If You Run out of Gas Can You Crawl to a Gas Station in EV Mode?

It has been done by many people, some successful, some not.

On older generations, this was a good way to injure or kill the traction battery. On the regular GenIII, the problem was noticing that it had even run out of gas before it also ran out of battery. For more detail, read the first post of this long thread: [WARNING] Running out of gas (Gen III).

The 'c' may be somewhat different.

 

It 'can' be done but do not try it unless you're a few hundred yards away.

You'll run the HV battery lower than it should go and can cause permanent (and expensive) damage. The reason is the car relies on the engine to charge up a very low battery, but as the engine has no fuel it won't run and the battery gets lower and lower. If you drive it too low the car might not be able to start after fuelling up and drive it way too low and you could have worse problems.

So which will it be? Filling up at 50 miles or playing Russian Roulette and risk running out of fuel and permanently damaging your car?

 

The C has VERY limited EV range. Something like a mile and a half under IDEAL conditions.....meaning absolutely full battery and I think maybe a little downhill grade too.
Oh, and going too fast is a problem too.

From my limited experience, my guess is you would have anywhere from a few feet to a half mile.
That is IF the computer logic would allow it to happen at all.

ALL the low fuel warnings come on with about 2 gallons left....gauge on E, low fuel light ON and ZERO miles showing on the cruising range.......so that actually running out would indicate either a really unusual set of conditions or real stupidity.

It will be interesting to see if any C owners have ever actually run out.

 

The idea is obvious - "No Problem! I'll just EV my way to the nearest gas station."

The realities are dire. You will toast your battery, fry your inverter, and your children will be born ugly(-ier) for three generations hence.

So don't try it. Pay attention and get gas earlier. Or, bite the bullet and pull over immediately should you actually run out of gas.

 

I ran my C out of gas once as I was trying to test the limit of the range. It ran dry near a gas station thankfully. I was able to drift into the station in neutral and get some gas.

Sad news though, once the car stopped due to being out of gas, I was not able to get it to start in EV mode to keep going. It just gave me an error message whenever I pressed the EV button.

 

I haven't run out, but having read from people that have, you need to put in more than 3 gallons of gas before you attempt to restart it, or codes will fire and disable the car.

 

Just to clarify about my experience, I filled up with less than 2 gallons due to the size of the gas can I had. The car started up fine, but I didn't try EV mode. I simply drove it to the pump and shut it off to fill it up all the way.

 

Interesting. Everything I've read says that the car has to have more than 3. Thanks for the info.

 

I ran out of gas while driving on a toll road a while back. You can feel the pedal going spongy/soft depending on your speed. I realized I was out of gas. The battery was fully charged, I exited and pulled into a gas station. Top speed in complete EV mode was 45. I didn't push it any faster seeing the battery draining rapidly. I had maybe 2 bars left on the battery before making it to the gas station approximately 1/2mile or so away. I was sweating bullets. It was truly the scariest couple of minutes of my life in my C.

 

Reminds me of Seinfeld where Kramer is taking the test drive on fumes - lol