[swany2ss28]

Has anyone had a need to store their hybrid for 3-4 months? Is it possible with the drive battery not going dead? Trickle charge on ancillary battery?

 

[wscan]

In 3-4 months of storage the traction battery should be fine. The 12 volt auxiliary battery might need a battery tender to trickle charge and maintain the battery. There are quite a few systems that require small amounts of power from the 12 volt battery that could add up to a low battery.

 

[Dimitrij]

Has anyone had a need to store their hybrid for 3-4 months? Is it possible with the drive battery not going dead? Trickle charge on ancillary battery?

Anecdotally: The Prius I bought in Feb 2015 had been sitting on the dealership lot for 6 months; the salesman couldn't open the thing remotely because the 12V battery was dead. However, they "jumped" the 12V battery, and the car started and functioned normally. This makes me think that the traction battery can sit for months w/o much harm, unlike the 12V battery, which I think only charges when the car is "on" (which is what @wscan said).

But, anecdotally is not factual, and the Sienna is not a Prius. Consider asking this from the dealership.

 

[Chubbysumo]

I know when your Prius and other hybrid vehicles go in for service at a dealership, if they have to remove or disconnect the traction battery they have a maintainer specifically for the traction battery. I know that the nickel metal hydride batteries chemistry is much more resistant to complete Dropout when it's dead, but it can discharge itself, so it is a concern if you're storing it. It may also affect the battery life span, as most of these hybrid traction batteries that die do so because they don't get charged and discharged often enough, or they are allowed to go completely flat and are unrecoverable. There are gen 1 and Gen 2 Priuses still running on their original battery packs right now because they are used frequently. These batteries do not like to sit. Think of it like a giant RC car, if you didn't maintain your batteries by using them, you can generally found them dead after storage, and sometimes they would come back, and sometimes they would not. Given that if the 12 volt battery is not engaged, the main contactors are disconnected so there is no circuit completion within the battery, you would only have to worry about its rate of self-discharge. If it went into storage fully charged, it probably would last four or five months without too much difficulty, but again this may shorten the lifespan of the battery as it's not good for Batteries like these.