Sat May 07, 2011 9:34 pm
I think this is consistent with others have noted after the software upgrade.
So I had a lot of running around today with a mixture of Freeway and surface streets and the next thing I knew I was at the dreaded RED BARS! I was getting freaked out but my wife calmly said "you need to see how far you can go anyhow, so this is as good a time as any." So this is what I noted. (BTW, I did have the software update a couple of weeks ago.)
First, the SOC bars are definitely not linear. The first bar (#12) goes very quickly, sometimes as few as 5 miles, the next bars 11-4 seem to get about 7 miles each, #3 got 9 miles. When I got to the 2 red bars, the range guess-o-meter said 23 miles left and I'm thinking no way, however, bar #2 lasted 12 miles, then at 21 miles the range meter still showed 8 miles left. At 23.4 miles with 2 miles left on the range I received the low battery warning message and the SOC bars went blank. I continued to drive around at ~40 mph. At 29.7 miles I received the "turtle" and "reduced power". At 30.2 I was dead stopped in front of my house and needed to push the car up my driveway.
Summary:
2 red bars with 23 miles left on range meter.
0 red bars at 21 miles traveled (last 2 bars 10.5 miles average each)
8 miles traveled with 0 bars left before "turtle"
0.5 miles on turtle before stopped dead.
Total 30.2 miles traveled on 2 red bars at 4.0 kw/mile.
There seems to be a significant (~10%) cushion in range from the last 2 SOC bars to battery cut off.
"No American soldier has ever served on foreign soil to bring electricity to this country"
Miles= 41,000 in 26 months, 11 bars.............