ALL POSTS - GOM - Range Meter - Distance To Empty meter

[fooljoe]

I have a Clippercreek charger and this is what I find every day:
1/21/2015 total charge 110 miles
1/22/2015 total charge - 94 miles
1/23/2015 - total charge -81 miles

Anyone experiencing this?

Hem Ramachandran

To summarize what everybody else is saying, this has nothing to do with your clipper creek charging station or your car's battery. The number of miles your car displays is based on an unknown algorithm that factors in such things as temperature and how efficiently you've recently driven.

Because we don't know exactly how the miles remaining display works, we refer to it as the "Guess-o-Meter", and if you're serious about planning how much range you'll actually have to make a given trip it's recommended to ignore it and use other methods, such as Tony's Range Chart and/or my RavCharge app.

 

[Tperault]

Anyone have problem with extended charge not going above 85 miles.

 

[Incredulocious]

Anyone have problem with extended charge not going above 85 miles.

As you'll find discussed throughout this thread, don't use your range estimate to judge your charge level.

 

[n3ckf]

if you have 85 miles as your "extended" range it means you have a low estimate of miles per kwh.

The GOM milage estimate is (estimate of) miles/kwh * stored energy (kwh).

Since the estimate of miles/kwh changes as you drive, the GOM will show widely varying ranges for the same state-of-charge (stored kwh) of the battery.

For instance, if i keep the car up here in the mountains for a couple weeks, my GOM will show as little as 84 miles (the lowest i've seen) for an *extended* charge. The highest i've ever seen for an extended charge is 124 miles (people here have seen more though, it just depends).

You want to use the "bars" (which really do indicate state of charge) on the meter. Admittedly they're coarser (and there are NO bars shown between 'standard' and 'extended' charge). However the bars are the best way to know whats really happening with the battery.

 

[miimura]

If you need a more exact number for the State of Charge than what the bars show (1/16th increments), RavCharge will give you an actual percentage. That figure is straight from the car's computers, via Entune. The Entune app appears to truncate it to 5% increments but the actual data is 1% increments.

 

[jscgvnc]

I just got the car back a week ago after being in the shop for a month with the heater out. They updated the firmware as well.

Now my GOM ranges seem to be coming back quite low after a charge, like 70 miles tops, if I don't have the heater on. It could, of course, just be poor driving habits, but I've been trying to pay attention to efficiency and keep the heater off, use cruise control on all freeway driving set at a reasonable speed, etc.

Anyone else have a problem after getting firmware updated? I have the Leviton 40A charger, if it matters.

 

[fromport]

I just got the car back a week ago after being in the shop for a month with the heater out. They updated the firmware as well.

Now my GOM ranges seem to be coming back quite low after a charge, like 70 miles tops, if I don't have the heater on. It could, of course, just be poor driving habits, but I've been trying to pay attention to efficiency and keep the heater off, use cruise control on all freeway driving set at a reasonable speed, etc.

Anyone else have a problem after getting firmware updated? I have the Leviton 40A charger, if it matters.

When you look at your stats at entunes, how many miles/kWh are you achieving ?
I know a person with a real heavy right foot but he gets about 90 miles range on a normal charge.

 

[jscgvnc]

When you look at your stats at entunes, how many miles/kWh are you achieving ?
I know a person with a real heavy right foot but he gets about 90 miles range on a normal charge.

Well it turns out it was just me. After my wife drove it for a day or two, the range popped back up. Apparently I was giving it the lead foot.

 

[laguna_b]

I bought a 2014 RAV4 EV Used from Carmax which offers a 5 day return privilege. I was replacing my 2014 RAV4 EV which was totaled (bought new). BOTH had about 14k miles. The day I picked it up, (used one) they had it charged just a hair above normal. 102 miles showing. Yeah! Drove it home exhausting all but 15 miles... charge taken to Extended 40.7KWHr YES!
Drove a route to SF taken MANY times with old RAV4 EV had 48-49 miles remaining (old Rav4 would have 44-46) Yeah again... (74MPH)
2 Days later a normal charge yielded 84 miles extended 94....What happened????
Same SF trip yielded 38 miles versus 48-49 mile remaining...BOTH off extended charge. (72MPH)
I returned it....too much risk of battery degradation...

Any comments?

 

[Incredulocious]

Nothing happened... well, nothing wrong anyway. You drove the car and it gave a new range estimate based on your driving.

You should have experienced the same thing with your previous RAV4. I certainly do. If I have a trip involving nice, high efficiency driving (highway driving, not too cold, not too fast, not stop and go, etc), then the next time I fully charge it I might see something around 100+ miles non-extended or 120-ish extended. If I have a drive that's not so efficient (hill climbing, cold weather, stop and go in the city), I might get only something in the 80's for a normal, non-extended charge and 100-ish for full extended charge.

