My First Road Trip - Insights and Questions

[harveye]

Over Thanksgiving, I took my first road trip (227 miles each way- NJ to DC suburbs) and have a number of notes and questions to throw into this forum. Charged to 100% the night before (Level 2 home charger). Range showed 247 miles. The outside temperature would be 40-55 degrees for the trip, so assumed there’d be some heater power loss. Set navigation for EA DC charger 127 miles out. After heating the car for a few minutes in the driveway and setting navigation, I noticed I started the trip with 234 miles range. I drove in standard mode using Driver Assist and Smart Cruise most of the way. When I arrived at the EA DC charger, my remaining range should have been (mathematically) 107 miles. It was 66. Not so good. It got worse when I discovered the new EA chargers were not operational yet (still tied and wrapped in plastic) and the one old EA charger was trashed. They showed as operational on the EA site. I called EA and reported my situation. The rep apologized and then confirmed that the next available EA charger on my route south was 46 miles. Range anxiety started creeping in. I drove to the next charger in Econ mode. The 10% SOC message flashed about a mile from the charger. Fortunately, all the chargers were operational and available (one other car). I was able to charge at the 350 charger from 10% to 80% in 25 minutes.

The return trip the next day was completely different with new insights. When we departed, I had 103 miles range and only 56 miles to go to make it to the same charger I had used the day before. When my GPS got lost within 5 miles of the charter amidst new road construction, it was only annoying rather than panicking since I had 50 miles left. When I pulled up to the 8 chargers, I noticed the two chargers marked as 350 were in use, but thinking maybe one charger can be shared, I backed in within range of the second plug. However, looking at the screen, I didn’t know how that would work and I didn’t want to touch the screen and accidentally stop the charge for the BMW currently tied up. So does anyone know if one charger can be shared? If not, why do they have two plugs? When my charging neighbors didn’t have any answers for me either, I just plugged into the adjacent 150 charger. To my surprise, it showed I would get to 80% in 15 minutes, faster speed than yesterday’s 350. When it did get near 80% I did some math and saw that it wouldn’t quite get me home, so I raised the DC limit to 90%. To my next surprise, I saw that the charging speed didn’t slow as I had been told by everything else I’ve been reading for the past 5 months. Less than five minutes later I was at 90% with enough range to just get home if my mile to Kwh rate was similar to the ride down. Just to make sure, since the temperature had rise to near 60 degrees, I turned off heat/AC. The remaining 175 mile ride home was uneventful with Lane Assist and Smart Cruise engaged almost the entire time. Some stretches I drove at 80 mpg and some stretches slowed to red line bumper to bumper crawl. The next surprise was noting that my miles to Kwh rose to 3.5 over the return trip (almost a mile more per Kwh than trip down), so I made it home with over 60 miles to spare.

Some questions:

In this mild cold, was it worth it to put in the DC charger destination in the GV navigation to precondition the battery? Did it precondition the battery? Did the preconditioning sap more energy than the preconditioning was worth?
Running the heater seemed to lower the Kwh rate by half a mile per Kwh. Does that sound right?
Later, when it warmed outside, I actually had the AC running slightly but it didn’t seem to effect miles to Kwh rate. Does that sound right?
Any thoughts on what I could have done better? Any thoughts in general?

 

[wolverine]

In this mild cold, was it worth it to put in the DC charger destination in the GV navigation to precondition the battery? Did it precondition the battery? Did the preconditioning sap more energy than the preconditioning was worth?

In my experience the answer is yes unless preconditioning the battery will cause you to run out of power before arriving at the charger. But I believe someone else said if that's the case the car will not precondition the battery.

 

[wolverine]

Can think of two possible reasons your range turned out to be less than the car originally estimated.

The original range estimate was based on how you drove the car most recently. Perhaps you drove the car at higher speeds (reducing your miles per kwh) versus how you drove the car most recently before starting on your trip?

Also I noticed prior to preconditioning commencing the car does not appear to be smart enough to predict that extra power will be used (and how much power will be used) later in the trip for preconditioning.

 

[wolverine]

Not the best practice to leave the car charged at 100% overnight. Better to use the scheduling feature so your car reaches a full charge at the hour you are planning to leave.

 

[wolverine]

To my next surprise, I saw that the charging speed didn’t slow as I had been told by everything else I’ve been reading for the past 5 months. Less than five minutes later I was at 90% with enough range to just get home

I've had that happen on more than one occasion too. Remember the car tells the charging station how much power it wants and is willing to take. For whatever reason perhaps the battery was cool enough that the car did not need to slow the charge above 80%? (I'm speculating)

 

[wolverine]

Running the heater seemed to lower the Kwh rate by half a mile per Kwh. Does that sound right?
Later, when it warmed outside, I actually had the AC running slightly but it didn’t seem to effect miles to Kwh rate. Does that sound right?

My experience has seemed to be that running the heater seems to reduce the miles per kwh by more like 0.3 or 0.4 miles per kwh.

But obviously that's going to vary by how much power is used to heat the car, including factors such as what temperature you have the heater set at, if you were using the Driver Only button, the ambient temperature outside the car, how much the sun is warming the car, and how many passengers are helping to to warm the car.

I've also noticed using the A/C seems to hurt miles per kwh less than the heater does. But perhaps that might be because we have not called upon the A/C to work very hard yet? I have yet to use the car in ambient temps above 70 degrees.

