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0% charge remaining :(

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189 views 10 replies 6 participants last post by  n6nl  
#1 ·
The other day, I was on a road trip trying to stretch as far as possible between DC chargers.

I had it all mapped out, I was to have 18Km left when I hit the Tesla Supercharger for my second DC fast charge of the day.

Alas, my exit was blocked by a broken down transport, no biggie, I'll take the next. Right?

10 km later, driving along at highway speed in full adaptive cruise mode, I still had not seen an exit.

It turns out, my next exit was still 20 km away with a solid median between East and Westbound 401.

My actual Charge level was still over 10%, so lots of juice left, right?

I pulled onto the shoulder 4 ways on and reduced my speed to 70 km/h.

Once I hit 0%, 0km displayed, I had driven 19 km, pretty accurate.

With some crazy hypermiling, I managed to squeeze another 12 km or so out of it.

I was on the exit ramp, 800 meters from the charger, when she quit.

My actual state of charge was 3% when it shut down.

Once I got off the tow truck and charged, the actual vs displayed SOC seemed to be more similar.

Lessons learned?

Repeated DC fast charging, five in 36 hours, results in less km per each consecutive charge.

Plan an alternate "landing site" when pushing the limits of the battery.

Start reducing your speed as soon as the Displayed Charge remaining hit 10%.

There seems to be a 16 km buffer once you hit zero km remaining.


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#3 ·
The lesson is, don't cut it so close. On my road trips with my Ioniq 6 (best trip car), I plan not to go below 20%. I usually never get near that, as there are usually many enroute chargers where I stop for a bite, biobreak, etc., and provide the opportunity to add some charge. In most cases, the car is finished charging before we are finished our "business".

You shouldn't approach charging an EV like you did when driving an ICE car where you generally run it down to a 1/4 tank before looking for a gas station. Best practice with an EV is charge every time you stop for a break. Pretty easy to do with your onboard nav system or Android Auto/Carplay.
 
#6 ·
Seems like you should write to Subaru and ask them if they would reimburse you for the tow since the car was providing an incorrect indication of 6% battery capacity remaining when the car stopped working. You’ve got the excellent evidence of the situation to attach to your message.
 
#7 ·
I kept my premium CAA membership. I could have used Subaru roadside, but my experience in the towing industry told me it would have been slower.
I believe that the 3% actual charge remaining is for battery protection, it information I was not supposed to have because I was using the OBDII system to pull that data, not the infotainment system.

Lessons learned, minor inconvenience.
 
#11 ·
I would like to know the battery voltage when it shut down.

At 6%/10.59% that 315V works out to 3.28V per cell.

Most all BMS will cut off an NMC cell at 2.8-3V. I hope Toyota chose on the 3V side of that range.

It’s not open circuit voltage, strictly speaking, so it’s hard to judge, but below 10% gross SoC, the approximate 3.21V per cell drops quickly.