Maximum Range on Battery -- Comments

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I left home today with the EV range showing 35 miles. I was taking a trip 31 miles with an elevation change from 500 ft to 2,000 ft. The car ran out of juice about a mile short of my destination, so it got 30 miles. That was expected because of the uphill run.

On the way back the car was in Normal / Econ mode and toggled between EV and the ICE providing electric power to the wheels and battery. Every time the battery had some charge the car would switch back to EV. Pretty much like a normal hybrid.

When I got back to town I decided to fill the gas tank. Last fill up was Dec 20 after a long trip. Since then I've taken a couple of trips where the battery drained and the ICE ran for a very short time. Also my wife and I both noticed the ICE running for a few minutes for no particular reason around town. I suppose that is what the manual says is a maintenance check and normal.

A lot of people report their gas gauge is not accurate. Mine seems to be. Here is a photo of the gauge before I filled the tank today.
DSC03377-L.jpg
DSC03378-L.jpg


The car took 2.5 gallons of a 7 gallon tank. The center-point would be 3.5 gallons. I think that gauge is pretty accurate. There are 20 bars on the gas gauge. So each bar is 0.35 gallons. So 2.55 gallons is about 7 bars.

The cool thing is my HV range (which we all know to be a joke) bumped up to 1,000 miles after the fill up!
DSC03383-L.jpg


By the way the cars Odometer indicates 3,691 miles. I don't know what our calculated mpg would be, but it's pretty high.
 
You are now the second person in the 1k club. Congrats! I'm hoping to maybe join after our next fill up, whenever that may be.
 
jdonalds said:
I left home today with the EV range showing 35 miles. I was taking a trip 31 miles with an elevation change from 500 ft to 2,000 ft. The car ran out of juice about a mile short of my destination, so it got 30 miles. That was expected because of the uphill run.

On the way back the car was in Normal / Econ mode and toggled between EV and the ICE providing electric power to the wheels and battery. Every time the battery had some charge the car would switch back to EV. Pretty much like a normal hybrid.

When I got back to town I decided to fill the gas tank. Last fill up was Dec 20 after a long trip. Since then I've taken a couple of trips where the battery drained and the ICE ran for a very short time. Also my wife and I both noticed the ICE running for a few minutes for no particular reason around town. I suppose that is what the manual says is a maintenance check and normal.

A lot of people report their gas gauge is not accurate. Mine seems to be. Here is a photo of the gauge before I filled the tank today.
DSC03377-L.jpg
DSC03378-L.jpg


The car took 2.5 gallons of a 7 gallon tank. The center-point would be 3.5 gallons. I think that gauge is pretty accurate. There are 20 bars on the gas gauge. So each bar is 0.35 gallons. So 2.55 gallons is about 7 bars.

The cool thing is my HV range (which we all know to be a joke) bumped up to 1,000 miles after the fill up!
DSC03383-L.jpg


By the way the cars Odometer indicates 3,691 miles. I don't know what our calculated mpg would be, but it's pretty high.
Click to expand...
I’ve always contended that the graphical gasoline display on the right, is reasonably accurate as you’ve found. OTOH, the similar graphical electric charge gauge on the left is not. I think most owners have agreed. The numerical gasoline range (HV) is wildly inaccurate, but the numerical electric range is reasonably accurate. So there’s a distinct difference in the accuracy of these 4 informational sources of range. Two are acceptably accurate and two are not.

BTW, congrats on joining the 1,000 mile range club. You and I obviously have the best cars in our group. I feel badly for the others. ;)
 
BD8836A7-2E34-4375-B91C-AB8CD91761E9.webp At end of 2nd week of ownership got 55.8 indicated EV Miles after charging at a public AeroVironment Level 2 30 amp charger. If car is basing this on previous driving and temperatures then here were the conditions. No A/C or heat used. Fan occasionally used on low. Headlights used about 15% of driving. No ICE usage yet. Temps from 42 to 58. Normal driving/acceleration. 80/20 city/hwy.
I’ll be sad to see hot weather and A/C usage bring this down.
Can anybody beat 55.8?
 
I can't live that far away from you, assuming you are actually in Kentucky, and I haven't seen it higher than 42 miles.
 
I actually live in Lexington. And I think I’m benefiting from a history that’s almost 100% without non motive battery usage. Bet it goes down w A/C usage this summer. Will have to wait and see how much from this rather high baseline.
 
I am in Cincinnati. North of you, but not that much North. I'm surprised you hit that much above 50. I'd love to just hit the 47 mile range the car is supposed to have for the first time. For what it's worth, the range of our Leaf doesn't suffer much from AC use or heat in the summer. You would have to get to Arizona-type heat to have issues.
 
Ken7 said:
I’ve always contended that the graphical gasoline display on the right, is reasonably accurate as you’ve found. OTOH, the similar graphical electric charge gauge on the left is not. I think most owners have agreed. The numerical gasoline range (HV) is wildly inaccurate, but the numerical electric range is reasonably accurate. So there’s a distinct difference in the accuracy of these 4 informational sources of range. Two are acceptably accurate and two are not.

BTW, congrats on joining the 1,000 mile range club. You and I obviously have the best cars in our group. I feel badly for the others. ;)
Click to expand...

Can't wait until next fill up. It's been a month… and the gauge still shows far more than half a tank. Maybe next month.
 
I am getting around 52 miles of range and I use A/C because I live in Florida. I do drive fairly gingerly and the temps this week have been 65-70. Since ownership, I have only used 3.5 gallons of gas. My vehicle was delivered with a 1/2 tank of gas and I drove that until empty (the car wasn't charged when I took delivery), but logged right around 700 miles. After my first fill-up (just under 7 gallons), I reset my Trip B meter and have logged over 750 miles on electric and my engine started once for about 3 miles (I think) - If it has engaged at other times, I was not aware. My gas needle indicates full (all bars are lit) and over 600 miles of HV remain. In a nutshell, I have used only 3.5 gallons of gas since ownership and sit at over 1400 miles. Not shabby.
 
I bow down to the EV mileage master!
But how in the world did you get your HV so low as to read in a normal believable range?
Mine started at 368 with only 40 miles in odometer when I bought it.
 
KentuckyKen said:
I bow down to the EV mileage master!
But how in the world did you get your HV so low as to read in a normal believable range?
Mine started at 368 with only 40 miles in odometer when I bought it.
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Sorry - that is only for the slightly less than 1/2 tank when taking the picture. I decided not to fill up after the last long range trip and try to bleed down the old gas for a more complete take of fresh fuel.

When I refill, it will jump well into the 400-500 range.
 
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