EV decreasing over time?

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ozy

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Not sure if I'm overreacting but my Clarity is about 15 months old and over the last week I have noticed no more than 33-35 EV range miles when I start my morning drive (after charging overnight). I am in So. Cal and the ambient temperature is in the high 60's to mid 70's. I am fairly sure about this range because I live exactly 33 miles from work (freeway only) and am used to getting to work and then having at least 15 miles of EV drive left. Now I find that as I pull up to my office the EV range has reached zero. Not sure what has happened because I always used to get about 47 miles EV.
 
ozy said:
Not sure what has happened because I always used to get about 47 miles EV.
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Remember that the range listed isn't an exact science - it's the car's estimation of what you might get based on what you've gotten recently. When most of my driving was in HV mode on the interstates my range always hovered in the 32-35 range. I recently spent 2 weeks driving locally, no faster than 35 mph, on very short journeys of 5 miles or fewer - all in EV mode and not recharging. When the range finally reached 0 I plugged it in overnight: The next morning the range read 48.2 miles. Then I drove about 110 miles on the interstate at 75 mph - half in HV, half in EV - and plugged it in when I got home. The next morning the range was 37 miles. I've had the Clarity for 7 months and have put nearly 10K miles on it - I've decided to not worry, let the car do what it wants to do, and take its range and mileage predictions as "suggestions," not gospel.
 
He’s not taking about projected range on the dashboard, he’s talking about actual range on a daily repeated 33 mile route. He has lost 15 actual miles. That’s a lot.

If that were my car, and my actual range on a daily repeated drive dropped from 48 to 33 over the course of 15 months, I would take it to the dealer for a battery capacity test to see if a measurable failure has occurred.
 
Happened to me, now average <32 miles (2 years old and 15000 miles, 2018). Planning a test next month during inspections. However I will make one slight observation based on the timing and where he lives (traffic). Is it possible, @ozy that with the drastic decrease in traffic during the recent covid deal that you are now able to drive a bit faster? If so, faster speeds will reduce overall range substantially. However, I would still recommend getting a free BCT at the dealer next time. If you didn't get the PDI then you need it either way. If you did, then you have a comparison. Battery Capacity and Degradation are very common topics on this forum. If you use the search there is a plethora of comments, opinions, data, and speculation.

Cheers,

Cash
 
That’s not a lot of range loss if he is used to sitting in stop and go traffic for a normal commute but is now going 75 mph in these traffic free covid times.
 
Agreed speed is everything. Stop and go range is much longer than sustained speed range. If speed it up due to Covid lack of traffic jams, indeed this might be expected. But if speed and number of stops is the same, it seems it would indicate some battery degradation.
 
Actually I agree that speed may be the issue. I am driving faster now than before the pandemic by at least 10 mph. I was not aware it could make such a big difference. I may try to test this assumption by deliberately driving somewhere more slowly and see if the EV range increases.
 
That’s the definite answer then. Forget what I said earlier about going to dealer. Toss a few fake traffic jams into your slow speed test there by slamming on the brakes and creeping along in the shoulder half a dozen times and l bet all your range comes back.
 
Other threads have mentioned checking the battery by measuring the amount of electricity to charge the battery.

I would suggest looking at how many kWh it takes to fully charge the battery. If it is over 12 kWh to charge the battery, then the battery is fine, and the range loss is elsewhere. If it is less than 9 kWh then go to the dealer and have the battery checked.
 
As a point of reference, when making a fairly regular round trip commute of 46 miles at 60-70mph, in similar temperatures, I am able to complete the drive in EV. Usually with a few miles remaining.

In heavy traffic there will be 10 or more miles of range remaining. The car is 9 months old with 9K miles.

At what speed have you been driving recently?
 
ozy said:
Actually I agree that speed may be the issue. I am driving faster now than before the pandemic by at least 10 mph. I was not aware it could make such a big difference. I may try to test this assumption by deliberately driving somewhere more slowly and see if the EV range increases.
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Driving 75 instead of 65, for example, has over 30% more aerodynamic drag. So you would need about the same amount of additional power to overcome it. Of course the Clarity has an ICE "highway" gear (HV), so it can actually be more efficient running the gas engine at higher speeds. That's because virtually all electric cars use a single low speed gear.
 
could be car/car difference but ours is over two years old and 30k miles and no apparent loss. Clearly where you drive (local/highway) makes a big difference and varies our predicted EV miles week to week.
 
All in all, I’d argue that the electric motor is more efficient than the ICE. It takes the same amount of energy to do the same job.

There is just more energy in 7 gallons of gasoline than there is in a 17kWh battery.
 
Landshark said:
As a point of reference, when making a fairly regular round trip commute of 46 miles at 60-70mph, in similar temperatures, I am able to complete the drive in EV. Usually with a few miles remaining.

In heavy traffic there will be 10 or more miles of range remaining. The car is 9 months old with 9K miles.

At what speed have you been driving recently?
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There is no question that I've been driving a lot faster than usual but haven't really been paying strict attention. I usually put on cruise control, get in the car pool lane and arrive at work 33 miles later. Perhaps for one or two commutes I will stay out of the car pool lane and deliberately set my cruise control to 70mph to test the EV range. It's entirely possible that I have been going way faster than usual since every lane is pretty much empty now.
 
Landshark said:
All in all, I’d argue that the electric motor is more efficient than the ICE. It takes the same amount of energy to do the same job.

There is just more energy in 7 gallons of gasoline than there is in a 17kWh battery.
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Yes, you are correct when you say the electric motor is more efficient. However, when the battery has to be recharged, they created the HV mode to chose the better efficiency mode, which sometimes means using the gas engine to drive the wheels mechanically, instead of the engine turning the generator to charge the battery (which then runs the electric motor).
 
Good point. I forgot and this drafting is very real, I didn’t realize his commute included stretches of high speed interstate. I have measured the drafting benefit many times in my ICE vehicles which show instant MPG values. I get a solid 20% to 25% more MPG when traveling in a dense pack at high speed, vs alone at high speed. Consistent and easily measurable. Heavy high speed traffic can be the equivalent of a steady 40mph tail wind just pushing you along, even on a calm day.
 
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