And that doesn't say how far I'll really be able to drive either. It's just an estimate — it doesn't know if I'll be driving fast or in cold weather or doing a lot of hill climbing. (I do appreciate how much more consistent and conservative it is versus the LEAF's algorithm though.)

So... no problem there. Nothing from what you said implies any issues. Even differences in the amount of charge bars you consume when repeating the same trip can be attributed to differences in temperature, wind, speed, amount of braking/acceleration, etc.

However, how could you know it was "charged just a hair above normal"?? There's no way to tell on the RAV4 since the charge gauge doesn't show anything above the normal 16 bars. You certainly cannot tell that from the range estimate! Whether it says 92 miles or 106 miles says nothing about whether you have any more than the visible 16 bars of charge.

The range estimate does not tell you how much charge you have. It's a number calculated from your recent driving energy consumption times your available remaining charge. Since you don't know exactly what value it's using for your recent energy consumption rate, you can't tell how much charge above the visible 16 bars you have.

 

[laguna_b]

Nothing happened... well, nothing wrong anyway. You drove the car and it gave a new range estimate based on your driving.

You should have experienced the same thing with your previous RAV4. I certainly do. If I have a trip involving nice, high efficiency driving (highway driving, not too cold, not too fast, not stop and go, etc), then the next time I fully charge it I might see something around 100+ miles non-extended or 120-ish extended. If I have a drive that's not so efficient (hill climbing, cold weather, stop and go in the city), I might get only something in the 80's for a normal, non-extended charge and 100-ish for full extended charge.

And that doesn't say how far I'll really be able to drive either. It's just an estimate — it doesn't know if I'll be driving fast or in cold weather or doing a lot of hill climbing. (I do appreciate how much more consistent and conservative it is versus the LEAF's algorithm though.)

So... no problem there. Nothing from what you said implies any issues. Even differences in the amount of charge bars you consume when repeating the same trip can be attributed to differences in temperature, wind, speed, amount of braking/acceleration, etc.

However, how could you know it was "charged just a hair above normal"?? There's no way to tell on the RAV4 since the charge gauge doesn't show anything above the normal 16 bars. You certainly cannot tell that from the range estimate! Whether it says 92 miles or 106 miles says nothing about whether you have any more than the visible 16 bars of charge.

The range estimate does not tell you how much charge you have. It's a number calculated from your recent driving energy consumption times your available remaining charge. Since you don't know exactly what value it's using for your recent energy consumption rate, you can't tell how much charge above the visible 16 bars you have.

--I am well aware of the effect of driving on range both in current trip and in the predictive algorithm from my prior RAV4, which is why I chose a standard trip for which i had much data to go off of. In my old RAV4 I made the trip from home to Moscone Center MANY times. The results were pretty identical. 44 - 46 miles left. The same result (or slightly better 48 was seen Saturday. at my usual 74 open road speed. Then to have it drop to 38 for the same traffic conditions and slightly lower continuous speed...that concerned me. Another gross parameter I use for evaluating battery useful range is adding the range showing to the odometer reading for the trip. In most cases, especially when you get low, the total starts increasing as you get towards the end. It did in this case too but only to 103, which was low based on history. Now, I should mention that I live in the mountains and the vehicle gets a regenerative boost at the beginning of the trip for 6.5 miles. Those are freebies for the battery since they are very downhill and always regenerating. Yes, I know that when I went up hill it fed the algorithm heavy battery usage data. But this all happened the same on the first trip and for the year I had my prior.

-- How did I know it had been charged a hair above normal? The dealer only had level 1 charger. They charged the vehicle to full over night before I arrived then went on to Extended, again via level 1 after I arrived. After purchase I took it to a Level 2 to top it off and after an hour it was still charging. The time to finish when picked up originally was about 1:30. I would not consider this whole point to be an issue except that it fit the narrative of a sudden ~15% drop in capacity that seemed apparent.

--So I have tried to do everything I could to control MY variables for my experiments. What I do not know is what was the history of the vehicle and usage. Was the vehicle long idle at full or empty charge awaiting resale? Did the prior owner sell it because he experienced battery issues? What if I keep the car and the battery slowly continues down hill as I pay off a full priced vehicle? 80%?60%? When will a battery warranty finally kick in? These were unacceptable risks without knowing more.

