Range estimation at -30 celsius?

[Rolfe]

I'm a bit torn on the route to take on Boxing Day. My friend's husband always cuts off a corner (a 13-mile section, so not trivial) by driving through the centre of Huddersfield instead of taking the motorway. But it's really tedious and I'm always glad to get to the motorway. His justification is that while the town is busy the motorway is also likely to be congested over the holiday period.

The motorway route is 113 miles, while the city drive is 100 miles.

Both the AA Route Planner and ABRP want to send me by the motorway route, claiming that it's quicker. It probably is, though I'd check with Android Auto on the actual morning to see what the real-time situation is. However ABRP shows significantly less battery consumption for the Huddersfield route. While I might still get there fine on the motorway, the higher the SoC I arrive with, the less time I'm going to have to spend sitting in the car at the MFG charging station at Desford Crossroads.

Decisons, decisions.

 

[siteguru]

The rule of thumb is - the slower your speed, the better your efficiency. So if the 13 mile corner cut takes the same amount of time at a slower speed then you'll save on battery usage.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. I'm just pondering whether it's worth the stress!

 

[M101]

I'm a bit torn on the route to take on Boxing Day. My friend's husband always cuts off a corner (a 13-mile section, so not trivial) by driving through the centre of Huddersfield instead of taking the motorway. But it's really tedious and I'm always glad to get to the motorway. His justification is that while the town is busy the motorway is also likely to be congested over the holiday period.

The motorway route is 113 miles, while the city drive is 100 miles.

Both the AA Route Planner and ABRP want to send me by the motorway route, claiming that it's quicker. It probably is, though I'd check with Android Auto on the actual morning to see what the real-time situation is. However ABRP shows significantly less battery consumption for the Huddersfield route. While I might still get there fine on the motorway, the higher the SoC I arrive with, the less time I'm going to have to spend sitting in the car at the MFG charging station at Desford Crossroads.

Decisons, decisions.

I'd go on the motor way. My car is much more efficient when going at a constant speed, it's the stoppong that adds more drain on any journey and it's just worse in winter due to running the heater. If I can get 100 miles doing short inefficient journeys you will easily do 113

 

[Rolfe]

Well, 119 miles really, because after I've decanted my passengers at our destination I have to go another six miles to the charging station.

ABRP doesn't agree about the motorway being more efficient, and neither does MG come to that. ABRP says I'll arrive on 26% battery via the motorway but 36% through the city. I don't trust those absolute figures to be true for late December, but if they're right about a 10% saving by cutting off that 13-mile loop, that's so much less time I need to spend sitting on the charger at Desford Crossroads.

Anyway, I have to do the 186 miles from home to my friend's house three days before that, and that's mostly motorway, so I should get an idea of how the car is performing efficiency-wise from that. ABRP thinks I should charge at Booth's at Kirkby Lonsdale, but that's 131 miles and I'm a bit dubious about that in December. The trouble is that before Kirkby Lonsdale (where there are four Instavolts), chargers are a bit thin on the ground. There's still nothing for non-Teslas at Tebay Southbound, despite a bank of new Gridserves having been promised for the summer. Before that, I only remember two Gridserves at Southwaite, 50 Kw, so they might be busy the weekend before Christmas.

Realistically, on the motorway, you have to go back as far as Gretna to get a decent number of ultra-rapids. And Gretna might be crowded for just that reason. And it's only 64 miles into my journey, so not the fast charging after all. Going off the motorway to Booth's in Penrith, where there are 125 Kw chargers, might be better as that's 91 miles.

Stop too soon and charging speed is slow, leave it too late and narrow your options. I suppose, if my range is dropping, the important part is to stop somewhere!

 

[M101]

Download zapmap. It has locations of all chargers you can set it to your car and it even shows all tesla super chargers that are open to all cars.
The best thing to do with charging on the move is a quick charge for 10 to 20 minutes. You get more charge in that time than youll get in the next 30 to 40 minutes because the charging rate slows down the more full the battery gets.
I had range anxiety when I got mine but it soon went away

 

[Rolfe]

Where do you think I'm getting all that information from?

And what do you think I meant by "Stop too soon and charging speed is slow, leave it too late and narrow your options"? I only need to stop once on that journey. It's only 186 miles, which isn't that far beyond what the SR can do, even on a winter motorway. Obviously if I can leave it as late as Kirkby Lonsdale my charging speed will be fast. But if I don't make it to Kirkby Lonsdale I'm going to look seriously stupid. Stopping at Penrith, where the charger is 125 Kw rather than the 50 Kw at Kirkby Londsdale, might actually be just about as good, and if I get a charge there then I know I don't have to stop again.

It's just that it's the Saturday two days before Christmas, and the entire country will be on the move, and it's difficult to know where to stop for the best, given that Kirkby Lonsdale might be too far for the SR on winter motorways.

 

[Ian Key]

It's just that it's the Saturday two days before Christmas, and the entire country will be on the move, and it's difficult to know where to stop for the best, given that Kirkby Lonsdale might be too far for the SR on winter motorways.

As the whole country is going to on the move I'd avoid any charging stations on the motorways. Look what happened last year, the press had a field day with the pictures of Teslas queuing up to charge.

Another option is to plan a coffee stop on route for a quick charge just enough to give you a cushion on your range and or look for a booster charge earlier on in your journey before you get to the busy section of your route.

 

[Rolfe]

I think the Tesla thing was at Tebay, too. That's what makes Kirkby Lonsdale so attractive, because it's six miles off the motorway and probably not the first choice for motorway traffic. And there are four Instavolts there. I'm just a bit nervous about the 131 miles part in late December.

Finding somewhere earlier than that for a quick stop starts to get problematic in that neck of the woods. Booth's at Penrith is promising but it's pretty near the motorway and there are only two chargers. Other people might have the same idea.

If I stop much earlier than that, it isn't going to be terribly quick because I won't get a good charging speed.

I think I'll play it by ear depending on how fast I see my range going down.

 

[MoDolph]

If I was travelling alone and had 186 miles to do a couple of days before Christmas during the day I would wrap up warm and try to make it in one go by going at 56mph with minimal heating. I'd then try to stop at a few chargers early enroute, and if I could charge then great I can put the heater on and speed up, if not I would just carry on. You 'only' need to get ~3.7 mls/kWh to make it in one go. Yes you're driving slower but you might lose more time queuing for a charge.

I imagine that the Booths car parks will be packed so close to Christmas so a high chance of the chargers being ICED.

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not going to do that, though. I'll just have to find somewhere.

The thing about Booth's is that it's a supermarket. People aren't going to park up and stay there half the day. I'd be more worried about a queue of EVs wanting to charge, but with four chargers I think that probably isn't likely to be a serious issue.

If an ICE car is in the space, there's a good chance the driver will be back before long. Particularly if he knows he has parked somewhere he shouldn't have.

 

[paulm]

Does the car not heat the batteries in that situation? I would be tempted to use the battery pre-heat option available on the MG I-smart app on the scheduled charging page but the instructions are vague: "it is recommended to schedule battery heating 1 hr before using the car"

 

[Rolfe]

I've never tried that. I wonder if I should pre-heat the battery before I set out, and if it's possible to do that using mains electricity and not drain the battery to do it. Probably not. Might not be worth losing the range just to heat the battery.

 

[KevW]

Finnish cars will have the heat pump so range in the winter will be better than UK cars in the same conditions but thankfully we never get down as low as -30°c

 

[Rolfe]

Worst I have seen personally was -18.5°C.