[bigfire]

On my drive home today from a store 16 miles from home (all non-freeway street), I encountered quit a lot of traffic. As a result, I baby the gas peddle to such extend that I ran a good deal of that distant on battery only. I managed to hit two bar on the indicator.

So how low does it goes before I start to worry? (BTW, '05, about 500 Miles on the odometer).

 

[flare]

when the master warning triangle lights up

 

[efusco]

On my drive home today from a store 16 miles from home (all non-freeway street), I encountered quit a lot of traffic. As a result, I baby the gas peddle to such extend that I ran a good deal of that distant on battery only. I managed to hit two bar on the indicator.

So how low does it goes before I start to worry? (BTW, '05, about 500 Miles on the odometer).

Although Flare is being a little facetious, he's right. There is no need to worry at all about how low the battery gets...your car is operating exactly like it is designed and it will never let the charge get 'too low'. Even when you're down to 1 pink bar you have at least 40% of the total available SOC of the battery still in there.

 

[mrv]

assuming that you're not out of gas or have some other problem where various warning lights would be blinking at you...

the hybrid battery cannot get too low - the Prius will turn on its gasoline engine just to recharge if that becomes necessary.