Yup it's mostly the ones made for Nissan by JATCO that are garbage

Well yes but also no. The system can run with the battery at its lower discharge limit and can also run with the battery severely limited in limp mode and it'll still work, though that's very rare for these to need to do that. Since MG1 is directly attached to the crank it can use the power generated from that directly for MG2, say for reverse if the battery can't supply the energy.

With my Prius if I go down a long hill and on my brakes the battery will charge up. But as soon as I flatten out it’ll automatically start discharging the power. Hard to explain for real. But the battery would usually drop real low after an overcharge. Always kinda wondered the same thing. Cause it’s still generating power all the time if your in motion

@mattbrooks9928 - explanation: It's all about prolonging the life of the batteries, and making best use of the available energy. When you're braking downhill, you're getting charge from both the engine and regen. Soon as you flatten out, the system tries to use as much electric drive as possible, for three reasons: #1- you have all this charge, so you need to use it #2- quickly getting the batteries back down to float state is less stressful than keeping them full. Lithium batteries lifespans are best prolonged by maintaining a 25-75% state-of-charge. #3- if you went down a hill, there's a chance you will go down another. Best to use the charge while you have it, than to go down another hill with no headroom left in the pack to store the charge.

@@JamesCopeland-i1j that makes sense for real. I got 540k on my Prius and still have the original battery. I won’t even park the car unless the engine is off and battery has enough juice to sit.

@mattbrooks9928 - thanks for the reply, because it helped me understand Toyota's algorithm. Lots of people don't understand how energy works. Hybrid eCVTs introduce a whole plethora of variables that can't be seen. Designing the physical components of the system is the easy part. Optimizing the algorithm for how to manage the system is a whole different ballgame. Even with older transmission/tech. Just look at what OakTec did with the 1st gen Honda Insight. They took what was already a great economy car... and built a rally car so amazing, it was banned in its first season. Literally smoked the field, and could get 100mpg on the highway. I would love to see what they could do with current gen Prius.

I used to wear my belt like this because I CCW IWB. Once I got a proper belt I didn't need to anymore. Idk why it's on like that but it looks funny. Maybe that's the only comfortable way..