So....what kind of range are people getting in Stealth mode? I'm a bit disappointed - i drove off this morning fully charged and had 5 short trips around town today. 4-6 miles each, total of 24 miles. When I pulled into my garage the range indicator was at 8 miles. If that was accurate that would suggest a total of 32 miles, and more likely that was overstating the case so total available range was under 30 miles.
What are you guys getting?
Skibum
I haven't had my battery fully charged (most I got was 19 mile of range since I didn't charge it all the way), but I will say that for the 19 miles of range, I probably got more like 12-13 miles. I think some of the juice was taken out when I popped into Sport mode and accelerated, so hard to say. I'm going to try to fully charge it this weekend and get some better data on range. I suspect it will be lower than the 50 (and maybe the 32) since where I live has many hills, so car will have to work harder to climb etc.
(01-19-2012 10:50 AM)Skibum Wrote: [ -> ]So....what kind of range are people getting in Stealth mode? I'm a bit disappointed - i drove off this morning fully charged and had 5 short trips around town today. 4-6 miles each, total of 24 miles. When I pulled into my garage the range indicator was at 8 miles. If that was accurate that would suggest a total of 32 miles, and more likely that was overstating the case so total available range was under 30 miles.
What are you guys getting?
Skibum
Do you always set it in Hill 1 or Hill 2 mode? I'd be interested in seeing people's experience in the relative effect of the hill modes.
Nissan Leaf drivers (who tend to report the most about these issues, probably because they are stuck if they run out of range and because there are more of those vehicles out than any other at this point) say terrain and temperature are the biggest variables for them. (Driving style also matters.)
I'm in beautiful Northern CA, so temperature is not an issue. In fact,I should get a boost from the solar panel soaking up the sun in between trips! Ok, maybe not....
I'm almost always in Hill 1 or 2 mode.
I did show off on one of the trips - was with a friend who wanted to feel the 0-60 acceleration, so I did that a few times. Probably cost me a bunch of power.
(01-19-2012 11:19 AM)Skibum Wrote: [ -> ]I'm in beautiful Northern CA, so temperature is not an issue. In fact,I should get a boost from the solar panel soaking up the sun in between trips! Ok, maybe not....
I'm almost always in Hill 1 or 2 mode.
I did show off on one of the trips - was with a friend who wanted to feel the 0-60 acceleration, so I did that a few times. Probably cost me a bunch of power.
Probably.
As long as you're not in the flatlands (I guess that would require that you be in the central valley, or never out of the Livermore valley), you'll be going over the Berkeley hills or up Mt Tam or down Mt Diablo, etc., so using hill modes should help a lot, but you will still lose some energy via "battery friction" as it were. If flatland folks get 45 to 50 miles, you might expect 80 to 85% of that, or about 36 to 42.5 miles.
I've found that it depends on the terrain, what speed you're going, and how well you use the regen brakes, and other power usage.
1. The battery drains VERY QUICKLY when going up even the slightest incline, and you don't get the equivalent energy back when you go down that incline. So, in hilly areas it drains about 2 to 3 miles of charge for every 1 mile of charge on the battery.
2. I've noticed that the battery drains disproportionally as speed increases, or so it seems. So, I get much better range if I do 45mph vs. 65mph. Because of this I actually avoid speeding because it just costs me precious range on the battery.
3. Using the regen braking as much as possible obviously makes a big difference. I try to almost never hit the brakes, but let the regen do all the work.
4. On the Tesla the A/C is about a 14% drain on the battery. Dunno if it's the same on the Karma, but it does cost a little. So far I haven't noticed much difference when using it tho.
So, on average, I'm getting around 41 miles on a charge (with the A/C off) and driving normally. If I avoid the highway and hilly areas I can get 45 miles or so.
-Brian
(01-19-2012 11:38 AM)brian Wrote: [ -> ]2. I've noticed that the battery drains disproportionally as speed increases, or so it seems.
Drag is (if all goes well) proportional to the square of the velocity, so doubling your average speed raises the power needed to sustain that speed by about a factor of four.
There is a range of (very low) speeds where drag is linear with speed, and there are turbulence regimes where drag is worse than vee-squared, so all these are quite approximate, but this is why hybrid vehicles generally get better city mileage than highway: 80 mph is four times worse for drag than 40 mph.
(The speed limit on I-15 here is 80, once you get out of the city areas, so I will no doubt be doing 80, if not more, anyway.
)
Thanks for all the info guys. For the record, I'm in Silicon Valley which is pretty flat. Use Hill 1 routinely to slow down, but I'm skeptical it's giving much back.
Will try again *without* showing off the engine and seeing how I do....
I have about 400 miles on my Karma, with about 70% around town and 30% freeway and always in Hill 2. I'm seeing 30-35 miles per charge.
I've been told that I drive aggressively, although it seems normal to me.
As a calibration point, in similar driving I was getting about 12 mpg in my V10 BMW M5.
I'm seeing about 35-40 miles per charge. It definitely depends on the terrain and your "aggressiveness." ;-)
One interesting thing I noted on the 6.10 firmware at least is that the miles remaining dropped rapidly for the first 4-5 miles of my daily commute: I was probably at 38 miles remaining after having driven 4 or 5 miles. After those first miles the mileage and "battery miles" started tracking more closely, I think there was still a 1.6:1 ratio or thereabouts, but not the 2.5:1 I saw starting out.
I finally got my new battery and the 6.11 firmware today. The somewhat terse release notes I received on 6.11 said that it did address a charge indication issue, so perhaps it will be different.