I Beat EPA's 73 Mile Range : Report your experience

[Boomer23]

Here's a report of today's drive from 100% charge to turtle mode: Bottom line - 86.5 miles.
Temperatures between 60 and 70 deg F
No A/C use
No freeway driving
All trips in D except where noted in ECO

I wasn't keeping close track of miles until 65.4 miles, so the earlier events are estimates using Google Maps.

Start of day: Charge = 100%, range showing: 12 bars remaining, 104 miles
Breakfast at the beach: round trip 15 miles, 9 bars remaining, 77 miles
Bank run: round trip 6 miles (total 21 miles), 8 bars remaining, 70 miles
Fun drive: round trip 39 miles (total 60 miles) 2 bars remaining, 22 miles
Question: Would you leave for an 11 mile round trip with 2 red bars and 22 miles on the display? We decided to go for it, in ECO.
Movie theater: round trip 11 miles ECO (total 71 miles) 1 bar remaining, 9 miles
Driving around near the house to get to turtle mode, all in D mode, headlights turned on, low speeds in neighborhood:
at 71.6 miles, 8 miles remaining - began flashing
at 73 miles, 7 miles remaining - flashing
at 74.2 miles, 6 miles remainng - flashing
at 76.7 miles, zero bars
at 77.2 miles, 5 miles remaining - flashing, visual displays showing low battery, asking if we want guidance to charge point
at 77.9 miles, dashboard lights dimmed
at 78.3 miles, 4 miles remaining - flashing
at 78.6 miles, 5 miles remaining - flashing :lol:
at 78.9 miles, 4 miles remaining - flashing
at 81.1 miles, --- displayed, voice notice that battery is very low, asking if we want guidance
at 84 miles, turned on heat to get to turtle faster
at 86.4 miles, turtle mode, display that motor power is limited
at 86.5 miles, pulled into driveway and stopped, put into Park and applied parking brake.

Car would no longer go into D or R gear but beeped instead and stayed in N.
With brake applied, car wouldn't turn off. But with foot removed from brake, car turned off.
Plugged in EVSE connector, dash lights flash normally indicating EVSE plugged in.

Overall trip economy displayed in car: 4.0 mi/kWh on dash display, 4.1 mi/kWh on central touch screen

 

[Boomer23]

Today on my commute home I added a bit to test my range. My normal commute is about 60 miles, Foster City to Soquel, but it involves driving Hwy 17 an 1800 feet pass. Today I drove from Foster City to Moss Landing and back to Soquel, a distance of 94.6 miles. At Moss Landing, I just made a U-turn. This was during commute and I averaged slightly more than 60 mph not counting the climb up 17 which is traffic limited to about 55. The extra bit from Santa Cruz to Moss Landing is quite hilly, but I kept up with traffic at about 63 mph most of the time. I lost the mileage remaining readout with about 8 miles left to home, but never entered turtle mode. I'm very happy with that range.
-Corwin

Corwin, did you use ECO mode, and if so, for how much of your trip?

 

[ElectricVehicle]

I drive 76 miles RT to work 5 days a week so I too beat the EPA rating. I arive home with between 19 and 30 miles left of the 76 miles around 74 of the miles are highway at 60 to 62 mph with no AC with only small hills in ECO mode for sure. When they add some local chargers I will try to up the speed to 65 as a test with knowing I can get a charge somewhere.

See if you can plug in at 120V at work. 120V for 6 hours would give you over 25 miles, 8 hours would be over 30 miles. With that little bit of charge at work, you could drive 65, 70, 75 mph and faster. Fast enough to get a ticket. Yes, I've gotten a speeding ticket in my EV1, years ago...

 

[corwin]

Today on my commute home I added a bit to test my range. My normal commute is about 60 miles, Foster City to Soquel, but it involves driving Hwy 17 an 1800 feet pass. Today I drove from Foster City to Moss Landing and back to Soquel, a distance of 94.6 miles. At Moss Landing, I just made a U-turn. This was during commute and I averaged slightly more than 60 mph not counting the climb up 17 which is traffic limited to about 55. The extra bit from Santa Cruz to Moss Landing is quite hilly, but I kept up with traffic at about 63 mph most of the time. I lost the mileage remaining readout with about 8 miles left to home, but never entered turtle mode. I'm very happy with that range.
-Corwin

Corwin, did you use ECO mode, and if so, for how much of your trip?

I used ECO mode the entire way. No A/C.

 

[evnow]

Overall trip economy displayed in car: 4.0 mi/kWh on dash display, 4.1 mi/kWh on central touch screen

Did you reset them in the morning ?

Infact, I was thinking about starting a thread asking if anyone had reset the mileage meter and then driven till turtle/stall. We can figure out the usable battery capacity with that.

 

[TRONZ]

I drove very carefully and in ECO once. It was 56 miles from Aliso Viejo to Santa Monica. It was 50 miles of highway at 60mph and I exited the freeway at MDR with 41 miles indicated remaining. Since it was only 4 miles to the charge stations at Santa Monica Place it was a very relaxing trip to the Westside. Plus, as the computer re-adapted to the 20-30mph of stop/go surface streets we parked in SM with 41 miles remaining still showing. Good little car!

 

[Boomer23]

Overall trip economy displayed in car: 4.0 mi/kWh on dash display, 4.1 mi/kWh on central touch screen

Did you reset them in the morning ?

Infact, I was thinking about starting a thread asking if anyone had reset the mileage meter and then driven till turtle/stall. We can figure out the usable battery capacity with that.

Yep, I always do whenever I set up for a new charging session.

