Advice on range please

[Frank]

Guys,

I keep saying this and ALL the battery gurus shoot me down but I have had EVS for 3 years and always plug it in EVERY night to my Home charger no matter what the SOC. Do not have or need a battery charging regime, just plug it in when you are finished for the day.

I have never had ANY balancing or 12v battery problems. As they say in Scotland (just plug it in and that) let the BMS do its job and the warranty deal with any issues.

Frank

(A very stress free charger)

 

[Gwynfor Hughes]

Looks like the way forward then at least until I get the voltage up.

 

[JodyS21]

Thank you.
So my home charger is sufficient.
Normally I put the car on charge when range is down to 50.
My daily trips are normally around town 20 miles or so. Therefore I charge about once a week.
Would you recommend more frequent charging in order to undertake the balancing and hopefully rectify the problem?

Look up the BMS threads on this forum, there is lots & lots of info on this there.

If your fully charged voltage is less than say 448v, you need to do as much balancing as possible to recover the battery.
Balancing takes hours - about 10 hours to recover each 1 volt lost roughly.

To fix the above, you need to plug it in every day really/leave all night charging.
It will only start a balance process once it's charged to 100%.
Once the balance process has started it will only run for a max of about 10 hours before the car needs using a bit and then recharging to start the whole process off again.

So basically, plug it in when you've finished using the car every evening, leave it charging/balancing all night. Repeat this every day until your fully charged voltage has stabilised (at either 450v or 455v). You may need to do this for 2 weeks or so if you're currently showing 441volts.

 

[Kithmo]

Your 198 miles to start with, is unrealistic. I suspect you were in Eco mode to get that reading on the GOM.
Normal mode gives a more realistic range, but if you want to see a worst case scenario, put the car in Sport mode and turn the heat and/or AC on full and take a note of what the GOM says. Then put it back in to whatever mode and HVAC setting you normally drive at to continue on your journey, knowing that the reading you took will be exceeded.

 

[mj224]

I had the same problem with my November 20 car. Fully charged, the voltage was as low as 436 I think. Panda Motors did the BMS update for me, and after a couple of months charging on my7kw charger at home, the voltage is now 449v, and the mileage range is good circa160 miles.

Yes I would charge it more frequently than "Needed", to allow the balancing to get a grip.

Not a criticism, but 40mph on a motorway is dangerous I believe. Personally, I drive at a minimum of 60mph, and usually at 65mph on the motorway, just to keep up with most of the other traffic. I know it uses more power, but safety is more important than economy. IMHO..

 

[Gwynfor Hughes]

All starting to make sense.
Yes I will look up these forums later as advised.
My Rolec home charging system is connected to my app for off peak charging with Octopus Go Faster only during the designated times.
The way forward for the next few weeks is to use the granny charger to ensure the balancing takes place.
Thank you Jody.

 

[Gwynfor Hughes]

I had the same problem with my November 20 car. Fully charged, the voltage was as low as 436 I think. Panda Motors did the BMS update for me, and after a couple of months charging on my7kw charger at home, the voltage is now 449v, and the mileage range is good circa160 miles.

Yes I would charge it more frequently than "Needed", to allow the balancing to get a grip.

Not a criticism, but 40mph on a motorway is dangerous I believe. Personally, I drive at a minimum of 60mph, and usually at 65mph on the motorway, just to keep up with most of the other traffic. I know it uses more power, but safety is more important than economy. IMHO..

It was 3 o clock in the morning and hardly a car on the road.
Not making excuses but we were on our way home from holidays foolishly I had no experience of charging with public chargers.
The range was dropping significantly and I feared breakdown.
Easy to be wise in the cold light of day.
That trip was a steep learning curve for me. I made a number of mistakes of which I've learned from hopefully.

 

[macd2401]

On the upside, you don't need to run the battery down low before doing a charge/balance cycle. If you're doing 20 miles per day, plug it in when you get home. By all means, schedule the bulk of the actual charging during the low rate, then let the balancing carry on during the more expensive times, and at least it won't cost a huge amount. Also, if you've got access to any free charging when you're out and about, supermarkets for example, take advantage of those, so you're spending more time at home balancing instead of charging.

