Outlander PHEV in the cold weather

[elm70]

Hi,

I just notice a massive reduction in EV range with very cold weather (-13C in the morning trip, and -5C in the return trip)

In this condition, plus the 20min pre-heating (with car connected to charger) .. I can manage at best 25km in EV mode, when in ideal weather conditions I get around 45km

Strange enough the PHEVwatchDog, report similar power consumption for my trip : 25kwh/100km vs 21kwh/100km

Looking at the "Dog" while driving, I notice something very interesting ... my voltage per cell in the return trip with just 40/50kw power request .. does goes as low as 3.3v :shock:

Making a quick maths ... with a battery that should have over 3.8v ... down to 3.3v .. is 0.5v lost ..that multiplies by 150A (the current needed for generate 40/50kw power in our battery pack) .. it is a lost of 75w per cell .. multiples by 80cells ... this is 6kw of power lost ... so well over 10% of energy lost which is totally ignored by the "dog"

I did not try to measure the voltage drop with temperature below -10C , and I did not try to check how much further the voltage can drop, keeping 40/50kw of power request for longer then just 1km ...

So 3.3v is even a conservative voltage drop .. in reality the voltage drop can be even more

I'm wondering if there is any logic in the car that below 3.X voltage (or below 2.X voltage) ... the ICE need to start for support the battery .. anybody notice if there is a low voltage level that independently by SOC kick in the ICE ?

In my case I did notice that as soon as I reach ---km of EV range ... but even sometime with only 1km of EV range, I get the ICE starting even if I do my best for keep low the power consumption ... (in normal condition I can manage to go below 30% SOC, to the 26/27% limit)

Thanks

e_lm_70

PS: I also notice that the ICE kick in is quite "shy" .. my PHEV try to start the ICE "slowly" .. it takes around 1 minutes if not even more before the ICE can be used in parallel mode ... and even by starting in serial it does start at very low rpm ... apparently intermittently in the first "seconds"

PPS: In the past where I'm living I had as low as -22C in the morning .. but thanks to global warming this is not happening since over 6 years now ... so .. in theory I could experience even more extreme situation compared to the "mild" -13C temperature

 

[jaapv]

All batteries lose capacity in the cold. They will stop to function at all at temperatures below -20ºC to - 30ºC. The new Jaguar EV SUV will have a heating system to work down to -40ºC, though. You'll notice that the colder it gets the more the car will depend on the ICE. The ICE supplements the heater too.
If your car has electrical heating it will divert quite a bit of energy there as well.

 

[maby]

I don't have the instrumentation to do the measurements that you are making, but you don't surprise me. Even when it was just a few months old with a virtually unused battery, the EV range of our PHEV was significantly reduced in the winter - and I'm talking about southern England winters, not continental. The first winter we had it, at temperatures just below zero, the range would be about 16 miles - on a car that was demonstrably able to do close to 30 miles in the warm weather just a few months earlier.

So, you do not surprise me at all when you say that your car is low on range at -13!

 

[elm70]

All batteries lose capacity in the cold. They will stop to function at all at temperatures below -20ºC to - 30ºC. The new Jaguar EV SUV will have a heating system to work down to -40ºC, though. You'll notice that the colder it gets the more the car will depend on the ICE. The ICE supplements the heater too.
If your car has electrical heating it will divert quite a bit of energy there as well.

I still manage to charge over 8.5kwh in my PHEV in the cold

I'm not sure there is less capacity in winter .. it is the high IR that cause less "performance" ... battery capacity in Ah I believe is same both in hot and cold days ... just that voltage drop is possibly 10% more .. that mean 10% less power and 10% less usable kwh

 

[RossWilliams]

AH ratings are based on the energy the battery will produce under a set load over a set period of time under set conditions, including temperature. Change any of those set factors and the AH rating will change. Usually the stated rating is with a fixed load that will drain the battery over 20 hours at 72F. But its important to realize that a heavier load will not only reduce the time, but the total output. In other words the AH rating will be lower for a shorter period of time under a heavier load. Temperature changes have even more significant impacts. A warmer temperature will give you a higher AH rating and a lower temperatures will produce a lower AH rating.