STS134
Well-known member
We discussed this in the thread about CHAdeMO: https://www.myoutlanderphev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=4737&p=52342#p52342
How quickly does the battery drain when going up this slope? Well, recently did a test. Except this time, I didn't start with a full battery. I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to climb the slope with essentially an empty battery. So I left the vehicle in Normal mode the entire way down I-5, letting the computer hold the SoC at whatever value it wanted to. By the time I got to the Grapevine exit, I was at 26.1% SoC. In this particular case, instead of doing the climb at around 75-85 mph, I only did it at around 65-70, because I detected 34.7 GHz RADAR from a cop. By the time I passed the cop at 65 mph, SoC was down to around 20%, and I got the "propulsion power is reduced" message at around 19.5-19.8% SoC just 2 minutes and 5 seconds after passing the Grapevine exit and starting the climb. The ICE in this vehicle is so weak, I could only maintain about 60-70 mph up the grade even with the ICE operating at maximum power, once the batteries died. The grade from Grapevine to Lebec Road is 6%, and you can hear the frequent chimes from the computer, indicating that the car has no more power available and has limited propulsion. The 1500W inverter and climate controls all stopped working once SoC dropped into the low 20's, and never worked again until after the summit. Even in the area between Lebec Road and Frazier Park Mountain Road, which is relatively flat compared to the rest of the Grapevine grade, the car could only regain around 2% SoC before I had to climb again, and it quickly ran out of power again going up to the summit, and was unable to get past about 62 mph on the final climb. At around 10:35, I had finally had enough of the lack of power and got frustrated because unlike further down the slope, where my speed was being limited by traffic around me, I was now blocking traffic due to the lack of power.
Things to keep in mind:
- I slowed down because there was a cop on the early part of the climb, which meant that the battery didn't drain as quickly as it otherwise would have
- Traffic was moving slowly because there was water on the road in some spots
If it had been a more normal day, I would have consumed much more battery. Traffic in the left lanes here typically moves at around 75-80 mph, and if there's very little traffic, you can often go even faster. I've started at ~90% SoC (14/16 bars) and gone up at around 75-85 mph, and by the time I reached the summit, SoC was down to around 40%, battery temps were up to 34-36C on a cold day, and the gauge was showing 6-7 bars. All in around 8-9 minutes. So yeah, the Outlander PHEV needs a more powerful engine so it doesn't destroy its batteries. I'm honestly not sure how they can offer the warranty of 10 years/100k miles on this battery, because they're going to be doing a lot of warranty replacements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvRdDiCBX4Y
How quickly does the battery drain when going up this slope? Well, recently did a test. Except this time, I didn't start with a full battery. I wanted to see what would happen if I tried to climb the slope with essentially an empty battery. So I left the vehicle in Normal mode the entire way down I-5, letting the computer hold the SoC at whatever value it wanted to. By the time I got to the Grapevine exit, I was at 26.1% SoC. In this particular case, instead of doing the climb at around 75-85 mph, I only did it at around 65-70, because I detected 34.7 GHz RADAR from a cop. By the time I passed the cop at 65 mph, SoC was down to around 20%, and I got the "propulsion power is reduced" message at around 19.5-19.8% SoC just 2 minutes and 5 seconds after passing the Grapevine exit and starting the climb. The ICE in this vehicle is so weak, I could only maintain about 60-70 mph up the grade even with the ICE operating at maximum power, once the batteries died. The grade from Grapevine to Lebec Road is 6%, and you can hear the frequent chimes from the computer, indicating that the car has no more power available and has limited propulsion. The 1500W inverter and climate controls all stopped working once SoC dropped into the low 20's, and never worked again until after the summit. Even in the area between Lebec Road and Frazier Park Mountain Road, which is relatively flat compared to the rest of the Grapevine grade, the car could only regain around 2% SoC before I had to climb again, and it quickly ran out of power again going up to the summit, and was unable to get past about 62 mph on the final climb. At around 10:35, I had finally had enough of the lack of power and got frustrated because unlike further down the slope, where my speed was being limited by traffic around me, I was now blocking traffic due to the lack of power.
Things to keep in mind:
- I slowed down because there was a cop on the early part of the climb, which meant that the battery didn't drain as quickly as it otherwise would have
- Traffic was moving slowly because there was water on the road in some spots
If it had been a more normal day, I would have consumed much more battery. Traffic in the left lanes here typically moves at around 75-80 mph, and if there's very little traffic, you can often go even faster. I've started at ~90% SoC (14/16 bars) and gone up at around 75-85 mph, and by the time I reached the summit, SoC was down to around 40%, battery temps were up to 34-36C on a cold day, and the gauge was showing 6-7 bars. All in around 8-9 minutes. So yeah, the Outlander PHEV needs a more powerful engine so it doesn't destroy its batteries. I'm honestly not sure how they can offer the warranty of 10 years/100k miles on this battery, because they're going to be doing a lot of warranty replacements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvRdDiCBX4Y
