Long trip + experimenting. OR How I ended up pushing my Leaf

I got my Leaf Friday night and today I took my family on a wonderful, long road trip. Then I did some experimenting. (if you came for the pushing part, skip down to 'experiment begins'

We decided to drive to Emeryville from our home in Santa Clara, 49 miles each way. There is a public L2 charger at the Four Point Sheraton in Emerville that we could plug into while chowing down at the Elephant Bar before the return trip. We started with 100% charge, Eco, no climate, and drove at 60mph the whole way (95% highway) using the cruise control. Starting miles remaining 104.

We drive 49 miles to the charging station in Emeryville and we had 36miles remaining and had consumed 7 of 12 bars. Unfortunately I didn't know you needed a card to use a ChargePoint station and I had a moment of panic until I saw the phone number. I called and the customer service rep activated the charger and we were in business.

Ate, shopped, mulled for about 2:00hr. When we returned to the car it read 58miles but had gained only 2 bars. Hmmm If I used 7 getting there and now had only 7 available (including red) that is shaving it a bit close for a car I don't know well with my family around. We ended up waiting another 20min and gained another two bars (must have been near the top of the last one) and it now read 70miles.

We had an uneventful trip home and arrived with the two red bars remaining and 16miles estimated remaining range.

EXPERIMENT BEGINS
----------------------
After the family was in bed I decided to use the oportunity of a low charge to learn how the low batt warnings and turtle mode work. I did laps of about a 2mile circuit around my house to try it out.

I reset the trip odometer and switched to eco mode when it gave the first "Battery Low" warning. I then continued the circuit, (stop and go city driving with a max speed of 42mph and an average of about 38mph.

I drove 9.9miles from 'battery low' until I got the "battery very low" warning. I then got another 8 miles driving on "---" before turtle kicked in.

Well i've been reading the forum for a while and read that people would get 2-3 miles in turtle mode so I felt pretty safe as I was never more than 1 mile from my house. HA!!! Turtle kicked in and I imediatly aborted my circuit and headed straight for home.

After only 0.2 miles of turtle I hear Scotty's voice in my head, "Cap'n, there 'aint no more power, she's got n'untin left." as the drive trains stops turning.

Now for the fun part. I pushed the leaf another 0.6 miles to my house, it was surprisingly easy, the rolling resistance is very low. However when I got to my driveway, I just could not get it up the incline and stop it from rolling back. I had the brilliant idea of reaching in and using the parking break to help me inch it forward but alas, you can't disengage it unless your foot is on the break.. (doesn't work if you are out of the car pushing)

My L2 charger would not reach so I pulled out the L1 evse and it is trickle charging as I speak. Now i'm going to go out and see if I have enough juice for drive 9 feet up my driveway

tl;dr (too-long-didn't-read) Very nice long trip, used public charger. 9.9miles from "Batt Low" to "Batt Very Low". 8 more miles to Turtle. 0.2 miles from turtle to dead. Pushed 0.6 miles, couldn't get it up the driveway so no L2, trickle charge to the rescue.

Lol, nice summary!

You may want to repeat the test when the pack has had a chance to break-in and go thru a few equalization cycles.. perhaps then Turtle will give you more range.

BGog said:

Well i've been reading the forum for a while and read that people would get 2-3 miles in turtle mode so I felt pretty safe as I was never more than 1 mile from my house.

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The 2-3 mile reports I remember reading were from people who were on the freeway when turtle hit, and were able to mostly coast down to their final resting place. I don't think anyone should ever expect more than half a mile in turtle mode and, as you found, it can be considerably less than that.

Ray

One should plan to be charging BEFORE Turtle Mode occurs, because there might only be enough turtle-power to get out of traffic to the side of the road.

Turtle Mode should be treated as the electrical equivalent of a tire blowout, NOT a dependable reserve.

"Those who depend upon Turtle, tow much."

Remember, Towing and Roadside Assistance insurance are reasonably priced today ONLY because an ICE RARELY needs these services. If EVs get a bad reputation of "running dry", their towing insurance could easily cost more than all the rest of the car's automobile insurance!

Duplicate....

Thanks for the detailed report. I've done turtle mode far in excess of one mile, but as was suggested, most of that was in Neutral, coasting down the freeway, off ramp, and down the road to the next traffic light.

My current advice on Turtle, of course, is to GET THE CAR SAFELY OFF THE ROAD !!! For experiments, like yours, you get some good exercise out of it (BTDT).

