Gen 3 PIP: Battery Question

yes, it should be moved to the pip forum.

1) have you owned it since new?

2) are you going by the guess-o-meter or actual miles driven?

i started out at 16, lost most of it in the first couple years, and am now around 13+ in the best weather

 

i like to measure my mileage until the engine comes on for accuracy. every now and again, i drive a specific route.
you can try disconnecting the 12v negative for a minute, which will reset the guess-o-meter to factory default, then see how things go. you might lose radio presets and window up/down memory though

 

We've owned our 2014 PiP since purchase. Mileage on it is in 128k range over those 9 years.

EV range lists as 11-14 whenever 12v battery's neg is disconnected/reconnected.
In practice, it was 9-10 first year or two. Mosta that was probably 8 to little over 9.
Since last year, it's like 7-8, even less.
Original battery. Driving normal to moderately 'aggressive', 70-80 at highway speeds (stopped hypermiling long while ago).
A/C was run a lot. Warm-ish climate.

Things that get the most EV range from battery:
1) Plug-in charging when it's warm(er) than when it's cold(er), eg day time vs evening/night, summer time vs winter time.
2) No other significant loads on main battery, eg headlights, ac.
3) Life of the battery (obviously—see below).

Re: 1, PiP takes ~2.6 hrs to fully charge off typical 120V power with the included charger and little more than half that time off 240V, from its "Low" state when dash indicator shows bars for battery state rather than solid. Little control over charging it more or less based on season, but there's some based on charging it in day vs night.

Re: 2, Little control over these too, but I've met people who will minimize turning on AC when they drive, even in warm climates, just to lower the load on the electrical system and get better mileage (even in ordinary cars).

Things that lower PiP's battery lifespan:
1) Being too warm/hot over its life.
2) Being more/fully charged over its life rather than less.

Re: 1, battery intake vent shouldn't be obstructed. There're installable vent screens you can buy that make it easier to keep duct clean, but as the rear RH seatbelt gets dirtier/ages, it becomes looser, easy/easier to block it. That has to be minded. Likewise, battery cooling fan that draws through that vent should be checked and cleaned both for battery and fan motor life. This means warmer than it needs to be. I imagine keeping it in a garage over its life gives the main battery better life than leaving it parked in the sun

Re: 2, I didn't know or realize this when I first got it. Tried to keep it more 'topped up' a lot because I often wanted it ready in the morning, which meant charging it at night, 'cause I didn't have the discipline or energy to wake up in the morning, plug mine in, then have it ready to go when I head out, even without a fixed schedule. There's a way to set some timer on it so it charges only during a programmed block of hours, and you presumably just plug it in physically at night and it won't start charging until the set time, but I only accidentally did it a few times back when I didn't realize the convenience of keeping it fully charged and ready to go came with the tradeoff of aging the battery faster.

Of course, since you bought yours used, yours is in the condition the previous owners left it in.

(Also, the Advanced trim version has LED headlamps, which should be much more energy-efficient, thus a lower load than the Base's stock regular headlamps. This should result in slightly better EV range miles, by how much, not sure. I thought about getting just the headlamps from the Advanced as parts and modding my Base model myself, but it's more than just a bulb replacement. I think there's a ballast system (or something analogous to it for LED lighting), possibly the full headlamp assemblies themselves as well, and that system is a not-inexpensive component, as would full different headlamp assemblies.)