My Turtle Stats - 18 miles from battery low to turtle

Decided to try turtling the Leaf. So, after yesterday's recording breaking 5.4 m/kwh, I didn't charge Leaf. I had started yesterday morning at 80% charge and ended with 41 miles of MTE showing after 37.6 miles of driving.

Today's driving was similar to yesterday's. I went to Fry's to return some stuff. About 17 miles on hilly sub-urban roads. Mostly driving around 40 mph. I drove 31.9 miles when I got Low Battery, with 9 miles of flashing range (Miles To Empty below) showing as I parked at the grocery store near my house. When I returned and turned on Leaf, the last bar disappeared and MTE went to 8 miles. Decided to go home before trying further to reach turtle, as my fuel was low as well ;-)



After a cup of tea and snacks, it was time to turtle. I drove around the house, never more than 3 miles away. Dropped off books at the library, listened to a few songs driving around on roads which are 30 to 40 mph limited (so I was driving between 35 and 45). The estimated range changed to "---" when it was flashing 3. Continued to drive normally until I got a "Battery Very Low" message on the console asking whether I want to search for charging stations. I took a U turn and returned to drive closer home. Finally 18.4 miles after getting battery low message, I got the turtle sign. Success !

The dash showed an alternating message of "Battery Low" and "Motor power limited" (or something close). The acceleration was indeed limited with leaf refusing to do much when pressed hard. Even slight inclines were a drag.

Now I'm waiting to see how much electricity it will take to recharge Leaf.

Interestingly, with a combined m/kwh of 5.2, Leaf says it consumed 16.7 KWh to travel 88.6 miles, starting from 80%. This equates to about 21 KWh for the full 100%. Just like we found out for a few others who tried the turtle.

Also, starting with a range estimate of 41 miles, I had driven 37 miles when the estimate showed 3 miles (and went to ---). That is remarkably accurate. But there was further 14 miles of range left.

update : Blink reports 19.85 KWh for 80% charging. Restarted charging to get to 100%.

That's pretty consistent with my earlier report as well, though I only got 14 moles to turtle not 18. But it sounds like you were taking it more gently than I was - I was deliberately trying to keep up a decent speed with bursts of acceleration... Unfortunately, I had no good way to get a clean measurement of KWh to full charge after that. It'll be intesting to see your figure.

Thank you for recording this in detail. After the software update I have been suffering from range anxiety a bit more, but I recalibrate my mental SOC gauge for that extra room at the bottom and feel a bit more comfortable.

-Matt

GeekEV said:

That's pretty consistent with my earlier report as well, though I only got 14 moles to turtle not 18. But it sounds like you were taking it more gently than I was - I was deliberately trying to keep up a decent speed with bursts of acceleration...

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I did that a bit when driving back from Fry's. Otherwise I wanted to drive normally as I do close to home. That way the numers I get would be realistic.

I expect it will take about 20-21kwh to charge to 80%. In the morning I'll charge to 100% to get a full reading - that should be another 5 kwh.

evnow said:

I expect it will take about 20-21kwh to charge to 80%. In the morning I'll charge to 100% to get a full reading - that should be another 5 kwh.

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It took 19.85 KWh to charge to 80% and 5.01 Kwh to charge to 100% for a total of 24.86 KWh. Others have reported numbers ranging from 25.6 to 26.36 KWh.

How about that! 19.85 / 24.86 = 79.85%
Definitely close enough to 80% for government work, and so much for the theory that 80% is really 83% just because the website says so.

Ray

planet4ever said:

How about that! 19.85 / 24.86 = 79.85%
Definitely close enough to 80% for government work, and so much for the theory that 80% is really 83% just because the website says so.

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Interesting - but ofcourse, we are assuming the charging loss is linear to 100% - which may not be the case.

Good point. Since charging slows down, the time-related losses, especially for cooling, are presumably higher. So we could be back above 80% after all.

Ray

I ran the beast to turtle mode both yesterday and today. I guess I'm getting good at it, since I got the car in the garage both times.

What I found most interesting was that the the distances between Battery Low and Very Low were not equidistant. I assumed that they would be with the data points of the "battery value" number of 48 for Batt Low, and 24 for Very Low.

While 24 is 50% of the 48 battery value, in actual miles, Very Low was consistently only about 62% of the miles achieved in Battery Low.

Here's my numbers:

************* 21July11**22July11
Battery Low----8.6-----13.6--
Very Low------5.5------8.4--
Total to Turtle-14.1----22.0--

On the 22 July miles, I was trying REALLY hard to extend it as far as I could. I was knocking out 5.7miles/kW, with lots of hypermiling in Neutral on the downhills, and 38-43 mph on the uphills. I did run the AC the whole time, however. When I got Battery Low, I was 18 miles from my house, so I knew that I had my work cut out for me!!!

21 July data was non-freeway suburban driving without any exceptional efforts to extend range. Neither was run in ECO (I just don't like it).

I do not record Guess-O-Meter numbers anymore, and actually covered up the number display with a sticker. I'd prefer no data than bad data.