Data Event #----A-----B-----C-----D----E----You
LowBattery----11.0---8.6---13.6---6.7---10---9.9
VeryLow-------6.7---5.5----8.4---5.2----7----8.0
-----------------------------------------------
Total to Turtle-17.7--14.1--22.0---11.9---17---17.9
-----------------------------------------------
VeryLow/Low--61%---64%--62%----77%---70%--80%

How many bars did you have when you got the battery low warning? I've never been below 2 bars yet.

Turtle is definitely to help you get out of the traffic - hopefully a parking lot nearby. Thats about it.

Infact, I'd say once we hit battery low, 15 miles of dependable city travel is what we have.

For those that have been in 'low battery' mode with "---', is there a problem with charging with the Blink units? Sounds crazy but ... when I pulled up to the Blink units at Torrey Pines, the car will not charge. The car's timer is turned off, and the middle blue lights go on before plugging in. But, one the Blink J1772 is plugged in, the blue lights on the dash disappear and the Blink screen says "Not charging". This is occurring on both units on the upper level (and the one on lower level). Or, is taking the charge, but so slowly initially that it's not registering?! Right now, we're not sure if it's an issue with the car or with the Blinks. TIA.

I have this problem sometimes with my home unit blink where it won't charge. To fix it I have to reboot the Blink unit.

cdub said:

I have this problem sometimes with my home unit blink where it won't charge. To fix it I have to reboot the Blink unit.

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Thanks. I rebooted, having read that here somewhere, in fact for these same units. But, both still did not start charging.

Have only done --- but not ,O,-

I think we are supposed to imagine ourselve as a turtle. What would a turtle do if it was in traffic... probably want to get out of the road.

cdub I was at two bars when I got Battery Low
TonyWilliams, thanks for the chart showing other peoples experimental data, good to see I got similar results.

I of course have no intention of ever getting a turtle or even a "very low" warning in a real world situation. I just wanted to understand the machine I'm driving. If some crazy situation ever arises, its good to know what to expect from the car.

The one thing I think they should do is provide a detail range estimate screen. Something like this:
(just fake numbers)
City(35mph) City(45mph) Hwy(60mph) Hwy(70mph)
D 89 74 61 52
ECO 96 79 65 54

That would be nice info and something they could probably calculate fairly easily.

0.2 miles on turtle seems really low. My experiments yielded 1 mile almost exactly. As for the 2 or 3 mile people, yeah, probably coasting on the freeway. Do try again in a month or so after the pack has broken in (as others suggested). I'll be curious to see if your turtle mode is similarly short. Were hills involved?

cdub said:

How many bars did you have when you got the battery low warning? I've never been below 2 bars yet.

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Low Battery warning happens, generally, several miles into the number 1 fuel bar.

Very Low happens about 7 to 10 miles after Low Batt, and there should not be any fuel bars remaining.

GeekEV said:

0.2 miles on turtle seems really low. My experiments yielded 1 mile almost exactly.

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Are you on the old firmware still (or did the experiment while on old firmware)?

I've successfully hit Turtle a total of 6 times. I now have 6000 miles on the car, new firmware for all events, and have never gotten better than 0.4 miles.

BGog said:

The one thing I think they should do is provide a detail range estimate screen. Something like this:
(just fake numbers)
City(35mph) City(45mph) Hwy(60mph) Hwy(70mph)
D 89 74 61 52
ECO 96 79 65 54

That would be nice info and something they could probably calculate fairly easily.

Click to expand...

Like the data on this chart ?

RANGE ESTIMATE CHART

TonyWilliams said:

Low Battery warning happens, generally, several miles into the number 1 fuel bar.
Very Low happens about 7 to 10 miles after Low Batt, and there should not be any fuel bars remaining.

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I've only had two or three LBWs and they were all with one bar @ 7-11 miles on the GOM.

LEAFfan said:

I've only had two or three LBWs and they were all with one bar @ 7-11 miles on the GOM.

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I don't keep track of G-O-M numbers. Or CarWings numbers.

Any estimate I offer is based on actual data, interpolated data, or data from any source other than the above :mrgreen:

TonyWilliams said:

LEAFfan said:

I've only had two or three LBWs and they were all with one bar @ 7-11 miles on the GOM.

Click to expand...

I don't keep track of G-O-M numbers. Or CarWings numbers.
Any estimate I offer is based on actual data, interpolated data, or data from any source other than the above :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

Ya, I knew that I had around 20 miles left.