 

[Incredulocious]

In my old RAV4 I made the trip from home to Moscone Center MANY times. The results were pretty identical. 44 - 46 miles left. The same result (or slightly better 48 was seen Saturday. at my usual 74 open road speed. Then to have it drop to 38 for the same traffic conditions and slightly lower continuous speed...that concerned me. Another gross parameter I use for evaluating battery useful range is adding the range showing to the odometer reading for the trip. In most cases, especially when you get low, the total starts increasing as you get towards the end. It did in this case too but only to 103, which was low based on history.

Well, it doesn't sound like much of a difference (about 6 miles?) to me – seems like this could easily have been the weather: colder temp or a headwind that day, particularly since you only have two sample trials and it gave you the expected results on the other day.

I'm actually surprised to hear you say that trip only varied by two miles estimate on your old vehicle. Day vs. night, summer vs. winter? I see much more than that with mine in the same area. (I'm also in the SF Bay Area.)

So I have tried to do everything I could to control MY variables for my experiments. What I do not know is what was the history of the vehicle and usage. Was the vehicle long idle at full or empty charge awaiting resale? Did the prior owner sell it because he experienced battery issues? What if I keep the car and the battery slowly continues down hill as I pay off a full priced vehicle? 80%?60%? When will a battery warranty finally kick in? These were unacceptable risks without knowing more.

Yeah, it's a shame we have no easy way to check the battery integrity. Best you can do is see how much energy you can put into it on multiple occasions. I'm sorry you didn't feel comfortable with that unit. It may have been fine. It sounds fine from what you described, but it is your investment. Good luck to you on your search for a replacement.

Correction: I totally forgot about Tony's overnight battery capacity test procedure. See his post below.

 

[laguna_b]

In my old RAV4 I made the trip from home to Moscone Center MANY times. The results were pretty identical. 44 - 46 miles left. The same result (or slightly better 48 was seen Saturday. at my usual 74 open road speed. Then to have it drop to 38 for the same traffic conditions and slightly lower continuous speed...that concerned me. Another gross parameter I use for evaluating battery useful range is adding the range showing to the odometer reading for the trip. In most cases, especially when you get low, the total starts increasing as you get towards the end. It did in this case too but only to 103, which was low based on history.

Well, it doesn't sound like much of a difference (about 6 miles?) to me – seems like this could easily have been the weather: colder temp or a headwind that day, particularly since you only have two sample trials and it gave you the expected results on the other day.

I'm actually surprised to hear you say that trip only varied by two miles estimate on your old vehicle. Day vs. night, summer vs. winter? I see much more than that with mine in the same area. (I'm also in the SF Bay Area.)

So I have tried to do everything I could to control MY variables for my experiments. What I do not know is what was the history of the vehicle and usage. Was the vehicle long idle at full or empty charge awaiting resale? Did the prior owner sell it because he experienced battery issues? What if I keep the car and the battery slowly continues down hill as I pay off a full priced vehicle? 80%?60%? When will a battery warranty finally kick in? These were unacceptable risks without knowing more.

Yeah, it's a shame we have no easy way to check the battery integrity. Best you can do is see how much energy you can put into it on multiple occasions. I'm sorry you didn't feel comfortable with that unit. It may have been fine. It sounds fine from what you described, but it is your investment. Good luck to you on your search for a replacement.

Well trip to trip on the newer one had a variation of 48 to 38 miles, same vehicle, same trip. If I had my choice I would have liked to try some more samples but was against the deadline. I am still looking, LOVE the car.... BTW, on second sample I had climate set to essentially match outdoor conditions. I wanted to give it the best chance... I did ask a contact at one Toyota dealership if there was a capacity test.....he is checking for me. Will post what I hear.

 

[Incredulocious]

BTW, on second sample I had climate set to essentially match outdoor conditions. I wanted to give it the best chance...

Oh, that'll get you! That means the heater and a/c could have easily kicked in at times. (And did you remember to turn off climate control to get the higher remaining estimate number to add to your odometer?)

Yeah, it's annoying that there's no simple way to just get "vent". The only way to be sure not to kick in the heater is to dial the temperature setting all the way to the bottom ("LO"), turn off A/C manually and dial in a fan setting. Unless it' really hot or cold, I'd rather just get outside air to stay comfortable. And of the course opening the window generates noise and creates more drag.

 

[eschatfische]

Yeah, it's annoying that there's no simple way to just get "vent".

The system is designed to automatically switch on the vent in appropriate conditions when the climate control system is otherwise turned off. The recirculate toggle will also continue to function when venting is occurring and the system is off.

While it unfortunately doesn't always choose correctly for conditions, my experience is that most of the time it does actually continue to vent when the system is off; you can then adjust the flow manually via the vents themselves or select recirculate. The car will show you what it's doing via the arrow indicator on the climate control screen, even when the system is otherwise off.

 

[Incredulocious]

Yeah, it's annoying that there's no simple way to just get "vent".

