Water
Created July 3, 2006, at 10:15 am by Anonymous
I live in Houston, where we have yearly periods
or heavy rains and flooded streets. How would
driving thru heavy rains and high water effect
the electronics of a hybrids. I'm sure that the
batteries would be safe, but am concerned
about the electric drive motors.
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Honda's (Insight / Civic / Accord) electric drive motors are sandwiched between the engine and the transmission - I wouldn't expect any rain or "high water" to get into them any more than I would expect it to get into the engine or transmission. (I can't speak for Toyota or Ford or other hybrids' electric motors.)
The Ford motors appear to be well sealed up in what would be the transmission part of a regular Escape. I would expect the hybrid to go through any high water that a regular Escape could handle.
Up here in the DC area, where we've had over a foot of rain in the past 2 weeks, my HCH handled just fine.
I drove through Katrina in Northern Alabama with sideways walls of water. Not very smart but .... I did manage to keep it on the road and TRAC kicked in a couple of times hydroplaning.
Not sure about flooded streets although that is another level of risk even for a standard vehicle.
I quess the damage would lead to CORROSION..battery damage from having a LOW State of Charge(SLA)is also called Corrosion..I would most likely worry about having your HYBRID stored while the SLA batteries would NOT be getting a Maintainance CHARGE..e.g./if you did get caught in deep water and lost the abilty to drive home(destination)..having the SLA battery drain to LOW rates could be damageing to the wallet.
some manufacturers like ford already know how to come with such problem but i think it is really hard to maintain that one cause battery problems will happen often.
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