EV range on full charge lower than expected

[Morg]

After fully charged overnight from a wall socket, my PHEV's EV range is shown as 42km. I expect a full charge to show a range of 52km, and then reduce according to driving style (i.e. I don't expect to always get 52km if I drive fast or have aircon on or whatever, but it should at least start at 100% potential range, instead of 80%). The car is less than a month old with about 1700km driven, so there should not be any battery capacity deterioration. What range do you guys get when starting the car after a full charge?

 

[paa451843]

41 km is completely normal.
The range calculation is adaptive so you have to achieve 50 km in real before it shows 50 km.

 

[jaapv]

And you have to drive d*mn carefully in moderate temperatures with the airco etc off and slipstreaming trucks to get considerably beyond those 40 anyway.

 

[sgf]

Yes, I have been getting approximately 41 km or 25 miles on full charge, although periodically it says something like 81 km range on full charge although then it quickly drops to under 40km in a couple of kilometres. Why does it periodically show 81, 82, or 71 km range if it learns my habits?

I have been a bit disappointed with the range but would have been happy if I knew beforehand - a lovely car otherwise. I really think that Mitsubishi are doing themselves a disservice by falsely advertising the range.

 

[jaapv]

These numbers should be consumed with extreme scepsis. I get driving ranges displayed between 28 and 65 kms, yet the car performs similarly. The cause is that the consumption over the last few kms is taken as a parameter.
As for the actual EV range: the same applies as to the numbers for fuel consumption in general. They are measured to an uniform standard across the industry and are useful for comparison between cars, but not as a norm for everyday driving.

 

[gwatpe]

My driving experience to has been affected by the crude way the PHEV calculates the range on battery.

I live in a regional zone in Australia and the PHEV has to work with stop start city driving as well as highway and steep paved,windy, hilly conditions, in addition to local town travel. My car is just over a month old and has now more than 2500km, half of which is local EV only driving and half is trips to the city. A typical round trip drive to the city involves approx 80km of windy and hilly roads, with approx 80km of highway and 50km of city driving. The hilly and windy roads are at the start and end of the trip.

I have recorded up to 85km range on battery after recharging from my Solar Powered House supply. I recharge from my house solar supply as the cost of GRID power point recharging is more expensive than the car can make electricity itself from petrol.

If the car is driven the 40 or so km on EV only each time and then recharged fully from a power outlet then all works according to the brochures. The car does not seem to account for additional recharge from the petrol ICE, used in range calcs. I believe that there is a fault in the way the car calculates the battery range.

In a typical drive to the city, approx 40km of electric range has to be replaced to the battery following the city and hilly and windy driving, before the hilly and windy drive home is reached. The car works best with at least 50% indicated battery capacity prior to the windy and hilly section. The highway sections allow the battery to be recharged enough, prior to, and from the city section.

The PHEV is a great concept and functionally fulfills a role of city EV and highway and EV track driving. Unfortunately the present calculations of range only seem to work for city EV driving. Have not tested 4WD yet, but suspect the range calcs will be in error here as well. I believe that a better use of the displays would be to have the remaining kWh in the battery while the car is stationary and the calculated range based on some averaging and the remaining kWh and the road speed while moving. Similar calcs for petrol would need to be worked out.

It would be nice to have displays that reflect the driving at the time, and not how the car was driven yesterday.

Hopefully Mitsubishi can work on this problem and get a fix in a software update soon. Would be useful to fix some of the recharge cost screens, that graph daily and monthly recharge $ cost as well. Maybe a new topic for discussion.

 

[jaapv]

There is a battery state display in the middle, between the two dials.
There is quite elaborate information displayed in the MMCS. However, it seems rather difficult to me to have a predictive range display, as the car cannot know what driving conditions are ahead.

 

[user 258]

I tend to only view the EV range out of curiosity. I just judge my range depending on the amount of electrons left in the tank i.e. third tank = 8-10 miles, half tank = 12-15 miles.

Kind regards,
Mark

 

[jaapv]

In daily use I pay little attention to these things, I just top up electricity and (sometimes) petrol as required. One thing I have learnt over the last 20.000+ kms: If I drive the car without thinking about frugal driving and such, only use the save button to exhaust all electricity wisely and use regenerative braking from time to time, I get far better economy than when I start working the paddles and buttons all the time.

 

[maddogsetc]

In daily use I pay little attention to these things, I just top up electricity and (sometimes) petrol as required. One thing I have learnt over the last 20.000+ kms: If I drive the car without thinking about frugal driving and such, only use the save button to exhaust all electricity wisely and use regenerative braking from time to time, I get far better economy than when I start working the paddles and buttons all the time.

I suspect you are absolutely right jaapv - it's a bit like golf, the more you try to think about what you're doing the less likely you are to get good results. Then again, I am an absolutely atrocious golfer :lol:

 

[thegurio]

Snippy, snippy

I have recorded up to 85km range on battery after recharging from my Solar Powered House supply. I recharge from my house solar supply as the cost of GRID power point recharging is more expensive than the car can make electricity itself from petrol.

...snippy, snippy.

If you don't mind me asking, where on earth are you gwatpe? We live just out of Hobart, on a similar setup, so it's interesting reading your comments, but what are you paying for your electricity??? We pay $0.11 in summer, and $0.16 in winter (thieving b@$7@rds) and for me, it's about half the cost of fuel, and I thought we were being ripped...

 

[gwatpe]

Re the cost to buy electricity.

Where I live the Networks charge a peak rate of $0.42 per kWh. OFFpeak charging of electric cars is sort of under the table, and not available to me. The car if used normally, with recharging daily will push the electricity purchased up into a higher cost bracket. In Summer this is expected to increase to $0.48 per kWh.

My PHEV averages around $0.10 per km on petrol alone. Car has 12kWh and has approx 40km range, so approx 0.3kWh/km. This equates to about $0.16/km.

Solar is essentially free when available, as I only recharge the car with surplus.

 

[ufo]

Snippy, snippy

I have recorded up to 85km range on battery after recharging from my Solar Powered House supply. I recharge from my house solar supply as the cost of GRID power point recharging is more expensive than the car can make electricity itself from petrol.

...snippy, snippy.

If you don't mind me asking, where on earth are you gwatpe? We live just out of Hobart, on a similar setup, so it's interesting reading your comments, but what are you paying for your electricity??? We pay $0.11 in summer, and $0.16 in winter (thieving b@$7@rds) and for me, it's about half the cost of fuel, and I thought we were being ripped...

U r bloody lucky, we are paying $ 0.30 in Sydney full year around and keeps increasing and I don't think they will reduce it because carbon tax is repelled. :evil:

 

[thegurio]

If you don't mind me asking, where on earth are you gwatpe? We live just out of Hobart, on a similar setup, so it's interesting reading your comments, but what are you paying for your electricity??? We pay $0.11 in summer, and $0.16 in winter (thieving b@$7@rds) and for me, it's about half the cost of fuel, and I thought we were being ripped...

U r bloody lucky, we are paying $ 0.30 in Sydney full year around and keeps increasing and I don't think they will reduce it because carbon tax is repelled. :evil:

Ok, I might stop complaining about it now... It generally costs me about $1.40 to 'fill up', and where i live I can generally get about 28-30 k's our of it if I warm it up before I leave.