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Featured Dead “robots” pack the Chicago Supercharger stations

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by Gokhan, Jan 16, 2024.

  1. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    true! 12v or traction pack ....
     
  2. Isaac Zachary

    Isaac Zachary Senior Member

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    I think "maintaining" a traction pack so as to not have any surprises could require more than what your average Joe can and is willing to put forth, at least depending on the EV in question.

    In my case I thought I had it all calculated on my Nissan Leaf, after all I had a year of making spread sheets for dozens, if not hundreds of trips and had always ended up with about what I calculated I should have. I had left it plugged in all night so I could start with 100% charge and the battery heater could do it's thing. But I still got only 30 miles out of the battery. If I had a way to heat the battery up and thermally insulate it, it probably would have worked just fine. But SURPRISE! It didn't work as I had expected.

    What did I not maintain correctly???
     
  3. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    At the basic consideration, NOT charging to 100% each & every time owner uses the car.
    Joe can easily be aware & accomplish the basics such as that. You'd think
    .
     
  4. Isaac Zachary

    Isaac Zachary Senior Member

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    That's one reason I bought a 2013 Leaf. It had the option to automatically stop charging at 80%, which I used when I didn't need to go on long trips. But 2014 and later Leafs in the USA don't have that option (maybe they've added it back, I'm out of the loop anymore). So now Joe has to set a timer and manually go unplug his car at a certain time, assuming he's good at calculating how much time it will take to charge to an acceptable charge level.
     
    #104 Isaac Zachary, Jan 22, 2024
    Last edited: Jan 22, 2024
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  5. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Or they simply don't allow a 100% charge to begin with.
     
  6. Isaac Zachary

    Isaac Zachary Senior Member

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    That would not buying a Nissan Leaf. Correct? Otherwise, you have no choice, at least in the USA.
     
  7. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Porsche Audi has sort of incorporated this kind of approach - by making larger upper / unusable battery buffers. Not only does upper end larger buffer reduce DC. Charge stress, but also means you experience less QC rate drop off - because you're not really at its theoretical top end (the downside is your lugging around more weight than you really need). Same with earlier models of the S & X. We 'paid' for the 60kWh pack - even though they were really 75 kWh. If you wanted more range you could pay for that portion to be software unlocked. It meant during Tesla's early days teetering on bankruptcy, Tesla didn't have to car crash as many vehicles since it was the same battery. Anyway our Model S would charge with way less charge rate drop off than the 75kwh locked version.
    .
     
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  8. Isaac Zachary

    Isaac Zachary Senior Member

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    There's a lot of manufacturer vs owner going on here. Any manufacturer could build all their batteries "oversized" and limit the chage to say, 70%. As the battery degrades, it will retain the same range (albeit, slower top end charging times) by the time it reaches the 70% degredation. From there out it would start lowering range.

    I kind of wanted to do that manually with the Leaf, although I realized that there were some legs still that didn't have enough chargers to make it on 70% of 24kWh.
     
  9. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    bolt has max charge settings from 40% to 100%
     
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  10. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    With a short range BEV, owners are more likely to to charge to 100% as they need it more often. That leads to faster degradation of the battery. The avoid complaints of capacity loss, the manufacturer could take away the ability to charge to a true 100%, though the display likely says 100% like the Prius Prime's does. I think that is what Mercedes dis with one of their first EVs out, and I could see Nissan doing the same to avoid customer disappointment.
    You happen to know if 100% is a true 100%?
     
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  11. Isaac Zachary

    Isaac Zachary Senior Member

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    My guess is that no EV manufacturer actually charges to 100%, which is at least 4.2V (or a tad more). The reason is that just charging to 4.1V or even 4.0V isn't going to take away a huge amount of capacity yet can add quite a bit more longevity.

    However, then there's the question of battery chemistry. With LFP, charging to 100% at 3.6V is not near of an issue as it is with charging to 100% with other lithium chemistries. You could say that LFP's kind of act like partially charged batteries in that they also accept a higher charge rate right up to the end.
     
  12. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    Can’t verify it, but everyone at bolt chat says it is, based on kWh taken in charge, or very close.
    And zero is zero, no buffer at either end, but the o/m recommends staying below 80% unless needed, and above 10% iirc.
     
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  13. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    "the true "dead robots" are the ev owners. Norway for example has a substantially higher number of EV owners than the USA - as well as same or even colder temp's than in chicago. Those poor slobs can't handle significant monthly murders according to the website that monitors that kind of stupidity ....

    https://heyjackass.com/home/

    so how on earth can they be expected to handle car charging - when just avoiding getting carjacked is Herculean
    ;)
    .
     
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