Thanks for the link, great find. I see it was two years ago, but that's not that long ago, it's more recent than the link I posted above, where the cars were behaving as he was saying he would have liked the Niro to behave.
His GOM was lying to him, which is the main take-home message. I do wonder about that first reading he gives. 15% battery to cover 26 miles isn't something I'd want to rely on in my SR, especially in cold conditions - I don't think he mentioned it, but the external temperature on his dashboard was showing only 6C. But his GOM thought he could get 39 miles out of 15% battery at that temperature, which seems ridiculous. What size of battery does that thing have? I mean, I would have thought it was obvious it was lying even at that stage.
The way the range was dropping was also a big indicator of danger, as he admits. He's quite candid about being an idiot, first by setting off at such a low SoC, and secondly by not taking a charging opportunity he had when he passed his friend's house. And he also mentions electricity being everywhere, but he was too bashful to ask a random house to let him charge.
He's quite right that the GOM ought to give you a fair estimate of the miles you have left at a reasonable driving speed, without including miles where the car will be limited to 10 mph. But that already seems to be how most EVs behave, certainly the ones tested in the "How far will they go?" videos.
He also didn't mention the car giving him the option to hypermile at a relatively early stage in this process. My MG definitely did that, somewhere round about Abington, which is about 23 miles from home. I didn't take it up on that, because my GOM was showing 28 miles at that point, which seemed safe enough, so I don't know how much the range could have been extended with that feature. (I suspect this happened at around 15% SoC.)
If it's any comfort to anyone, as well as Bjorn driving the Trophy down and finding that it had a pretty decent buffer still there after 0 miles range was showing, my experience with my SR was very reassuring.
I started at Moffat car park (the site of the broken charger) which is 34 miles from home by the shortest route, but 44 by the motorway. I had 52 miles on the GOM at that point, I think. I was certain I could get home the short way (the A701), especially if I limited my speed, but I wanted to see what would happen. The advantage of going M74/A702 was that, although ten miles longer, there are chargers there - a full service station, Gridserves, Applegreen, the lot, at Abington. There are also some type 2 chargers in Biggar, about 11 miles from home. So by that route I knew I had options if the range started to drop precipitously as happened in that video.
I started off on the motorway with the ACC at 60 mph but it was driving me mad. I increased that to 65 and then to 70. I reasoned that the GOM was making its estimate on the basis of how I had already been driving on that trip, and I had driven to Moffat on the motorway with the ACC set at 75. So it should be good to get home driving the same way.
I got to Abington and was a bit confused about the distance, because the number 30 was in my head and if it was actually 30 miles still to go I was in a bit of trouble. However when I checked Google Maps, having pulled over by the service station, I saw it was only 23 miles, and remembered that the number 30 was actually "30 minutes driving". GOM was still behaving consistently, no precipitous drops, and showing (I think) 28 miles, so I went on.
It was just after that that the car asked me if I wanted to hypermile and I said no. The car went on driving normally and the GOM went on behaving consistently, and the projected range was always in line with the % charge, at roughly 2 miles for every 1% charge.
I got to Biggar and everything still seemed fine, GOM still telling me I had more range than I knew I needed, car not limiting power, so I passed up on the type 2 chargers there too.
I got to the Dolphinton straight on the A702, which was only 2-3 miles from home. Car still behaving normally at 5% charge. GOM still telling me sensible things. So I overtook another car, taking the MG4 up to 80 mph, which it did without any reservations whatsoever.
Got to the rapid charger in West Linton on 4% battery and GOM showing 8 miles remaining, which isn't a kick in the pants off what one might have predicted from the readings I set off from Moffat with. Lots of dashboard warnings to charge NOW please, but no power limitation and no turtle seen.
I can easily see how a lying GOM could trick you into doing something stupid, but if the GOM is giving you a range that seems wildly improbable from the % charge reading, you should know something's up.
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