 

[Gwynfor Hughes]

Your 198 miles to start with, is unrealistic. I suspect you were in Eco mode to get that reading on the GOM.
Normal mode gives a more realistic range, but if you want to see a worst case scenario, put the car in Sport mode and turn the heat and/or AC on full and take a note of what the GOM says. Then put it back in to whatever mode and HVAC setting you normally drive at to continue on your journey, knowing that the reading you took will be exceeded.

Good advice. Thanks.

On the upside, you don't need to run the battery down low before doing a charge/balance cycle. If you're doing 20 miles per day, plug it in when you get home. By all means, schedule the bulk of the actual charging during the low rate, then let the balancing carry on during the more expensive times, and at least it won't cost a huge amount. Also, if you've got access to any free charging when you're out and about, supermarkets for example, take advantage of those, so you're spending more time at home balancing instead of charging.

Thanks again for all advice.

 

[JodyS21]

All starting to make sense.
Yes I will look up these forums later as advised.
My Rolec home charging system is connected to my app for off peak charging with Octopus Go Faster only during the designated times.
The way forward for the next few weeks is to use the granny charger to ensure the balancing takes place.
Thank you Jody.

Granny charger or Rolec will do the balance. Personally I'd recommend using your fast AC Rolec charger otherwise you'll be waiting longer for it to reach fully charged before it can then start the balance process.

As @macd2401 has said, do the bulk of your charging during off-peak, let it do the balance whenever - it uses minimal power to balance so doesn't cost anything really whilst doing that.

I have Octopus Go, off-peak 00:30 - 04:30.
So I have my setup to start the charge at 00:30 and then carry on until about 14:00. That way as much charging as possible is done during the off-peak period (it can add about 90miles to the car during those 4 hours), then it can balance for pretty much as long as it wants (or until I unplug it the next day to use it).
This is how you should setup yours to get your battery balanced as quick as possible and using off-peak rate as much as is possible.
(Once it's balanced, I would recommend usually charging for just your off-peak period - unless you need a 100% charge, then say on 1 day each week have it setup to charge as long as it wants to get a balance done regularly)

 

[Dr Dave]

All starting to make sense.
Yes I will look up these forums later as advised.
My Rolec home charging system is connected to my app for off peak charging with Octopus Go Faster only during the designated times.
The way forward for the next few weeks is to use the granny charger to ensure the balancing takes place.
Thank you Jody.

There is no need to use granny charger for balancing. Your Rolec will also balance the car. I have never used my granny charger to either charge or balance my car it is in my garage as a backup in case my Rolec ever becomes faulty.

 

[jamesie]

There is no need to use granny charger for balancing. Your Rolec will also balance the car. I have never used my granny charger to either charge or balance my car it is in my garage as a backup in case my Rolec ever becomes faulty.

Suggest you try it at least once to ensure it works.

 

[Gwynfor Hughes]

Thanks Dr David, Jody and everyone else for all the advice.

 

[Gomev]

Thank you.
So my home charger is sufficient.
Normally I put the car on charge when range is down to 50.
My daily trips are normally around town 20 miles or so. Therefore I charge about once a week.
Would you recommend more frequent charging in order to undertake the balancing and hopefully rectify the problem?

Yes every time you have used the car for your 20 miles around town. Charge and leave on charge for it to balance for as long as you can, overnight if you want, Keep doing this until the voltage gets back to optimal.

 

[EVsince2016]

If you had the heater, lights, wipers on with rain that kind of loss is easy to achieve.

On longer trips I turn the heating down (stops you getting sleepy) and drive a bit slower

I only use % remaining not the GOM and do the basis maths. You can also do a spreadsheet dividing the power into 1% sections and calculating the range per % for the actual miles per kw, say for 3, 3.5 and 4.0 miles per kw