I recently had a peculiar experience with my Toyota CHR. I left it running in the -2°C cold to warm up the car before heading to work. I manually locked the car with the engine running, as you can’t lock the car with the fob while it’s on. I turned off the headlights, but this only turned off the top set of front headlights, not the entire lighting system.

After about 30 minutes, I returned to find the car completely turned off. It must have shut off within a few minutes or so. I’ve done this in the past without any issues; the car has always warmed up just fine.

Perplexed, I spent the next 30 minutes frantically trying to understand the problem and start the car. The dashboard lights were mostly out, except for one, and the car seemed completely unresponsive. A few lights were flickering faintly, but that was about it.

Finally, after assuming the battery was flat/dead, I decided to jump-start the car, and it worked thankfully, however this was bizarre.

I’m baffled by what happened. My CHR is a hybrid car, so it doesn’t have an alternator. However, the hybrid battery should have been able to charge the regular car battery while the engine was running. So, how could the car battery have discharged?

I’m hoping someone on Reddit can provide some insight into this situation. Any help would be greatly appreciated!