When do the battery low and very low battery warnings come on again? I've only made it down to 1 bar and about 10 miles remaining, but don't recall seeing/hearing anything different except for an arrow pointing to the "gas pump" once down to 2 bars so I don't think I've even gotten battery low warning yet.

Looks like you don't get the first battery low warning until the last bar goes away?

drees said:

When do the battery low and very low battery warnings come on again? I've only made it down to 1 bar and about 10 miles remaining, but don't recall seeing/hearing anything different except for an arrow pointing to the "gas pump" once down to 2 bars so I don't think I've even gotten battery low warning yet.

Looks like you don't get the first battery low warning until the last bar goes away?

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The Battery Warning is roughly concurrent with the last bar going away (post April firmware). So, no, it doesn't look like you've been there yet. But, you'll have an idea how far you can go should you ever need to.

TonyWilliams said:

The Battery Warning is roughly concurrent with the last bar going away (post April firmware). So, no, it doesn't look like you've been there yet. But, you'll have an idea how far you can go should you ever need to.

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Yeah - looks like at least 10 miles should be possible at a minimum once the last bar goes away and sometimes significantly more if driving efficiently.

From your last chart to make sure I'm reading it right - you got 8.6 and 13.6 miles from battery low to very low - and then 5.5 and 8.4 miles from very low to turtle for a total of 14.1 and 22.0 miles from battery low to turtle?

TonyWilliams said:

************* 21July11**22July11
Battery Low----8.6-----13.6--
Very Low------5.5------8.4--
Total to Turtle-14.1----22.0--

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Right, even for me it was 11 miles from Batt Low to Batt V Low, but only 6.7 miles from Batt V Low to Turtle.

evnow said:

Right, even for me it was 11 miles from Batt Low ro Batt V Low, but only 6.7 miles from Batt V Low to Turtle.

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About 61%. I think we're seeing a trend.

drees said:

TonyWilliams said:

From your last chart to make sure I'm reading it right - you got 8.6 and 13.6 miles from battery low to very low - and then 5.5 and 8.4 miles from very low to turtle for a total of 14.1 and 22.0 miles from battery low to turtle?

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Correct.

I went to turtle mode for the 3rd day in a row, and recorded the following:

Here's the date to date:

************ EVNOW*21July**22July**23July
BatteryLow----11.0---8.6---13.6---6.7
VeryLow-------6.7---5.5----8.4---5.2
-----------------------------------
Total to Turtle-17.7--14.1--22.0---11.9
-----------------------------------
VeryLow/Low--61%---64%--62%----77%


The only explanation that I have for today's significantly increased percentage in the ratio of VeryLow to BatteryLow is that I was driving at 70 mph on the freeway to register the 6.7 miles approaching VeryLow, and then I was driving much slower on surface streets for the last 5.2 miles to Turtle. Also, a tiny difference was that I dropped off a passenger at at about 2 miles into VeryLow.

The car did not make it to my garage, coming up about 100 yards short, after about 1/2 mile in Turtle.

One additional twist is after I tried to restart the car in my driveway, I got this ominous message. After 30 minutes on the Blink L2 charger, it "fired" right up, and operated normally:

I don't think hitting turtle regularly is a good thing for the battery.

evnow said:

I don't think hitting turtle regularly is a good thing for the battery.

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Glad it has a warranty !!!

If you're referring to the ominous message, I think that is a product of me trying to restart the car.

But, of course, using the extremes of the battery performance, whether 100% charging, Turtle mode, or Quick Charges will have some impact on the stress of the battery.

drees said:

When do the battery low and very low battery warnings come on again? I've only made it down to 1 bar and about 10 miles remaining, but don't recall seeing/hearing anything different except for an arrow pointing to the "gas pump" once down to 2 bars so I don't think I've even gotten battery low warning yet.

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are you sure about the arrow and the "gas pump"? on my car the arrow is always there, and in fact i was going to post here asking "why have they put an arrow indicating what side the filler door is on when it's in the front?" and then i realized that since that arrow and gas pump are above the miles to empty range that the arrow+pump must mean "miles to (absolutely) needing a charge".

or is there another arrow near the other "gas pump" on the display?

astrorob said:

drees said:

When do the battery low and very low battery warnings come on again? I've only made it down to 1 bar and about 10 miles remaining, but don't recall seeing/hearing anything different except for an arrow pointing to the "gas pump" once down to 2 bars so I don't think I've even gotten battery low warning yet.

Click to expand...

are you sure about the arrow and the "gas pump"? on my car the arrow is always there, and in fact i was going to post here asking "why have they put an arrow indicating what side the filler door is on when it's in the front?" and then i realized that since that arrow and gas pump are above the miles to empty range that the arrow+pump must mean "miles to (absolutely) needing a charge".

or is there another arrow near the other "gas pump" on the display?

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You're going to go make me look now (runs out to the car). You're right - I have about 5 bars right now and the little arrow is still there. Only really noticed it when I was low on charge!