The system is designed to automatically switch on the vent in appropriate conditions when the climate control system is otherwise turned off. The recirculate toggle will also continue to function when venting is occurring and the system is off.

While it unfortunately doesn't always choose correctly for conditions, my experience is that most of the time it does actually continue to vent when the system is off; you can then adjust the flow manually via the vents themselves or select recirculate. The car will show you what it's doing via the arrow indicator on the climate control screen, even when the system is otherwise off.

Yeah, I know you get some flow while the car is moving but it's often not enough on a pleasant sunny day. (At slow speeds/stoplights, I'll often just open the windows instead.) Hence the need to make so many adjustments to be sure that the heater won't kick on if the temp should drop while you have the fan setting turned up.

"Ingineer" made a nice mod to the LEAF climate control system to tie the heater to the A/C button so you could quickly and easily make sure the heater would not engage:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=6751

 

[TonyWilliams]

Yeah, it's a shame we have no easy way to check the battery integrity. Best you can do is see how much energy you can put into it on multiple occasions. I'm sorry you didn't feel comfortable with that unit. It may have been fine. It sounds fine from what you described, but it is your investment. Good luck to you on your search for a replacement.

RAV4 EV battery degradation
Make sure that the battery is at room temperature, then:

1) Fully charge vehicle (extended) with the J1772 port (not CHAdeMO)
2) Battery must be near room temperature
3) Turn off cabin climate control with "OFF" button
4) Disconnect the 12 volt battery negative cables and leave off for several hours minimum (overnight is ideal)

Next day:

5) Reconnect 12 volt battery
6) Hold foot on brake and press START button with key fob nearby
7) Energy gauge will show Full (16 illuminated segments) and "LO" on the GOM
8) Wait for navigation unit to complete its start up
9) Press START with brake pedal depressed a second time
10) The displayed range is "RATED RANGE" at 3.5 miles per kWh

11) Divide this Rated Range by 146 to get usable battery capacity compared to new.

Example: 142 rated range / 146 = 97.2% battery capacity from new

********

If you drive the RAV4 EV at my standard test speed of 100km / 62mph ground speed, it will go almost EXACTLY the rated range.

TEST DRIVING PROTOCOL - dry, hard surface level road with no wind or cabin climate control with new condition battery at 70F, no elevation changes, "out-and-back" or loop course to compensate for any wind, 62mph / 100km/h GROUND speed as measured by GPS.

So, if the car is new, it will bang out 146 miles and the rated range will be 146 under the prescribed conditions.

If the rated range is 135, it will go 135.

 

[laguna_b]

I was hoping I would get Tony to chime in.....no one else alive would I expect to REALLY know this! I plan to use this to test any prospective RAV4 EV to replace my lost baby! Thanks Tony!

 

[laguna_b]

Yeah, it's a shame we have no easy way to check the battery integrity. Best you can do is see how much energy you can put into it on multiple occasions. I'm sorry you didn't feel comfortable with that unit. It may have been fine. It sounds fine from what you described, but it is your investment. Good luck to you on your search for a replacement.

RAV4 EV battery degradation
Make sure that the battery is at room temperature, then:

1) Fully charge vehicle (extended) with the J1772 port (not CHAdeMO)
2) Battery must be near room temperature
3) Turn off cabin climate control with "OFF" button
4) Disconnect the 12 volt battery negative cables and leave off for several hours minimum (overnight is ideal)

Next day:

5) Reconnect 12 volt battery
6) Hold foot on brake and press START button with key fob nearby
7) Energy gauge will show Full (16 illuminated segments) and "LO" on the GOM
8) Wait for navigation unit to complete its start up
9) Press START with brake pedal depressed a second time
10) The displayed range is "RATED RANGE" at 3.5 miles per kWh

11) Divide this Rated Range by 146 to get usable battery capacity compared to new.

Example: 142 rated range / 146 = 97.2% battery capacity from new

********

If you drive the RAV4 EV at my standard test speed of 100km / 62mph ground speed, it will go almost EXACTLY the rated range.

TEST DRIVING PROTOCOL - dry, hard surface level road with no wind or cabin climate control with new condition battery at 70F, no elevation changes, "out-and-back" or loop course to compensate for any wind, 62mph / 100km/h GROUND speed as measured by GPS.

So, if the car is new, it will bang out 146 miles and the rated range will be 146 under the prescribed conditions.

If the rated range is 135, it will go 135.

Would there be a similar figure of merit for Leafs? I know used car dealers are full of off lease Leafs with no way to properly test.

 

[TonyWilliams]

For a LEAF, use a Gidmeter or LEAFspy

Read GIDs and/or ampHour rating.