 

[wolverine]

So does anyone know if one charger can be shared? If not, why do they have two plugs?

The answer is one charger can't be shared, at least at Electrocute America (apologize for the sarcasm).

As for why they have two plugs, I've had this discussion with several fellow chargers while waiting for our cars to charge, and the consensus seems to be that it makes it easier to reach the charging port on different cars. A couple of others though it also might be redundancy is case one the connectors becomes damaged.

 

[harveye]

Thanks for responses...

My experience has seemed to be that running the heater seems to reduce the miles per kwh by more like 0.3 or 0.4 miles per kwh.

But obviously that's going to vary by how much power is used to heat the car, including factors such as what temperature you have the heater set at, if you were using the Driver Only button, the ambient temperature outside the car, how much the sun is warming the car, and how many passengers are helping to to warm the car.

I've also noticed using the A/C seems to hurt miles per kwh less than the heater does. But perhaps that might be because we have not called upon the A/C to work very hard yet? I have yet to use the car in ambient temps above 70 degrees.

Not the best practice to leave the car charged at 100% overnight. Better to use the scheduling feature so your car reaches a full charge at the hour you are planning to leave.

That's a new comment for me. Why can't I charge to 100% overnight? It finished sometime in the early morning and we took off at 8:30am. What's the downside?

 

[harveye]

The answer is one charger can't be shared, at least at Electrocute America (apologize for the sarcasm).

As for why they have two plugs, I've had this discussion with several fellow chargers while waiting for our cars to charge, and the consensus seems to be that it makes it easier to reach the charging port on different cars. A couple of others though it also might be redundancy is case one the connectors becomes damaged.

Redundancy makes sense, but I saw some youtube videos a few months ago that showed sharing but it reduced the speed on the sharing plug.

 

[harveye]

My experience has seemed to be that running the heater seems to reduce the miles per kwh by more like 0.3 or 0.4 miles per kwh.

But obviously that's going to vary by how much power is used to heat the car, including factors such as what temperature you have the heater set at, if you were using the Driver Only button, the ambient temperature outside the car, how much the sun is warming the car, and how many passengers are helping to to warm the car.

I've also noticed using the A/C seems to hurt miles per kwh less than the heater does. But perhaps that might be because we have not called upon the A/C to work very hard yet? I have yet to use the car in ambient temps above 70 degrees.

My experience is that AC impact on range m/Kwh is minimal but heat, even at moderate temps, is significant.

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[Filbert]

Redundancy makes sense, but I saw some youtube videos a few months ago that showed sharing but it reduced the speed on the sharing plug.

The videos you saw were with EA charging stations?

 

[harveye]

Maybe not… but I assumed… they’re all alike?

 

[fredf]

I haven’t used a fast charger yet but I thought, as Harveye above said, that two people can share if there are two plugs but it will slow charging for both of you

 

[jeff585]

That's a new comment for me. Why can't I charge to 100% overnight? It finished sometime in the early morning and we took off at 8:30am. What's the downside?

There's does seem to be some consensus that it's not optimal for an EV to sit unused with a battery charged to 100%. Also, your original post made it sound as if the car sat for more than several hours after being charged to 100%.

As with many of these tips regarding minimizing the degradation of the high voltage battery, the bottom line is you do what you need to do to use the car as needed. For example, while DC charging is not optimal for your battery, no one is suggesting you sit waiting at a charging station for hours and hours using an AC charger when you could have used a DC charger and been on your way in minutes.

 

[upa]

Thanks for responses...


That's a new comment for me. Why can't I charge to 100% overnight? It finished sometime in the early morning and we took off at 8:30am. What's the downside?

This is advice is salient to lithium polymer batteries that have battery monitoring systems that allow full access to the entire batter capacity, i.e. Teslas. A sustained full 100% charge may degrade the capacity over time. This does not apply to the Hyundai/Genesis vehicles as it is impossible to full charge them to a true 100% state of charge. A dash indicated 100% charge in the GV60 is actually limited by the BMS to a max 95.5-96% of actual state of charge. So don't worry if you charge it to a 100% and leave overnight as it will be fine.

 

[Filbert]

I haven’t used a fast charger yet but I thought, as Harveye above said, that two people can share if there are two plugs but it will slow charging for both of you

From EA's website:
Tip: Though there are two connectors on select Electrify America chargers, only one connector can be used at a time.

 

[Shark]

This does not apply to the Hyundai/Genesis vehicles as it is impossible to full charge them to a true 100% state of charge.

Isn't it true that every EV does not allow you to reach a true 100% SOC (as well as a true 0% SOC) in order to protect the battery?

 

[Trixie86]

EVs are not ready for prime time yet. Not against them, but it will be no less than 5 years before they are.

 

[upa]

Isn't it true that every EV does not allow you to reach a true 100% SOC (as well as a true 0% SOC) in order to protect the battery?

Tesla does its own thing with battery management and they allow you to visit the top of the pack. One way to tell if you have built in headroom at 100% is if you have intact regen braking. Teslas have no regen at 100% indicated SOC. Your GV60 does have regen at indicated 100% (unless it-30C ,as extremely cold battery pack will also reduce your regen capacity).

 

[upa]

EVs are not ready for prime time yet. Not against them, but it will be no less than 5 years before they are.

Based on my admittedly anecdotal experience of driving an EV in an extreme northern winter climate for the past 3 years I would have to respectfully disagree with you but I am happy to reconsider your statement if its based on something other than probabilistic evidence.