No, It’s Real: EV Range Down

I remember a while after we bought our first, gen-2 Prius, I slowly noticed the mileage gradually dropping. I was mystified until the TPMS light turned on, and then ... “oh, like duuuuuh!!” One gloriously refreshing forehead-slapping session later (haha), I pumped up the tires and all was fine again.

I do need to check where the tires are on our P.Prime, though. It’s been a month or two since I checked them, admittedly. Thanks for the further prodding!

However, they’re probably not down by much, since it’s still reporting on the order of 4.7MPKWh, and most importantly, I know for sure that it’s been *charging* less, not using particularly much, if any, more.

I don’t have any power-consumption monitoring on our home charger, but ChargePoint, including at work, does, and whenever I arrive at work with effectively an empty battery (say, 0.3 miles or less), I make a point to check how much it charges to “full.”

It used to charge 6 to 6.3KWh. At its lowest, it fell to charging only 4.8KWh, but it’s back up to ~5.5KWh now.

 

Finally checked them yesterday morning. They were down further than I expected, although still not much: they were down to the door-jam numbers, whereas I prefer to over-inflate by 5ish PSI.

Either way though, it’s definitely not charging as much as it used to though, but still enough to get me to most of the places I need to go to entirely on EV.

This morning my wife asked me to drop her off somewhere on the way to work. I kicked in HV for the shortest time I could, at 60ish MPH, where it should run very efficiently. Ah, me of little faith: Turns out I highly likely would have made it to work entire on EV. Oh well, not a tragedy; probably only burned a quart or so...

 

Interesting question; I can’t recall for certain, but probably somewhere around 15Kmiles.

I don’t know how to answer MPG since I nearly always drive on EV.


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So, if you mean the cumulative MPG over the entire life of the car up to the point when it dropped, as opposed to, say, specifically during the month when it dropped, then, yeah, sure. (It would be just the proverbial ballpark estimate, but...)

By that time, I think I’d refilled about 2.5 tankfuls (three road trips), plus the tank that came with it. On top of that, I’d guess I’d put a half tank total on my adding of a couple gallons every 2-3 months. So something like 4 tanks, which I guess would come out to somewhere vaguely in the 350MPG range.

 

Again, probably closer to 15Kish, best I can recall, but indeed, not what I would have expected.

I gather that Bob Wilson has seen a fairly similar drop on his Prime at around the same time, although I believe he got his several months earlier than we got ours.

It hasn’t gone down since then, and in fact has recovered a little bit, typically charging 5.5ish KWh per charge. At it’s lowest point that number was more like 4.8KWh per charge, according to ChargePoint.

It is still getting the claimed 25 miles per charge though, and is enough to get me to work, charge at work, and then drive back, all on EV. So, not what I’d have liked to see, but the battery still does what I need from it, and it hasn’t gotten worse, yet at least...


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Good info, thanks.

Like many of us here, I was originally seeing more like 6.2KWh per charge. That, until it was ... oh, a year and a couple months or so ... old, and it dropped in two distinct steps, as I reported earlier.


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Glad to hear it!

FWIW, our home charger a, ClipperCreek LCS-30P, doesn’t report KWh charged either, but ChargePoint does.

 

Actually, I was referring mostly to the public charging stations, but yes, ChargePoint home stations hace some great features.

Unfortunately, I have a 30A circuit (nominally dryer) that I’m legally only allowed to load to 80% (24A), and ChargePoint doesn’t offer (or at least didn’t at the time) a 24A charger.

Then again, although not “fancy,” our ClipperCreek LCS-30P has been very straight-forward, rugged, and reliable.

 

Here’s hoping it stays that way for you, unlike me...

 

Same here...