BRAND NEW PIP owner (2 days)--advice, plz

Keep an eye on your EV battery capacity. I am noticing a diminished battery capacity after a few months.

 

The ESTIMATE or ACTUAL? There's a huge difference.

My estimate is all over the place, depending upon recent driving activity.

My actual hasn't fluctuated at all over the last 13,000 miles and 8 months.

 

The Actual mileage has remained constant when not using AC or lights- I'm talking what it is showing after a full charge- I started with a 12.5 mile @ full charge in August and now I am 9.2 miles at full charge. I've clocked that range to be accurate: 9.2 mile range when driving in EV mode w/o any extra power draws from lights or AC.

 

the estimate matters not, it's your actual ev driving distance that matters. lites, a/c and cooler temps will drop your actual distance.

 

my actual has dropped from a high of about 16.5 in mid summer to 13.5 now. 7 months and 5,000 miles.

 

The headlights, A/C, seat heaters, defroster and stereo have very little draw, and won't really affect your actual range.

Here's the amperage draw I measured with my ScanGauge II:

Idle with no A/C/DRL/radio: 0.9 amps
Radio on: 1.4 amps
Radio on/Fan low: 1.4 amp
Radio on/Fan medium: 1.9 amps
Radio on/Fan high: 2.4.
A/C on adds 1.5 to 2 amps to the above fan values.
Rear defroster: 1.5 amps
Both seat heaters on high: 0.5 amps
Front defroster: 1.5 to 2.5 amps
Headlights on: 1.5 amps
DRLs: 0.5 amps.

So, in a worse case scenario, with the A/C on max, at night, listening to the radio, I'd be pulling about 6 amps. You typically pull 5 to 30 times that amount to drive around in EV mode.

 

thanks dev, we've discussed this before. it only leaves two options: either the cooler weather (50's and 60's) have cut way back on my range (20%) or something happened to my pack. i don't see anybody else reporting this. in fact, john1701 is getting the same range he always has at much colder temps than i'm driving in.

 

Hey dev which xgauge are you using to measure amp pull from the car?

 

bisco, I've noticed mine has drop about 20% in the cooler weather 25-35 degrees in the early mornings on way to work. I used to make it all the way home in all electric 15.3 miles, with .7 to 1.3 left. now I am about .3-.7 short. Driving the same as before no lights, heat, or fan, if I use lights or fan I'm about 1.0 - 1.5 short of home. So your not alone! Summer is only just around the corner.

 

thanks retired, good to know i'm not the only one. hopefully, it's just the weather!

 

it's all in yer head

 

I.m sure it is the weather, I have had a few all electric trips this week mid day 50-60 degrees and made round trip no problem. Also did one trip just to make sure and on almost level ground on 30-35 roads and got 17.6 miles so pretty sure we are looking at cooler weather! Enjoy!

 

that's what worries me. we haven't had any cold weather yet. mine dropped as soon as the 70's disappeared. however, it wasn't any worse on a few 30 degree days we had.

 

Lots of people have reported this. I think it's because we think of a gas tank in gallons, not "miles to empty." The PiP just displays miles to empty, based on your recent use, which depends heavily on your driving habits. Mine has been 10.5 miles for months now, because I usually get on the freeway for my morning commute.

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

thanks, same to you. are you talking ev range estimate? i'm talking about actual miles traveled.

 

How do you know what the actual is? What I mean is that in my experiences so far, even that amount can fluctuate mildly depending on the drive. The only way I think I can measure this is to travel exactly the same route - from start to end of EV and measure the number of miles traveled. But even then, variability in some other aspects of the drive, such as tire pressure, ambient temp, whether or not I have my lights on, fan on, or possibly even the weight of my shoes that day (maybe a heavy-foot day?), would seem to have some effect on the final tally.

I would really like to have some benchmark for this, because eventually the battery capacity will diminish and EV distance will begin a slow decline. For now, I think the best I can do is measure a route that I know won't change, and then control as many of the other variables as I can (such as time of year - time of day, tire pressure, etc.) There must be a better way to measure "battery health" though. Even my computer can do that.

Do you suppose there's an internal code that we'll eventually find out about?

 

If I remember a thing or two about computer batteries, when your capacity decreases, the amount of charge the battery will accept decreases as well. So presumably you'd see less energy being pulled from the wall for a full charge.
Right?

 

if you had the same commute i have, 15 miles round trip, starting the day you got the car (april 26th) until now, and you could do it in ev every single day as i have, you would have a pretty good feel for external factors such as traffic, wind, rain, car accessories, heavy vs light foot, etc. i'm talking over 100 commutes with almost the same exact ev miles (within .1-.3 depending on those external factors) and then suddenly a 20% drop off? it's pretty obvious.

 

I think its called battery amps. It is on the xguage spreadsheet for the genIII. That note about not working for the PHV I think is just referring to the pre-production model that had a separate battery and ECU, but now its 1 battery, one ECU.