BTW, I haven't seen any discussion about the discrepancy between these readings on the dash display vs the touch screen energy economy display. Mine always seems 0.1 more optimistic on the touch screen.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

Most I got on single charge with no boosts was 89 miles and had a few to spare. The one time I got to turtle mode was at 83 miles but not sure if I started with a full charge.
on most days I do not. This morning I started with 7 white bars but expect to do no more than 20-30 miles of driving today so plenty of range

 

[planet4ever]

Overall trip economy displayed in car: 4.0 mi/kWh on dash display, 4.1 mi/kWh on central touch screen

Did you reset them in the morning ?

Infact, I was thinking about starting a thread asking if anyone had reset the mileage meter and then driven till turtle/stall. We can figure out the usable battery capacity with that.

Not quite, unless I'm mistaken. It's my understanding the average mileage display only accounts for energy going to (or from, during regen) the motor. It wouldn't include the heater or lights, for example, both of which Boomer was using. Two other, somewhat questionable, points:

• There may still be about half a kWh of "usable" power in the battery after turtle is displayed, though I doubt if I'll ever want to try to actually use much of that reserve.
• There are certainly some losses in pulling energy out of the battery. I guess it's a matter of semantics whether "usable capacity" refers to the energy stored in the battery that can be removed from it, or to the energy that arrives at the motor.

Ray

 

[evnow]

Not quite, unless I'm mistaken. It's my understanding the average mileage display only accounts for energy going to (or from, during regen) the motor. It wouldn't include the heater or lights, for example, both of which Boomer was using.

I'm quite sure the Leaf meter accounts for heater. I consistently get lower numbers when using the heater (3.6 vs 4.5).

 

[evnow]

Yep, I always do whenever I set up for a new charging session.

That makes it 86.4/4=21.6kwh till turtle. This is 90% of 24 kwh.

This 21.6 (if others can repeat it) is what matters - since this is the practical usable capacity. We can also get our SOC using this, m/kwh and miles driven.

Starting from 100%,

21.6-x = miles_driven/mpkwh

SOC % = (1 - miles_driven/(mpkwh*21.6))*100

BTW, I haven't seen any discussion about the discrepancy between these readings on the dash display vs the touch screen energy economy display. Mine always seems 0.1 more optimistic on the touch screen.

I've not used the dash one. Will check tomorrow. I wonder whether the console mileage uses car wings miles, which is usually a little lower making the m/kwh a little higher.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

HEY!!! how come when i said i only had 21 kwh MONTHS ago (well seems that way) no one believed me?

 

[Gonewild]

I did ask they said NO.

I drive 76 miles RT to work 5 days a week so I too beat the EPA rating. I arive home with between 19 and 30 miles left of the 76 miles around 74 of the miles are highway at 60 to 62 mph with no AC with only small hills in ECO mode for sure. When they add some local chargers I will try to up the speed to 65 as a test with knowing I can get a charge somewhere.

See if you can plug in at 120V at work. 120V for 6 hours would give you over 25 miles, 8 hours would be over 30 miles. With that little bit of charge at work, you could drive 65, 70, 75 mph and faster. Fast enough to get a ticket. Yes, I've gotten a speeding ticket in my EV1, years ago...

 

[evnow]

HEY!!! how come when i said i only had 21 kwh MONTHS ago (well seems that way) no one believed me?

Wasn't yours based on the kwh needed to charge at the wall ?

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

HEY!!! how come when i said i only had 21 kwh MONTHS ago (well seems that way) no one believed me?

Wasn't yours based on the kwh needed to charge at the wall ?

No mine was based on mpk from car which in itself is suspect.

Either way I know what the car can do and what its costing me so I am ok with what I am getting.

If I was that concerned I would be plugging in at the free stations we have all over town but not wotlrth the hassle

 

[IBELEAF]

The most depressing thing about Leaf so far is watching how fast you loose bars while driving on a freeway, so while I was able to beat EPA rating, I am pretty much getting in that range.

 

[evnow]

The most depressing thing about Leaf so far is watching how fast you loose bars while driving on a freeway, so while I was able to beat EPA rating, I am pretty much getting in that range.

That reminds me, by noting the miles traveled and m/kwh for any given bar, we can figure out the total available kwh ... that is a test we can all do without having to drive till turtle ...

 

[planet4ever]

That reminds me, by noting the miles traveled and m/kwh for any given bar, we can figure out the total available kwh ... that is a test we can all do without having to drive till turtle ...

Again, assuming no auxiliary use of the battery - heater, A/C, etc.

And -- this is the real hooker -- assuming that the last bar is the same kWh as the others, and that the car stops when the last bar disappears. I don't think it does, does it?

Ray

 

[evnow]

Again, assuming no auxiliary use of the battery - heater, A/C, etc.

And -- this is the real hooker -- assuming that the last bar is the same kWh as the others, and that the car stops when the last bar disappears. I don't think it does, does it?

Heater,A/C etc don't matter. We are just trying to figure out kwh used for a particular bar.

There is a chart in the sticky that gives the soc% range for every bar.

 

[Boomer23]

Question: Would you leave for an 11 mile round trip with 2 red bars and 22 miles on the display? We decided to go for it, in ECO.

Funny story, we decided to go down to the beach for dinner, about a 14 mile round trip. Walked out to the LEAF and remaining range showed the same as it did in the above post, 2 red bars and 22 miles estimated remaining range.

Mrs. Boomer wasn't up for the adventure this time. I thought we'd make it easily, but she was concerned that the return trip is generally uphill and the route has some hills on it. She was up for the range experiment last week, but not as a regular habit. She's asking me to use 100% charge most of the time so that we'll usually have enough charge for spur of the moment trips.

So we went in the Prius instead. Kind of violated my intention to use the LEAF for local driving whenever possible, but it was cool anyway.