How to Charge Your Toyota Prius Hybrid Battery

By Adrian Castillo

When you invest your hard-earned money in a brand-new Toyota Prius, it’s a great feeling. But there is plenty to learn about your new vehicle, including some of the more basic principles that will help keep it running. In other words, you’ll need to know how to charge your Toyota Prius’ hybrid battery before you go any further.

The Types of Hybrid Batteries That Make a Toyota Prius Run

A Toyota Prius has two types of hybrid batteries. The first is run by the onboard generator and regenerative braking. Essentially, the engine serves as a power generator that recharges the battery, and regenerative braking is the process by which the kinetic energy that your vehicle has while moving is converted back into the battery’s stored energy. This battery requires no manual charging from you.

However, the second battery does require your attention. This is the 12-volt battery that helps start the vehicle.

Learning How to Charge Your Toyota Prius’ 12-Volt Battery

There are two ways you can go about charging the 12-volt—using a battery charger or jumpstarting it with cables connected to another vehicle’s battery. While the former simply involves the connection of a charger, the latter is where more direction will help.

To begin with, you’ll need to pull the lever inside your car on the driver’s side to pop the hood open. From there, you should open the plastic protector and the plastic lid covering the positive port of the battery. Once you’ve done so, you can connect the positive cable to your Prius’ positive port, while connecting the negative cable to the negative port of the vehicle that is providing the jump. As you’re making the connection, be sure to avoid touching any other metal in the Prius with the opposite end, just in case the cables are already electrically charged.

Once you have the positives connected in your Prius and the negatives connected in the other vehicle, go ahead and start up your engine. Your Prius will start and once it does, you should drive it for a minimum of 20 minutes. That way, the battery is recharged enough that it won’t be dead once you turn the engine off.

Learn More From Bumblebee Batteries

If you want to speak with an expert to learn more about how to charge your Toyota Prius hybrid battery, contact Bumblebee Batteries today. We would love to help get your hybrid from point A to point Bee however we can!