Range decrease due to cold weather [merged thread]

[Rolfe]

Mine drops 2% of battery if I pre-heat.

 

[stevegus]

Mine drops 2% of battery if I pre-heat.

That is my experience on an SE LR

 

[AB71]

86 miles I got on 100% when it was cold last week. She’s currently charging in drive on home charger and says she’ll be full to 227 miles (? Idk) by 1740 today.
Fed up of the damn car slamming on and giving me a heart attack when the mood takes it. The biggest worry I had about this car hasn’t even occurred the LKA.
Haven’t even been able visit family in York as it slows down and a turtle (just like that actually) appears and says speed power limited which was great fun on the 60mph dual carriageway yday when I couldn’t get up past 28mph.
Hate the damn car Hate hate hate it

Oh and I can’t connect the new MGisart app for love nor money. I’m in , but won’t give me vehicle status anything, vehicle position , nothing, which I’m hoping will change once she (if she ) charges to 100% today.

Hope you had all had a lovely Christmas

 

[Tara Jane]

I normally charge my MG4 Trophy to 80% and at the end of the month carry out 100% balancing charge. Carried this out yesterday and my range as reduced to 196 miles at 100%. Not sure whats going on. When I got the car new in June it was at 100% with a range of 280 miles. Normally I have at least 250 miles range when fully charged. Anybody else have a range drop off?

Yes, literally everyone.
I took it to the dealer and they told me basically every person who bought an EV this year has come in saying exactly the same thing.
It’s winter, that’s precisely what they expect to happen in winter.
And yes… by that much or even more.
Been through it all with them already.

 

[MG4ORR]

I have one query Janner Kebab about how you do your equalisation charge? Personally I find after charging to 100% using Zappi has ended, I still need to use the Granny charger to complete equalisation. It takes about an extra 20 minutes.

 

[Archev]

Yes, literally everyone.
I took it to the dealer and they told me basically every person who bought an EV this year has come in saying exactly the same thing.
It’s winter, that’s precisely what they expect to happen in winter.
And yes… by that much or even more.
Been through it all with them already.

“My, my, my my my

Says the umpteenth Dino guy

What about the range ?”

“Time you let that record change

I’ve a long range five

I just jump in and drive”

 

[jrbeire]

86 miles I got on 100% when it was cold last week. She’s currently charging in drive on home charger and says she’ll be full to 227 miles (? Idk) by 1740 today.
Fed up of the damn car slamming on and giving me a heart attack when the mood takes it. The biggest worry I had about this car hasn’t even occurred the LKA.
Haven’t even been able visit family in York as it slows down and a turtle (just like that actually) appears and says speed power limited which was great fun on the 60mph dual carriageway yday when I couldn’t get up past 28mph.
Hate the damn car Hate hate hate it

Oh and I can’t connect the new MGisart app for love nor money. I’m in , but won’t give me vehicle status anything, vehicle position , nothing, which I’m hoping will change once she (if she ) charges to 100% today.

Hope you had all had a lovely Christmas

If you mean that the car power limits above 60 mph/ 100 kph - then that‘s a known fault and you need to get your dealer to apply the latest integrated control management system and battery management firmware updates pronto. Several threads on here about this issue.

 

[seaphantom]

I normally charge my MG4 Trophy to 80% and at the end of the month carry out 100% balancing charge. Carried this out yesterday and my range as reduced to 196 miles at 100%. Not sure whats going on. When I got the car new in June it was at 100% with a range of 280 miles. Normally I have at least 250 miles range when fully charged. Anybody else have a range drop off?

Yup I have exactly the same thing going on with my mg4 as well. It’s a real kick in the nuts. About 1/3 of the range gone.

 

[Moped]

Indeed, I have to say that overall range is much less relevant if you can charge at home. I think the SR battery would have been enough for my needs, however, we did want the Trophy spec, which isn't available in the UK without the LR battery.

The first thing that my friends bring up when they ask about life with an EV is range. One said to me the other day they "had to have" 280 miles to cover a round trip dropping/collecting offspring to university that they do 6 times a year.

When I questioned "why can't you stop for a break to recharge for 30 minutes?", they had no answer. Of course they could, the journey wasn't time critical. But they had in their mind that they had to do this without charging/stopping because that's what they normally did.

All of this was making them focus on expensive ER cars - and the uni trip needs will only exist for another 2 years anyway.

There's a lot of fear of range out there because of ignorance about how easy it is to charge en-route.

I wish it was. No cellphone network, chargers not working, chargers well hidden, apps down etc. If recharging was as easy as refuelling, there wouldn't be an issue. But currently, each charging on the go is a small adventure which prevents me from having fun.

 

[gazza487]

My SE SR is down to about 150 full indicated. Heater, rain and motorway use before charge - yeah she is guzzling the electrons. Thankfully the British Gas debacle is done with getting to that lovely place of 9p/kwh at night plus work charging.

 

[siteguru]

Mine's the same this time of year. @Rolfe's is likewise I believe.

