Invisible battery, Different celebration

by Duf Anything and Everything

Yesterday Cindy was in distress as her Hyundai Ioniq appeared to be dead.  I talked her through using the key to manually open the door but when she got inside no lights were on.  My over the phone diagnosis was the 12V battery was probably dead.  Some people are surprised that hybrid cars have 12V batteries.  The Prius has one, which I have replaced in the past.  Hell believe it or not my Tesla even has a conventional 12V battery tucked into the front end.  I assumed it was the same case with the Ioniq.

So when I got home I was all ready to jump the car.  I opened up the manual to find the 12V battery location as it was not under the hood.  As I read the manual I realized something I had never heard of, the Ioniq hybrid does not have a conventional stand alone 12v battery.  Instead it has a 12v battery incorporated into the main hybrid battery pack.  When you encounter a situation where the car is dead there is a “12V reset” button on the dash you press which basically “jump starts” the car from the main hybrid battery.  Once you do that you are just supposed to drive the car for a short while to recharge the 12V lithium battery.

I hit that button and the car immediately returned to life.  At first we thought DJ maybe hit the button but in retrospect I think Cindy just has not been driving her car all that much lately, the Tacoma has been getting a lot of work with the landscaping stuff she has been doing.  I think just driving it around a little bit should get things back to normal as this morning she had to hit the 12V reset button again to get it started.

Today is Katie’s 27th birthday.  Typically for her birthday we would get together and go out to dinner someplace.  With covid still circulating robustly this year I am going to bring the dinner to her.  Cindy is going to place a takeout order at Outback which I will pick up after work. As grateful as I am to have Cindy in my life, I’m also thankful that it meant adding Katie and now my best buddy DJ to my life as well.  I love them both and will do anything to protect and help them navigate through the maze of this crazy world we live in.