Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Auxiliary batteries found in normal vehicles put out only 12 – 14.5 volts helping the vehicle power the lights, stereo, horns, air conditioning, and the starter motor that starts the petrol/diesel engine.
Hybrid battery puts out over 200 volts! This power provides energy for the main drive motor that produces the propulsion, and the electric motor that starts the petrol/diesel engine. This is especially true in hybrids like the Toyota Prius as it doesn’t have a separate motor: in such cases, when the battery is dead, the Prius will not start at all.
The best time to check is if your hybrid vehicle experiences the following symptoms:
- Poor fuel consumption – If your hybrid is returning relatively less kilometres per litre (Km/L) – i.e. if your Prius is down to only 10-14Km/L from its original 18-22 Km/L – you should have your battery S.O.H checked.
- Lack of acceleration/power – If you are noticing a drastic drop in your acceleration and you are struggling to find power, you should have your battery S.O.H checked.
- Error Indicators – If you are seeing battery error indicators on your dashboard you definitely need to have your battery S.O.H checked.
- Cannot Crank your Engine – If you cannot start your vehicle and you see a battery error on your dashboard then you need to have your battery S.O.H checked.
You cannot check your Hybrid Battery properly with a commonly used electrician’s multimeter or a vehicle scan tool (OBD Scanner) at a workshop, as is commonly done now. There is no way to test the power of the battery under road running conditions; more importantly, such basic tools cannot test the energy capacity and balance of the individual modules that make up the pack.
Proprietary Power and Energy tests need to be done with documented power and energy signatures using specialized HV battery diagnostic equipment. This is what we do at Hybrid Hub.
If your current technician/workshop has erased the error using a vehicle scan tool, the error has not been fixed and the error light will reappear again. The only way to permanently erase an error light is to permanently fix the error by running proper hybrid State-Of-Health (SOH) checks and diagnosing the actual problem at a component level. Using state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, Hybrid Hub can accurately identify errors and thereafter properly diagnose with a permanent solution.
Typically, the battery life of a NiMH batteries (found in the most common hybrid models in Sri Lanka) is affected by high ambient temperatures – this leads to accelerated battery deterioration, culminating in Apparent Capacity Loss (ACL) that comes from the constant need to recharge the battery.
However with the proprietary battery diagnostics that are done at Hybrid Hub, we could detect deteriorating batteries at an early stage and have them “conditioned” and restored to make them last longer. The NiMH battery is very resilient and therefore they can be conditioned and restored a number of times during its life cycle.
We suggest you call us. The Hybrid Hub Hotline is (+94) 77 477 7999
Please note: Attempting to push or tow the vehicle with its wheels rotating on the ground can cause the battery to overcharge and damage the hybrid battery permanently. The vehicle has to be placed on flatbed carrier and not towed. Try not to tow with 2 wheels off the ground also.
There are number of reasons related to the internal combustion engine that may cause acceleration issues in a hybrid vehicle. This is especially true with Toyota’s fuel efficient vehicles like the Prius, Aqua and Axio – the engines run on the Atkinson Cycle and depend on the Electric Drive Motors to provide most of the torque for propulsion from 0-40km/h. Therefore, a weak or deteriorating battery maybe the main cause for bad acceleration on these vehicles. At Hybrid Hub, our technicians run proprietary diagnostics test on the battery to determine if the battery is the cause for bad acceleration.
Hybrid Hub will conduct a controlled ‘Stress Test’ on a customer’s vehicle without removing the battery to simulate driving loads on the battery. The process is very similar to a heart patient being asked to do an exercise ECG. Once the data from a stress-tested hybrid vehicle is generated, we will analyse and interpret it based on proprietary algorithms to determine whether your battery actually needs further testing and ‘Battery Conditioning’. Only if the Stress Test warrants it do we proceed further with removing the battery and perform battery testing and conditioning.
Battery conditioning is where proprietary equipment is used to test the Power and Energy capacity, and balance of individual hybrid batteries modules that make up a battery pack. Power and energy tests are the only way to determine the accurate state-of-health of your hybrid battery.
Battery modules with low power and energy capacity levels and modules that are out of balance are identified and are cycled through our proprietary BDU “Battery Conditioning” system on a modular level to increase the power and energy capacity to up to 95% of their original capacity.
Our proprietary system generates power and energy signatures before and after conditioning, in order to show proven and documented State-Of-Health results to the customer.
Rebuilding involves replacement of ‘capacity dead’ modules and this is the only time replacement of battery modules are done in Hybrid Hub’s process.
Most (NiMH) hybrid vehicle battery modules can be conditioned and restored by QTS’s proprietary BDU and software. However certain modules may be identified as damaged beyond repair by the energy test signatures.
BEWARE: Good and revivable battery modules are commonly damaged beyond repair by unqualified Battery Repair Methods at unqualified workshops in Sri Lanka.
Having an unqualified workshops or technicians conduct unqualified ‘light bulb’, ‘fan’, ‘water heater element’ tests on your HV battery can serious damage your battery beyond restoration, thus ensure that you first visit the Hybrid Hub to have an internationally proven documented test and conditioning process done to revive your battery to avoid a costly repair.
The OBD alerts the vehicle owner when one of the HEV’s many sub-systems are underperforming or close to failure. While it is a useful tool to the general consumer, it offers little in the way of pinpointing the exact causes of the failure. Hybrid Hub’s diagnostics tools, on the other hand, are patent-pending technology from the USA and used widely by engineers at the workshops of the OEMs themselves.
The OBD scan tool is not an effective tool for accurate diagnosis when it comes to hybrid battery and Electric Motor/Generator SOH analysis
BEWARE – An ordinary workshop OBD Scan Tool will NOT provide the important hybrid battery diagnostic data/information such as the energy capacity levels of the battery modules. So an unqualified workshop or technician will be working ‘blind’ in diagnosing a battery problem depending solely on the OBD scan tool as is commonly done in Sri Lanka.
‘Used’ battery packs are basically just used! Don’t ever be misled into buying a ‘used’ battery pack or ‘used’ individual battery module as a replacement for your failing battery – you may well be purchasing a battery or module that is already ‘aged’ and lost its power and capacity. Remember HV batteries lose their capacity when not in use and kept idle and due to cell crystalline growth that occurs with aging.
The HV battery should be removed by trained technicians following accepted safety procedures to prevent injury to the technician and damage to the vehicle and its sensitive components. HV batteries carry High Voltage by definition and can cause death if mishandled.
Yes. Specifically, request them to produce documentable Energy Test results in Amp-Hours on a modular level for your review before and after a battery repair or replacement. At Hybrid Hub, we provide documentable Power and Energy signatures that generate directly from our proprietary system from the outset.
For example: A customer came to the Hybrid Hub with a complaint of very high fuel consumption compared to new and remember the Hybrid system in his vehicle has been charging and putting energy back into his battery constantly but the pack has deteriorated to such an extent that it had capacity to store only 26% of the manufacturer rated capacity! We found the real capacity of the battery using our proprietary Energy Test.