Hybrid Assistant usage in high school

We just received an interesting email, from France, about an unexpected usage of Hybrid Assistant: thank you Antony.

My name is Anthony Berçon, I’m a technical trainer in a french high school specialized in car repairing. I’d like to share my experience about Hybrid Assistant, and my way to use it.

First of all, it’s a powerful and compact app to get data about hybrid powertrain. Usually we use a professional tool like a Sun PDL 5500 to collect and export data, to be analyzed with MS Excel.

HA makes the same thing and its data collection has enough precision for our usage.

At this moment, with my students, I'm working on the regenerative brake, and the relationship between SOC battery, regenerative brake and battery temperature. With the help of the HA staff, it was easy to export data and make some charts to explain that relationship. 

My next step will be to create exercises about potential energy, kinetic energy, negative acceleration and SOC. I’ll use it to help students understand how Toyota hybrid works.

Here are some examples of HA usage in my teaching:

Graph 1 explains the relationship between vehicle speed and regenerative/mechanic brake system.

Graph 2 shows partitioning of braking torque between the 2 braking systems.

The next 2 graphs show battery temperature being influenced by regenerative brake.

Braking using HyBall

During a brake, HyBall position can be controlled with the brake pedal pressure.
If the ball is green, you're using regenerative braking, while yellow and red will signal if friction braking is in use.
The amount of recovered energy is tracked by the ball position: if the ball is in the center, maximum recovery is being achieved.
For best braking, keep the ball in the center.

CCL and Brake

The new version of Hybrid Assistant displays real time CCL and DCL indicators on the HV Powermeter.
Charge Current Limit and Discharge Current Limit shows maximum power that the HV battery can sustain any given moment.
Their value is affected, among other factors, by temperature and battery charge level.
When the battery can not accept any more incoming current, CCL is decreased accordingly even to zero: in this condition, regenerative braking isn't possible anymore so friction pads kick in.
You can see it in this annotated video.

Braking Bad

The brake icon has 5 history bars, with a summary of the last 5 brakings.
The bar color tells the effectiveness of the braking.
The history bars allow the driver to check brakings actually after the brake event, without compromising on security while driving.

Stay Green

Hybrid Assistant shows real-time brakes usage:
Green - Regenerative braking
Red - Friction pad braking

Try to stay green!