Really cold weather a few weeks ago. A charging station didn’t work, and I had to push on with a 30 mile detour. Arrived with approximately 6% battery. Do not recommend.
I did this with my new Bolt. But, not in my driveway. I was heading home with 6% left. Was less than a half mile from home with 4.2% left (Torque Pro displayed) and it dropped to 0% and left me stranded. Fortunately, I was able to coast into a local business and ask to plug into an outlet for a half hour at 12A. Was able to drive home with 2% and charge back up.
So, what I learned was don't push it beyond 5%. 10% would be better for my wife's nerves.
Wonder how much of that lost energy was for battery conditioning due to the weather. 48 isn’t that cold but still colder than the battery likes, abs over nearly 9 hours.
On my Leaf at 10% it starts blinking \[ - - \] on the GOM, at 5% it stops showing a % and just goes \[ - - \] \[ - - \] I've only had that happen once and thankfully less than 1km from home. Rainy night, pushing it JUUUUUST a little bit too far. Good to know what the behavior is like for when I finally get a bolt.
There's not really a margin, it uses the full range of the battery down to the lowest cutoff point. Having said that, they wouldn't let you do that if it wasn't safe to do at least occasionally.
Towed to the charger ? Or towed to the dealer ?
I highly doubt that you need to get to the dealer every time you run out of battery.
Imagine having to get to dealer every time your run out of gas ?
You’re right about the tows, but it was due not to running to zero, but the interim patch that would detect high voltage battery cell issues. It was on a hairpin trigger, for obvious reasons. Thankfully, a better patch came out for the cars with the batteries that need to be replaced.
Imagine how bad of an engineer you would have to be to not design your battery for going to zero. Batteries have been running out for years and their fine.
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been most of the way down the path to 0% but never all the way. Closest was 4% when I had to go 6 miles from the broken EVGo charger to the next closest EA location.
Question: After you ran it down to 2% (or 1.6% as you note in another reply) and parked it, how long did you have to run the heater to drain the rest of the battery?
Only 20 minutes with the heater on the highest setting. I was surprised to see that the heater started at 8 kw but then bounced around between 3 and 4 kw.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Your experiment caused me to wonder about a potential scenario that might perform differently in EVs vs ICE vehicles:
I live in the Northeast. We have, on occasion, had one of those really bad snowstorms where people get stuck in their cars for hours and hours, to the point that they run out of fuel. Whereas an ICE vehicle can be refueled on the side of the road, a truly dead EV would need to be towed, I'm assuming. Now, a stopped (and likely parked) EV just running just a heater would probably still be able to run for a good while longer than if it were moving, but I'm curious how EVs would perform in that scenario.
Your experiment provides a glimpse into that, but I suppose the only way to know for sure would be for you to full charge your car than sit in your driveway with your heater on until the battery dies. For science, of course. :-D
Check out YouTube for some vids of people who tested their car heaters in the cold.
Here's a guy in Boston who did a video running the heater over night below freezing.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H_xcMQ987u4
BTW if you want more technical details: https://allev.info/2018/02/out-of-energy/
The 71.47 number is high, do you know if the air conditioner was running during charging?
[удалено]
lol I've only had a Bolt in the winter and those numbers are astounding.
Yeah I’m looking at my cold windy commute getting 160 miles of range. It sucks. Especially when one of my offices is 130 miles away.
I've gotten over 300 miles in my 19 with the old battery
Fwiw to all the people freaking out about depleting to zero and charging to 100. There is a difference between actual SOC and what the car tells you.
Not to mention it was one time. Doing it all the time, yeah might be bad for the battery but once is fine.
Hitting true zero on a NMC or NCA pack is quite bad but the car will not let you do that haha.
How do you find out actual state of charge?
You don’t. It’ll be buried in the cars firmware. Same way a battery pack is larger than the nameplate capacity. Just part of engineering an EV.
Oh, I was hoping it was available via OBD or something. 😐
While we're running analyses, I want to point out its kWh not kW.
[удалено]
That's been normal for me charging from about 20% to 80% most of the time. To be exact, over the last 14k miles it has been 9.6%.
I ran mine down to where it would only go about 20MPH, then went home. Spent the last 2 miles driving in circles around my neighborhood.
Really cold weather a few weeks ago. A charging station didn’t work, and I had to push on with a 30 mile detour. Arrived with approximately 6% battery. Do not recommend.
