Odd Energy Display Behavior

[Beach Bum]

I've had my 2008 RX400h for a couple of months now and I noticed something when I was going down a long hill a couple of weeks ago. The arrows that show where energy is being sent/consumed start off as you'd expect with all four wheels sending energy to their respective electric motors and then to the main battery. But after a while, all the arrows started blanking out intermittently only to return to their expected state but then blank out again. This toggling, or switching back and forth, of the arrows went on for the length of the hill. This happened again yesterday on the same hill.

Have others seen this? Should I be concerned?

Also, my rear electric motor only seems to do two things: convert momentum into energy when coasting/braking, providing power when I accelerate fairly quickly from a dead stop. It never kicks on, like the front motor does, to just add a little power while driving at a semi-constant, constant rate of speed.

Is this the expected behavior for the rear electric motor?

[maseace]

That sounds normal to me. The rear motor is for AWD situations like accelerating from a dead stop or when a front wheel slips at low speeds. As you drive down a highway, the energy states constantly change between charging and providing electric motor power. The state of charge also is a factor. Coasting down a long hill can overcharge the battery (over 80% which is the top bar in the battery gauge) and it has to burn off the excess charge.

[lemon]

The rear electric motor will activate upon rapid acceleration, when making a turn, or when slippage is detected (snow covered roads, rain slicked streets, etc.). It will not operate just to add a little extra power while cruising along.

The display sounds normal to me. There are times, if you feather the gas pedal just right, where you can get all the arrows to blank out. Google 'pulse and glide' and you might find this explained. If you are going downhill, gravity is doing a lot of the work for you and you will either have no arrows at all or only regenerative (green colour) arrows.

[Beach Bum]

That sounds normal to me. The rear motor is for AWD situations like accelerating from a dead stop or when a front wheel slips at low speeds. As you drive down a highway, the energy states constantly change between charging and providing electric motor power. The state of charge also is a factor. Coasting down a long hill can overcharge the battery (over 80% which is the top bar in the battery gauge) and it has to burn off the excess charge.

Great. Thanks for the information. I appreciate it.

[Beach Bum]

That sounds normal to me. The rear motor is for AWD situations like accelerating from a dead stop or when a front wheel slips at low speeds. As you drive down a highway, the energy states constantly change between charging and providing electric motor power. The state of charge also is a factor. Coasting down a long hill can overcharge the battery (over 80% which is the top bar in the battery gauge) and it has to burn off the excess charge.

Thanks for the useful feedback. Good to know everything's copasetic.