RVD
Active member
i was running on battery fumes this past saturday...
i had never pushed my car to this limit before but here's what happened...(all mileage is according to google maps).
i had a list of stuff to do on saturday with my son. it started with me taking him to his swim lesson at my sports club (8.4 miles) via local roads. My sports club is really big but there is no charger nor is there a power outlet that I can see from the parking lot for trickle charging.
After his swim lesson, I drove him to a birthday party (16.7 miles). I took a slightly longer way that is via local roads rather than the freeway (~20 miles) to save on range. I was at 70% charge.
While he was at the birthday party, I had to drive down to an client office to pick something up (21.3 miles). Again, I took a local route rather than the freeway (~24 miles). I was at around 50% charge at this point.
I got to the client office but those guys didn't have my stuff ready so I drove back to the birthday party (21.3 miles). I guess the drive back was more uphill because I was at 24% charge. I had originally planned to charge near the client office since there's a dealership over there (where i bought my car) and they have a QC. I was going to QC for 10-20 minutes but there was so much traffic getting there (took about 1:15) that I had to head back to the birthday party where my son was (I didn't want it to end before I can get back).
If you're keeping track, this has me at 67.7 miles.
I now had a choice of heading back home (22-27 miles depending on route) or going to my office instead (20 miles). I decided to head over to my office instead (which is on the way home along the 27 mile route anyway). GOM said 19 miles so I knew I was cutting it close by going 20 miles. It was a freeway route but I stayed on the right lane and kept up with the flow of slow traffic (55-60 mph).
I decided to go for it and head to my office. I had taken the car to LBW many times (~14% charge) and VLBW (~8% charge) a couple of times but every time I was at VLBW I was <1 mile from destination so I wasn't worried.
This time I hit VLBW with around 5 miles to go.
To make things worse, I was on a freeway going 60 mph so I knew that I was really cutting things close.
I could have exited (1 exit before my exit) and found a public charger but being only 5 miles away from my office, I decided to go forward.
But to make things even worse, I didn't know that the car % gauge would go "--%" on me after around 7%. When I'm cutting it this close, there's a huge difference in my mind between having 6% left and having 2% left. The last thing I wanted was to turtle with around 2 miles to go since I know that turtle only gives me about 0.5 miles of range.
So with around 2 miles to go (the next exit), I had to do it...right most lane on the freeway, hazards on, slowed down to about 45 mph until I got out.
I made it to my office and charged for an hour and made it home just fine. I'm not sure if my slowdown on the freeway right before getting off was necessary but I just didn't want to risk getting stranded. Once we left my office to go home, the LBW came on about 5 minutes into the drive and my son said "why is the car always low on battery?"...if only he knew.
Why would Nissan go to --% since that's what I'm relying on for my last few miles of range? If the % is accurate, I'd like to know each and every % point left. I know in general how far I can travel but since it can vary greatly with terrain and speed...
I was driving at D eco most of the day but switched over to B to regen whenever I was going downhill or had an oppty to regen.
End result was around 87 miles of driving on a single charge.
RVD.