Is the last 10 miles, really 10 miles ?

[mark1313]

I always leave the house with enough battery reserve, but last week I drove up North around 23 ave from 151 ave to a Lowes that had some frost free pots that were discontinued ....When I exited the store late that night the road was closed down that I drove down from for construction .... Thinking that most roads always lead to a major street was wrong .....I ended up in a maze of small roads that lead to no where and a GPS that was not up to date in that area ...... Before I knew it I had 11 miles left and about 20 miles from the house ....I ended up @ some small emergency hospital with no houses around it for map help ....After getting direction I said what the heck ....Im going for broke and drove very slow 20-30 mph all the way back home ......At the 4 miles left estimate it went blank and I just crossed my fingers that I would make it home and I did .....I only wish I has reset the trip odometer @ 11 miles left ..... Im guessing @ this, but if you have 10 miles left on the odometer and if you drive slow enough, you can get 20 miles out of the last 10 miles .....

 

[cwerdna]

It's pretty pointless to depend on the guess-o-meter.

Did you check Plugshare for open commercial and/or residential plugs?

If you're going to ride around near the bottom, since it sounds like your Leaf isn't a '13+ or newer, you should really get Leaf Spy to monitor battery gids and help inform you as to how many miles/kWh you need to average to make it x miles.

And, if you had the range charts (http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293) handy, if you picked he one you had corresponding to how many bars you are down, you could at least guesstimate how many miles/kWh you need to achieve to make it how far you needed to. Example is the "93% chart for a one year old or more battery that still has all 12 capacity bar segments." If you were near the bottom of 2 fuel bars, if you achieved 5.2+ miles/kWh, you should be able to make it 21 miles, assuming no HVAC usage, no elevation gain, no rain, no headwind, etc. If you were at the top of 2 fuel bars, you should be able to make it 31.

With no gid count, you have no idea if you're at the top, middle or bottom of that fuel bar.

 

[jjeff]

I always leave the house with enough battery reserve, but last week I drove up North around 23 ave from 151 ave to a Lowes that had some frost free pots that were discontinued ....When I exited the store late that night the road was closed down that I drove down from for construction .... Thinking that most roads always lead to a major street was wrong .....I ended up in a maze of small roads that lead to no where and a GPS that was not up to date in that area ...... Before I knew it I had 11 miles left and about 20 miles from the house ....I ended up @ some small emergency hospital with no houses around it for map help ....After getting direction I said what the heck ....Im going for broke and drove very slow 20-30 mph all the way back home ......At the 4 miles left estimate it went blank and I just crossed my fingers that I would make it home and I did .....I only wish I has reset the trip odometer @ 11 miles left ..... Im guessing @ this, but if you have 10 miles left on the odometer and if you drive slow enough, you can get 20 miles out of the last 10 miles .....

As was mentioned above if you have a '12 or older you really need to get the LeafSpy program(even the free one would suffice) and a $10 Bluetooth dongle. With this setup you would have a SOC% meter which is MUCH better than the GOM, which IMO is basically worthless! IMO the 13's(and probably newer) do a better job with the GOM, plus on the newer models you get the SOC% which is all I really use.
No if your going to actually use a '12 or older LeafSpy and a BT dongle are a must IMO. And to answer you question directly, absolutely especially when the battery is below 1/4 full the GOM really really errors on telling you a low mileage left, don't trust it rather trust SOC% but if you do, don't really figure you can drive much below 5%, at least I can't.
You didn't say but did you get the "very low battery" warning?(the car actually says that and it comes after the --- which came at 16% for me) and after that it will go into what is called turtle mode(little turtle icon on dash and car won't go very fast at all). I've found on my '12 that VLB came at 12%SOC followed by turtle at 3.7% and by 2.6% my car refused to move on battery power. I believe from VLB I had a bit over 5 miles to not moving.
It's been my experience the GOM is overly optimistic when the battery is near fill and quite the opposite near the bottom 1/4 where IMO it tries to scare you by saying a really low miles left.

 

[dhanson865]

Im guessing @ this, but if you have 10 miles left on the odometer and if you drive slow enough, you can get 20 miles out of the last 10 miles .....

1. get leafspy like others have said

2. until you do look at the range chart http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=101293 it'll tell you roughly what the speed vs distance math is like.

 

[Firetruck41]

None of the miles on the GOM equal a mile...

 

[inphoenix]

I've stopped looking at the GOM. I go by battery % (and that's inaccurate as well so I use Leafspy if I go below 15%).

 

[cwerdna]

I've stopped looking at the GOM. I go by battery % (and that's inaccurate as well so I use Leafspy if I go below 15%).

And, if the OP's car is still of model year prior to 2013, he doesn't have the % SoC display in the dash. All he's got is the crap GOM and the 12 fuel bars on the right.

The % SoC dash display screen wasn't added until model year 2013.

 

[kovalb]

Unfortunately the distance to empty algorithm is not capable of reading minds. Yet it has to deal with situations such as these:

-Scenario 1:
a) Drive at 75 mph until last fifteen miles
b) Then get off freeway and drive gently at 25 mph.

-Scenario 2:
a) Drive at 25 mph until last fifteen miles
b) Then get on freeway and drive at 75 mph.

Either scenario would yield extremely inaccurate readings for the last fifteen miles because calculations would have been based on previous driving under drastically different conditions. The energy economy driving at 75 mph might only be around 3 miles/kWh, while at 25 mph it may reach around 5 miles/kWh. Adding hysteresis to reduce the change in energy economy would help, and did help 13MY and newer, keep from having variation while driving on hills or while varying speeds, but makes it more difficult to deal with these scenarios 1 and 2.

This also means that an app like LeafSpy which calculates distance to empty based on a fixed energy economy input by the user can only be as accurate as the miles/kWh number input by that user. The user would be capable of obtaining a reasonably accurate estimate but would need to input the correct energy economy to get it.

 

[Reddy]

Good to hear you made it home. It's always a good time to remind everyone that, yes, just SLOW down and drive steady like a hypermiler and you can easily get 10 mi after LBW to VLBW, and maybe even 10 mi after VLBW to Turtle. No, this doesn't mean in the snow, rain, cold temps, wind, or up hill, etc. We call it the guess-o-meter (GOM) for a reason. Often newbies make the mistake of seeing the miles drop off quickly, and THINK THEY SHOULD SPEED UP. WRONG. Slow down, pull onto surface streets if needed. The Leaf mileage record is something like 180 mi at 15 mph in Phoenix.