Range and efficiency/consumption

[lightboxcar]

1 hour ago, MrMicroChip said:

from 300 miles at the start of the journey

Am guessing you have FWD ?

We have AWD and at 100% SOC have never seen higher then 258 miles range

[lightboxcar]

Despite trying to become less obssesive about EV range, we did this today.....

This is just a small example of our typical day to day bZ4X efficiency.

Short trip around 10 miles

Urban roads only ( London )

Temperature +5 degrees C

RegBoost ON

Heating on AC/AUTO/23 degrees througout entire journey.

AWD model , driven 1,301 miles in total so far.

So with 65Kw usable Battery , and allowing for not driving with less than 10% SOC, this gives about 130 miles before needing to charge.

This is a little unfair on the car; short journey an we deliberately left the heating on for the whole journey just to see the result.  In practice, the heater is very good and combined with excellent vehicle insulation, we normallly only need to use it for short periods of time.

The rules/guidlines for all EV car manufacturers need to change.  Toyota UK still has this right up front on the website:  Range: up to 317 miles*

Of course that little aterisk refers to the get out clause about real world range.

Only achieving 45% of the 'advertised rate' ( 285 miles for the AWD ) need to be made FAR more obvious to the buyers, for ALL brands of EVs.   But perhaps this awkward truth is unpalatable for the climate change movement.....

In reality, we are perfectly happy.  We now understand the limitations in winter conditions.  The more we use the car the more we like it.  Have no plans to live in Norway of Iceland etc.

Going forward, will definately be paying much less attention to range anxiety, probably for sure, hopefully, will certanly try, well maybe ........

[bZ4xSupra]

4 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

 

Going forward, will definately be paying much less attention to range anxiety, probably for sure, hopefully, will certanly try, well maybe ........

I've given up worrying about it. 

The car does my daily M25 commute with the heating on fine. 

There are rapid chargers at my bigger commutes where I have to charge, and thankfully always free. 

The car does what it does. Whilst it's an EV, my main purchasing reason was to have something that wasn't a 2 door coupe in Winter. 

It's great at the recycling centre 😂

 

[aiden1072]

 

 

[Roy124]

On 2/23/2023 at 9:41 PM, Malop said:

I’m a firm believer that destination charging is more essential to future EV use than rapid charging, it was fairly painless, no pressure to stay with car for when it got to 100% and no queuing. Both places had plenty of spaces.

I think that is true.  We have 2 long range destinations with relatives.  In both cases the nearest supermarket chargers area few miles away.  Last thing you want to do is limp in to your destination, or wait for a charger on at the end of your trip. 

[egg]

Tesla Bjorn's latest video after Toyota contacted him may ease some worries

[Petro Luigi]

1 hour ago, egg said:

Tesla Bjorn's latest video after Toyota contacted him may ease some worries

Yes, indeed. He's a much better father to Isabelle than a decent car reviewer, IMHO

[lightboxcar]

On 2/23/2023 at 9:41 PM, Malop said:

I’m a firm believer that destination charging

Please could you explain what 'destination charging' means ?

Thank you

[lightboxcar]

We tend to let the SOC go from 100% to less than 20% , then charge at home in one go back to 100%

Just noticed on the Toyota UK website, they now have a bunch of tips on EV , including "Charge often.."

"charge your electric vehicle whenever you have the chance....  increases efficiency"

Does this mean it is better to charge every day, and if so how does this "increase efficiency"  ?

[dab1054]

5 hours ago, egg said:

Tesla Bjorn's latest video after Toyota contacted him may ease some worries

I looked at the Bjorn Nyland 1000km test on YouTube. A bit tedious but actually quite informative. Not that many would actually want to do 1000km non-stop journey at -1C in the UK, but I can see that it is a good way to find weak points in the car. The main issue seemed to be the unnecessarily large 10% Battery buffer and the bizarre very low rapid charging rates. This explains an early observation on my first few long trips in my bZ4X where I could not seem to get more than about 50kW from any rapid charger and from a Tesla Supercharger only got 28kW. And I thought Tesla were somehow restricting power for non-Teslas!  But I can see now it is the way Toyota have set up the software. Despite the relatively poor performance it seems that most of these problems can be fixed with a software upgrade. So, we wait until May 2023 and then we hope it will be like getting a new car!  And it seems that Toyota made a very simple error in calculating efficiency in a different way from all other EVs- resulting in the dashboard ml/kWh number about 10% worse than it should be (although you could argue that Toyota's calculation is more realistic since it included charging losses). 

I have set up the OBD dongle as used in the test. You can monitor actual % charge, Battery temperature, power use and quite a lot of other stuff. Today, with outside temp 0C I could see that the Battery did not get above 2C on a 10 mile/20 minute drive - way off the ideal temp of over 20C. I'll be monitoring this on longer journeys to see what is happening.

[Malop]

7 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

Please could you explain what 'destination charging' means

Destination chargers are charge points at a location you are travelling to and staying for a while (normally more than a couple of hours), such as shopping malls, theme parks, town centre car parks. They are also normally untethered requiring you to bring your own type 2 charging cable.

They’re also normally AC chargers at 7KW (sometimes up to 22KW). This allows the site to put more chargers in for the same electricity “consumption” and without having to run high voltage cables everywhere. They can install 7 * 7KW chargers instead of 1 * 50KW. 

This means you’ll charge slower and may get less of a charge but the assumption is it will be enough to get you to your next destination. 

