How low do you go? Range Confidence

[Lguk]

Driving to work this morning, watching the battery % go red. Got me to thinking, how low do people generally feel confident with getting to?

My commute is 35 miles, GoM showed 60 miles remaining. Whilst I was confident I would arrive with range to spare, this is where range anxiety comes in. I arrived with 12% left so no drama, but I do get the concerns.

 

[Alb]

I've never yet been in this position but I know I would react differently depending on whether I was alone or had passengers. In the latter case I would always take a more cautious approach.

 

[Dave]

I took my iPace down to 0% a couple of times. But I did get 300 miles out of a charge

 

[Lguk]

On my own with a 'margin' of 10% was about the lowest I wanted to be. And that was with a known working charger at the other end.

 

[5teep]

8% in my MG5 SR, didn't like doing it as I really don't trust the gom in this car and the battery soc seems to drop very fast when it goes below 25%.

 

[CuriousIslander]

8% in my MG5 SR, didn't like doing it as I really don't trust the gom in this car and the battery soc seems to drop very fast when it goes below 25%.

I have just carried out an experiment with my 5 SR. I charged to full (including balancing) and then drove normally. I managed 180 miles with 25% battery remaining. This would suggest that on this occasion my range would be 240 miles (this is the Isle of Wight and speeds rarely get over 50mph!). However, I let it run down a bit more, just to 19%, but the extra 6% of battery managed only 10 extra miles, bring my overall range estimate down to 234 miles. Now I know that the range estimate of 240 is not realistic, but this does seem to show that the soc does drop quickly once it reaches 25%. The moral of the story? I think I will charge when it gets down to about 30% in future.

My next experiment will be to charge to 90% and repeat this exercise. Why? Because having charged and balanced yesterday to 100%, my 25 mile round trip yesterday evening has taken 10% of the battery. Now I now (again) that 250 miles range is nonsense, but this does seem to suggest that the battery is more efficient at these higher rates of charge, even though kers won't come in for the first 5% or so of battery drop. It will be interesting to see whether these favourable figures remain if starting from a charge less than 100%.