Battery Gauge Never Full

[kornkid182]

I have had my CR-Z for about 2 weeks now and it's primarily driven in city driving. I noticed that my battery guage is never full. The most charge it ever gets is 1 block/bar under full.

Is this normal? Has anyone had this issue?

[gordonfc]

I've owned my CRZ since April 8 2011

The battery bar is ALWAYS at full less one bar.

Mostly city driving not too much zoom zoom.
Gord, Toronto, Canada.
Silver 6MT

[kornkid182]

So then why would Honda put that 8th placeholder for that last bar? IE: if the battery is fully charged at 7 out of the 8 bars, why add that 8th place holder?

[kenoshainflames]

I get full all the time. mostly sits at 7 though.

[luenhsing]

I had the same experience, hit the break soft and leave it longer that way it charges longer that will charge it to full. I usually at 1 bar less as well, once a while I try to hit the break at the trafic light if it turns red and i do this very early and leave the break on for a long time. You can use the metter on the dash to check if you not going over the limit. I try to keep it under the limit so I know I am using the most of my break on charging the battery.

[atteSmythe]

It's because the car doesn't recover as much energy from regeneration as it uses.

When you're driving along and have one green bar on the charge/spend indicator, it means that the motor (as generator) is sapping a little bit of power from the internal combustion engine and actually lowering your fuel economy. The idea is to have the boost there if you need it, so it's kind of acceptable to run a slight charge.

However, there's no sense in topping it off, because if you're driving, you'll be stopping eventually, and stopping is when you actually recover energy from the IMA motor. So topping the meter off would be counter productive - it would drain your economy while driving, and then not leave enough space to take advantage of the regeneration, so that energy would all be wasted just as in any other car.

If your battery never fills (mine doesn't either), it means that the car is never recovering even a couple bars of power from decelerating. I personally find the amount of energy that's recovered a bit disappointing, but I don't know if my expectations were unreasonable.

I'd love the ability to shut off the while-driving charge just to see what that does to my battery usage. The idea of wasting all that energy in a chain of lossy chemical->mechanical->electrical->mechanical conversions drives me up the wall. My ideal scenario would be to have no trickle charge, but a 120VAC plug to recharge the IMA battery overnight, so you could leverage the efficiency of the enormous local municipal power plant.

[Steverhodes]

Mine is the same - only gets full after long downhill stretches. Long uphill stretches drain the battery but it recovers quickly.

[ocorreia]

Mine will get full after going down a long hill, and using the brakes a lot. Otherwise, it'll just stay on 7/8 bars most of the times.

Have you tried going down a long hill?

[kornkid182]

Okay, glad to know that this seems like a normal issue! No, I haven't driven down a hill. I live in Chicago, so basically city driving.

[Ludercrz]

yup it's normal. once i braked hard when it was at -1 bar and it filled up to ful but instantly went away when i pressed the gas again.