The future vision, post 2030 is that every car park will have 20-50% of their parking spaces with a 7KW “destination” charger to keep EVs topped up while the owners are busy doing normal life things. 

[ernieb]

Also charging at 7kW is so much better for the Battery.

[lightboxcar]

4 hours ago, Malop said:

They can install 7 * 7KW chargers instead of 1 * 50KW

Wow !!!  that's a massive difference

Thanks for the info

[lightboxcar]

11 hours ago, dab1054 said:

I have set up the OBD dongle

Please can you explain what this is, how it is obtained and used, and if using it could affect the vehicle warranty ?

Thanks very much

[lightboxcar]

3 hours ago, ernieb said:

charging at 7kW is so much better

Believe our home charger is 7Kw, but to get a full charge from less than 30% SOC, it really needs left on all night.

 

[egg]

7 minutes ago, lightboxcar said:

Believe our home charger is 7Kw, but to get a full charge from less than 30% SOC, it really needs left on all night.

 

The majority of peoples home chargers are 7Kw, unless they happen to have 3 phase supply.

Anything more powerful on AC is not useful to the current BZ4X anyway as this is the most they can charge at.

The next wave of orders will be able to benefit from 11Kw charging.

I have a cheap overnight rate for 4 hours, in that time I am able to put approx 43% charge into the Battery

[egg]

13 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

We tend to let the SOC go from 100% to less than 20% , then charge at home in one go back to 100%

Just noticed on the Toyota UK website, they now have a bunch of tips on EV , including "Charge often.."

"charge your electric vehicle whenever you have the chance....  increases efficiency"

Does this mean it is better to charge every day, and if so how does this "increase efficiency"  ?

The only thing I think they can be referring to, is mainly during cold weather.

Whilst plugged in/charging during cold weather, the Battery heater warms the Battery slightly, so any immediate trips after unplugging will be starting with a warm Battery.

 You will be able to extract more range from a warm battery than if you were to start with, say, one that is flat cold after the car has been sat all night in freezing conditions

[Andreas78]

2 hours ago, egg said:

The majority of peoples home chargers are 7Kw, unless they happen to have 3 phase supply.

Anything more powerful on AC is not useful to the current BZ4X anyway as this is the most they can charge at.

The next wave of orders will be able to benefit from 11Kw charging.

I have a cheap overnight rate for 4 hours, in that time I am able to put approx 43% charge into the battery

Cars that left the production line for orders in Cyprus (Left HD) from the beginning of 2023 have 11kv on board charger. Should be the same case for the rest of Europe. 

[dab1054]

5 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

Please can you explain what this is, how it is obtained and used, and if using it could affect the vehicle warranty ?

Thanks very much

This is a small bluetooth dongle which you can insert into the car OBD2 port which is just underneath the bonnet release on drivers side.  I used a Vgate iCar Pro model but there are many available.  You need an app to access the data- I used Car Scanner (free) for iOS - this app also has good information about how to set up and use the OBD2 code reader. You can select useful EV data which updates almost in real time. Screenshot attached below from my bZ4X.

I'm no expert on these OBD scanners but my understanding is that they are READ ONLY devices so you can't change anything in the car hence would be unlikely to affect warranty. They seem to be very widely used- I'm sure someone on this forum can help with more details. But I certainly would remove it before a service visit.

[aiden1072]

17 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

We tend to let the SOC go from 100% to less than 20% , then charge at home in one go back to 100%

Just noticed on the Toyota UK website, they now have a bunch of tips on EV , including "Charge often.."

"charge your electric vehicle whenever you have the chance....  increases efficiency"

Does this mean it is better to charge every day, and if so how does this "increase efficiency"  ?

The more often you charge at higher SOC the better the lifetime of the Battery.  This is just Lithium Battery characteristic.  If you always charge from 10% the Battery lifetime is something like <5000 charges and increases as you charge from higher SOC's

[Cyker]

As Teslabjorn likes to say - ABC - Always Be Charging!  

 

[lightboxcar]

5 hours ago, aiden1072 said:

If you always charge from 10% the battery lifetime is something like <5000 charges

Thanks for that.

So is this a reasonable deduction:

charging twice a week from circa 10% would equal 104 charges per YEAR.

5000 charges / 104 = 48 years ??

[leosayer]

I have read numerous articles about what its best for charging and many are contradictory. So based on what I have read the following seem to be the consensus for most

1. Dont charge over 80% unless for along trip. However if no long trip is planned charge to 100% once amonth

2. Dont go below 20% unless necessary. However leave it once or twice amonth to go to 10%. Avoid at all cost the 0% area.

3.  Avoid DC unless necessary. 

[ernieb]

1 hour ago, leosayer said:

I have read numerous articles about what its best for charging and many are contradictory. So based on what I have read the following seem to be the consensus for most

1. Dont charge over 80% unless for along trip. However if no long trip is planned charge to 100% once amonth

2. Dont go below 20% unless necessary. However leave it once or twice amonth to go to 10%. Avoid at all cost the 0% area.

3.  Avoid DC unless necessary. 

Sounds like a good starting point.

[lightboxcar]

15 hours ago, leosayer said:

what its best for charging

Thanks for that.

As you say it depends on what you read and where you read it.  There is a great deal of conflicting claims.

Some imply that the Toyota protection systems and "buffer" built into the car will prevent Battery harm.  For exmaple after two rapid charges on the same day, the charginfg speed drops considerable