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EV Range Estimate Capped at 50.0

Discussion in 'Prime Technical Discussion' started by PiPLosAngeles, May 14, 2019.

  1. utsug

    utsug Active Member

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    On that day I only drove about 15-20 miles. All flat terrain with speed of 40-45mph.
    Everytime I fully charged my car my EV range is usually 30 miles. That's why I am surprised to see 8.6miles/kWh on that day.
     
  2. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    Did you see real big increase in GOM following day, like 50 miles shown on top of this thread?
     
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  3. utsug

    utsug Active Member

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    I didn't look at it.
     
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  4. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    That's too bad. If the GOM responded to this event correctly, it should have displayed 50 miles EV range.
     
  5. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    I'm getting more. I switch between HV and EV manually to maximize efficiency. I can do way better than the car can on its own.

    It's a hard cap and not one imposed by my driving. If it were my driving the SOC would correlate. In my case it would be 0.5 miles per each 1%. For example, 50% would be 25.0 miles, and 80% would be 40 miles. Instead, I see 26.1 miles at 50% SOC, and 41.7 at 80% SOC. As long as the estimated range is below 50.0 miles, the car knows I'm getting 0.52 miles per each 1%. It just can't seem to apply that once the result > 50.00.
     
  6. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    switching back and forth negates the whole discussion, but not the fact that 50 is a hard cap.
     
  7. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Why is it different to drive 50+ miles on a single charge if it's not all in one contiguous drive? Isn't the goal to minimize fossil fuel use? If I let the car "just go" I will only get about 105 gasoline mpg on my commute. If I manage it manually I get about 155 mpg.
     
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  8. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    Oh, Thank you for clarifying this. I now know why the longer range on GOM. Yeah, if I use EV only on down hill portion of my daily commute, I am sure I can get longer range out of EV too. But that means I would be using gas for all of the uphill and high speed drives. Would it be more efficient? I don't know.
     
  9. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    yes, that is the goal. but for discussion purposes and testing of ev range, it means ev wall charge only, because when the engine runs, it recharges the battery.

    edit: sorry, this reply is to post #27 piplosangeles
     
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  10. PiPLosAngeles

    PiPLosAngeles Senior Member

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    Even when powering you up a steep hill in the power band? But yes, those infernal warm up cycles are a pain in my backside. I go through three of them each way on my commute. It's still more efficient to go through them, but it is a waste of fuel in my case.
     
  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    i can't say for sure, someone would have to put an obd on it. but even if not, the fact that gas got you to the top of the hill means all the ev driving is downhill or flat.
     
  12. a_gray_prius

    a_gray_prius Rare Non-Old-Blowhard Priuschat Member

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    I'd say it was pretty optimistic for urban driving - I could probably make the full EER (Estimated Electric Range) if I were just driving my late-night horchata run, but during the day driving that relaxed simply isn't possible. We're at about 36 right now and we probably get 34 overall for our use cases.

    We're in the suburbs, but Chicagoland drivers are super aggressive. I've been rear-ended, and been adjacent to people who were rear-ended, by someone who accelerated hard despite being 3-4th in line at an intersection. Most of these incidents involve impatient SUV drivers.

    We don't play tricks with our EER. No driving on gas to the top of hills (IL is pretty flat though), though we have run the engine in charge mode once when we had a three-stop run to make. I think our current since-new MPG is in the 190s now (I'll have to check).

    Also remember that for us, the Prime is something of a project car and we pretty much bought it because it was cheap. For longer trips we will run our Tesla, on really nice days we'll run a sports car, and for trips to less-vehicle-friendly places we run our "beater" Prius.
     
    #32 a_gray_prius, May 16, 2019
    Last edited: May 16, 2019
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  13. m8547

    m8547 Senior Member

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    I made it a little over 60 miles in EV mode one time. I started from the top of Mt Evans (14,265 feet) with the battery empty and drove to Denver (5280 feet). The road down from the summit is ideal for regen because the speed limit is only 25-35, so the battery doesn't overheat and cause it to start engine braking too much. I think it did a little engine braking at one point. It charged up to about 80% on the way down from the summit to I-70, then I-70 to Denver uses only a little energy since it is mostly (but not completely) downhill. I don't remember what the estimated range said, but it wasn't 50 since the battery was never full, and it had no way to know that I parked on top of a mountain at the start of the drive.
     
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  14. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    I did a little experiment. I drove my car for a few days on my daily commute of ~40 miles switching EV/HV trying to keep most of EV on flat and down hill. I got much better miles/kWh record for those three days, but my GOM estimate didn't change much. Still ~33 miles range. On Sat I did short trip of ~20 miles total and used EV on downhill only. I recorded 99.9 miles/kWh for this day. BUT, the following day my GOM is still showing 33.3 miles. So, what does it take to get capped 50.0 miles GOM estimate???

    BTW, switching HV and EV like I did to increase the efficiency of just EV portion of my drive ended up using more gas during HV drive, thus overall mpg ended up much less efficient at bellow 199.9 mpg.
    IMG_20190518_111744.jpg
    IMG_20190520_070642.jpg
    IMG_20190518_135038.jpg
     
    #34 Salamander_King, May 20, 2019
    Last edited: May 20, 2019
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  15. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    my ev estimate always goes down after driving hv. no idea why.
     
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  16. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    Well, GOM must use not only last few days of EV efficiency, but also consider some other factors such as HV use to estimate the EV range. If I live on top of the hill, I can try using EV only on downhill. But since I live at low land, I have to drive up the hill using HV to use EV on downhill. If I used EV for the uphill portion, then my miles/kWh get much smaller like my first day of the experiment ~5.6miles/kWh.
     
    #36 Salamander_King, May 20, 2019
    Last edited: May 20, 2019
  17. john1701a

    john1701a Prius Guru

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    After nearly 78,000 posts here and 14 years of participation... let's try to use that experience to help us all advance to the next level. It's really important at this stage to engage in the more informative discussion. We are the ones who make that progress forward happen, by posting messages that are constructive.

    Think about how poor of a job salespeople at the dealership do for actually selling the technology. We all get frustrated by their "no idea why" responses. Doing the same here puts us at the same level of disinterest. The more we share our understanding with others, the better off everyone else will be.

    In this case, the answer to why is simple. The system takes an average based on the outcome of how the battery was recently used. Electricity shared with HV is less efficient than just using it with EV. The traction motor (along with associated components) isn't being used to its full potential, which is optimized for efficiency.
     
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  18. Salamander_King

    Salamander_King Senior Member

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    The explanation seems to fits my observation. Although in my case excessive use of HV did not affect the GOM at all. However, artificial increase in EV efficiency during EV mode alone did not raise the GOM either. That means merely increasing average miles/kWh record of EV drive is not enough to make GOM range to improve. It must be overall fuel efficiency including HV drive plus something else like temperature or it maybe monitoring much longer period of average efficiency than I have experimented. Now I am so curious how I can make OP's value of 50.0 miles EV range or anything close to it. My highest GOM EV range have been 34.3 miles and the longest actual distance driven by a full charge is 35.9 miles.
     
    #38 Salamander_King, May 20, 2019
    Last edited: May 20, 2019
  19. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    pedantic
     
  20. HPrimeAdvanced

    HPrimeAdvanced Senior Member

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    Nepal??

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