P0B16: Hybrid/EV Battery Pack Voltage Sense B Circuit Low
What to do
A section reading almost nothing is much more often a disconnected or broken measuring wire than a dead part of the battery — real sections do not empty silently. As P0B14, ask for the wiring to be eliminated first.
What this code means
Sense circuit B is reading below its valid range.
Low on a sense line is usually an open or a resistance rather than a flat battery section, and the reason is worth knowing: these circuits measure with almost no current flowing, so any resistance in the path shows up as missing voltage. A corroded tap, a terminal that has backed out, a broken sense wire — each reads as a section with hardly any voltage in it, which is not a state a real battery section reaches quietly.
A reading near zero is therefore far more likely to be a disconnected wire than a dead section, and that is a cheerful conclusion worth checking before an expensive one. The full argument is at P0B14.
Likely causes
Start here
- Damaged cell voltage sense harness · specialist
- Corroded or loose connector · easy
Less common
- Wiring shorted to ground · moderate
- Weak or failed cell group in the battery pack · specialist
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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Nothing posted about this yet. Whatever you found is worth writing down — even a dead end saves someone the same afternoon.
What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
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