 

[gazza487]

Mine's the same this time of year. @Rolfe's is likewise I believe.

Does seem so and saw Rolfes reply too.

I wonder just how much difference a heat pump would have made. Any word from our offshore brethren who have them ?

 

[conky5050]

I normally charge my MG4 Trophy to 80% and at the end of the month carry out 100% balancing charge. Carried this out yesterday and my range as reduced to 196 miles at 100%. Not sure whats going on. When I got the car new in June it was at 100% with a range of 280 miles. Normally I have at least 250 miles range when fully charged. Anybody else have a range drop off?

Exactly same here seemingly after 6/9 months the battery loses Range on 100% charge perishing the thought after 2 years 100% charge will be less than 90 miles range at this stage ? it’s not the weather but the battery d cell fading rapidly I’ve noticed I got to work daily ? Only 9 miles away ? Now my battery lost over 23 miles Range. It’s either my Work location as charged or the battery fully charged is losing 23 miles on a 9 mile designated trip ?

 

[gazza487]

Exactly same here seemingly after 6/9 months the battery loses Range on 100% charge perishing the thought after 2 years 100% charge will be less than 90 miles range at this stage ? it’s not the weather but the battery d cell fading rapidly I’ve noticed I got to work daily ? Only 9 miles away ? Now my battery lost over 23 miles Range. It’s either my Work location as charged or the battery fully charged is losing 23 miles on a 9 mile designated trip ?

Temperature, weather and how you are driving affect the guess o meter. It was still warm but I noticed rain on the motorway dropped my range assuming having to work harder clearing the water. I don’t think the batteries are degrading, more that they are under more load in cold conditions. My heater definitely saps more than the AC. Motorway driving seems to gobble more electrons for me.

Come the warm weather and I think it’ll be back to normal.

I recall years ago as a kid my dad putting AA batteries on the warm grill to extract a little more out of them for some toy or Walkman, just haven’t got a grill big enough for the car.

 

[Starplots]

The EV Database gives more realistic estimates. It’s in km by default, you can change this to miles at the top of the screen

EV Database

A complete overview of all electric vehicles in Europe. Search and compare by range, make, model and price.

ev-database.org

I also see some ICE drivers saying they don’t lose range in cold weather, actually they do but they don’t tend to look at the fuel usage, they just top up and blame the price per litre and often don’t realise they’re filling up more often!

 

[STJ73]

My trophy LR has been excellent so far this winter with a average of around 250 miles per charge and that's with the heating on! I can't charge at home so I only use public charging ( apart from it only charging to 97% all the time ) I never charge below 22kwh and on average between 50kwh-150kwh!! It's been spot on and I'm very happy with the range!

 

[lsb777]

Unfortunately it seems a lot of people go into EV driving without any research and/or poor info from dealerships. Anyone with a mobile phone surely knows that if they sit and watch YouTube all day it'll drain the battery faster than just moderate usage. That's batteries for you! Use the predicted range figure as an approx only (I hate the usage of GOM - companies spend millions to try and use algorithms and efficiency/topography etc to calculate estimated range and people just refer to it like it's totally made up). Check your current efficiency which is based on how you're driving and what extras you're using like HVAC and multiply this by the usable battery, this is far more accurate in my 10 years of EV driving experience.

 

[Rolfe]

The EV Database gives more realistic estimates. It’s in km by default, you can change this to miles at the top of the screen

EV Database

A complete overview of all electric vehicles in Europe. Search and compare by range, make, model and price.

ev-database.org

I also see some ICE drivers saying they don’t lose range in cold weather, actually they do but they don’t tend to look at the fuel usage, they just top up and blame the price per litre and often don’t realise they’re filling up more often!

Idiots. I always knew I lost range in the winter, although I couldn't have told you by what percentage. I remember some petrolhead lecturing me that petrol burns more efficiently at lower temperatures, and me saying, I don't care, there is some other factor at work that more than negates that effect. I think it might be oil viscosity.

Maybe I was unusual in paying a lot of attention to the GOM in my ICE car.

 

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

Idiots. I always knew I lost range in the winter, although I couldn't have told you by what percentage. I remember some petrolhead lecturing me that petrol burns more efficiently at lower temperatures, and me saying, I don't care, there is some other factor at work that more than negates that effect. I think it might be oil viscosity.

Maybe I was unusual in paying a lot of attention to the GOM in my ICE car.

Oil viscosity definitely affects ICE vehicles.
In the snowy winter of 1982/3, I was on a bus that ground to a halt because the cold had "jellified" its diesel.

 

[Archev]

Oil viscosity definitely affects ICE vehicles.
In the snowy winter of 1982/3, I was on a bus that ground to a halt because the cold had "jellified" its diesel.

Yeah in the good old days I remember seeing TV news reports showing fires lit under truck diesel tanks. I used to have the impossible dream of an electric vehicle (the dream usually went crazy about then and I imagined the TV pictures being coloured )