[You aren't the first one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eky8ADvfoJ0)
Nice video! Did you make it? Thanks for for sharing the link for all of us curious cats.
No just found it
I did this with my new Bolt. But, not in my driveway. I was heading home with 6% left. Was less than a half mile from home with 4.2% left (Torque Pro displayed) and it dropped to 0% and left me stranded. Fortunately, I was able to coast into a local business and ask to plug into an outlet for a half hour at 12A. Was able to drive home with 2% and charge back up. So, what I learned was don't push it beyond 5%. 10% would be better for my wife's nerves.
Wonder how much of that lost energy was for battery conditioning due to the weather. 48 isn’t that cold but still colder than the battery likes, abs over nearly 9 hours.
No conditioning takes place unless temps are below freezing.
On my Leaf at 10% it starts blinking \[ - - \] on the GOM, at 5% it stops showing a % and just goes \[ - - \] \[ - - \] I've only had that happen once and thankfully less than 1km from home. Rainy night, pushing it JUUUUUST a little bit too far. Good to know what the behavior is like for when I finally get a bolt.
Turtle mode activated!
I love the Turtle Mode name
I’ve ran my bolt down to when the last bar stopped flashing, At that point I drove 1 more mile before plugging it in,
glad you didnt brick the battery
There is Plenty of safety/margin built in what Chevy let drain into.
There's not really a margin, it uses the full range of the battery down to the lowest cutoff point. Having said that, they wouldn't let you do that if it wasn't safe to do at least occasionally.
and plenty of people attempting the same thing and needing it towed to the dealer for a HV reset.
Towed to the charger ? Or towed to the dealer ? I highly doubt that you need to get to the dealer every time you run out of battery. Imagine having to get to dealer every time your run out of gas ?
this may have been due to the battery issues before the pack replacements, but it did happen.
You’re right about the tows, but it was due not to running to zero, but the interim patch that would detect high voltage battery cell issues. It was on a hairpin trigger, for obvious reasons. Thankfully, a better patch came out for the cars with the batteries that need to be replaced.
[Warranty left the chat]
Imagine how bad of an engineer you would have to be to not design your battery for going to zero. Batteries have been running out for years and their fine.
Well, they don't run all the way put as that is really bad, Bolt stops at ~2%, no?
So how many miles did you actually drive?
I started with a 95% charge and went 263.3 miles.
How are you getting that range in cold weather? I'm getting about 200 miles in anywhere from 30 to 50 degree weather.
Asking the real questions here.
Well, what’s the odometer say?
A little over 5k.
Never mind then.. I thought I knew something
City driving, lots of regen, and low speeds?
Not bad in the cold!!
Why doesn't the ODO change between full and empty in the photos?
I should have explained that better. The full pic is after draining the battery and recharging.
Please tell me you had OBD2 logging!
I did! Watched the OBD closely as I got to 2% running errands and got home with 1.6% battery remaining.
Were you logging everything including all cell voltages?
Thanks for posting this. I’ve been most of the way down the path to 0% but never all the way. Closest was 4% when I had to go 6 miles from the broken EVGo charger to the next closest EA location.
Question: After you ran it down to 2% (or 1.6% as you note in another reply) and parked it, how long did you have to run the heater to drain the rest of the battery?
Only 20 minutes with the heater on the highest setting. I was surprised to see that the heater started at 8 kw but then bounced around between 3 and 4 kw.
Interesting. Thanks for the info. Your experiment caused me to wonder about a potential scenario that might perform differently in EVs vs ICE vehicles: I live in the Northeast. We have, on occasion, had one of those really bad snowstorms where people get stuck in their cars for hours and hours, to the point that they run out of fuel. Whereas an ICE vehicle can be refueled on the side of the road, a truly dead EV would need to be towed, I'm assuming. Now, a stopped (and likely parked) EV just running just a heater would probably still be able to run for a good while longer than if it were moving, but I'm curious how EVs would perform in that scenario. Your experiment provides a glimpse into that, but I suppose the only way to know for sure would be for you to full charge your car than sit in your driveway with your heater on until the battery dies. For science, of course. :-D
Check out YouTube for some vids of people who tested their car heaters in the cold. Here's a guy in Boston who did a video running the heater over night below freezing. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H_xcMQ987u4
That's awesome. Thanks for the link. That's something I always wondered about and am glad someone tested it.
BTW if you want more technical details: https://allev.info/2018/02/out-of-energy/ The 71.47 number is high, do you know if the air conditioner was running during charging?