to be flat, and the car won't start.

As long as you always switch the car on so it is in READY mode, the 12V battery should always have a high level of charge.