[LarryD]

I just got my 2018 Niro PHEV EX premium a week ago.....

I'm thinking the EV range reading is adaptive to my driving. The first few days were just driving around town and when I recharged to full I would get a range reading of 29 miles on EV. Then I made a few highways trips and the next time I charged to full I got an EV range reading of 27... After a couple more highway trips it's now down to 25 miles.

Also, when I charged it for the first time using my level 2 JuiceBox, my juicebox app also showed the range of 25 EV miles.... the dial in the app shows the 29 mile range but it's only green up to 25 miles.

The Niro must be communicating my EV mileage to my Juicebox?...

 

[cookrd1]

I noticed that too. Started out at 26 miles in MO/IL, but here in central FL, a/c is always on and now my indicated range is 24 miles after a full charge. However, with regen braking, actual range is usually at least 30.

 

[jasongind]

I keep reading the ev range is 26 miles but mine only reads 24 mils when fully charged. It doesn't matter if I charge on level 1 at home or level 2 at work, still 24 miles. Any ideas?

 

[cockedandglocked]

I keep reading the ev range is 26 miles but mine only reads 24 mils when fully charged. It doesn't matter if I charge on level 1 at home or level 2 at work, still 24 miles. Any ideas?

When the car starts w/ climate control turned on, the readout is usually 2 miles less, because it revises the estimate based on the power draw estimates, and climate control draws power.

 

[deltasmith]

I keep reading the ev range is 26 miles but mine only reads 24 mils when fully charged. It doesn't matter if I charge on level 1 at home or level 2 at work, still 24 miles. Any ideas?

Thanks for pointing out that charging at level 2 doesn't make a difference, because I've been wondering about this same phenomenon and suspecting that maybe I should install a level 2.


I've only owned my PHEV for a few weeks and the first few times I charged it up on the level 1 charger it came with, it said that the range was 26 miles. I'm in Southern CA but it's currently the fall season and I have only used the AC on two occasions. I've run the battery down to 0 miles remaining electric range on two occasions (three if you count the state it was in when I bought it), but mostly I drive around town in all-electric mode and put it on the charger when it has less than 12 miles of electric capacity left. But now every time I charge it, the dashboard gauge reports a 24 mile range, while the uvo app reports 26 until I've opened the door and turned on the ignition to read the dashboard gauge, at which point uvo also reports 24. Is this adaptive logic, or is it early stage battery deterioration? I have less than 500 miles on my car.

 

[jasongind]

Ah Ok. I'll try turning the climate control off and see if it changes.

 

[dontfret]

I came to the Niro PHEV after 5 years driving the Ford Cmax Energi PHEV. That was definitely adaptive - at start with a full charge it estimated EV miles based on your last drive. When new in 2013 it would estimate ~25 miles, but if you turned on heat (resistant electric in that car) or drove at 65MPH, you might only get 18-20. And the next time it might only estimate 23 miles. Fast forward to when I traded it in in 2018, LiOn degradation of the propulsion battery had lost capacity, so the most it would estimate was 17 miles. A more accurate reading was the actual charge capacity, measured with a scanguage or (in my case) a Torque Pro reading from the OBD2 pins - when new in 2013 the car delivered 5.8 kWh, in 2018 that was 3.6kWh. Normal battery degradation due mostly to heating the battery during charge and discharge. The air cooled fan just doesn't cool adequately. And I made the mistake of treating it like an EV car, coming home and plugging it in hot to recharge. I learned (and apply now to the Niro PHEV) of using the charge on schedule to charge around 1AM (I have a 240 charging station at home) so it's cold when charged and will be done shortly before I leave in the morning. Let's see next year if it still says 26 when started!

 

[deltasmith]

Wow - almost a 40% drop in capacity over a five year period? That's kind of disquieting. I hope the Niro batteries fare better than that.


I live in Southern CA and in terms of climate considerations, I'm contemplating if I should even attempt to charge my batteries on the days when the garage is regularly over 100 F. But if I was in a more northern climate, I'd be tempted to charge during the winter months shortly after I got home and before the batteries had a chance to cool off more than a little because I've read that you can do damage to Lithium Ion batteries if you attempt to charge them below 0 C (32 F). I wonder if that general guidance applies to Niro batteries, or if the Niro engineering has found some way to prevent them from being damaged when confronted with a cold climate.

 

[jasongind]

I turned off the climate control and did regain the 2 miles back.

Another question, if you go on a long trip do you leave it in HEV the entire time? I've been thinking a lot about this and think that is the best option in order too maximize mileage.

I'm still new too PHEV'S so what say you?

 

[charlesH]

I turned off the climate control and did regain the 2 miles back.

Another question, if you go on a long trip do you leave it in HEV the entire time? I've been thinking a lot about this and think that is the best option in order too maximize mileage.

I'm still new too PHEV'S so what say you?

Normally, i start in EV mode because my EV miles are very, very cheap. However, if I expect to sleep at a rest stop I start in HEV mode and save my EV miles to use the AC during the night.

 

[cockedandglocked]

I played around with my car today. Turned the heat on and off, turned the A/C on and off, turned the fans up and down, etc.

The mileage estimate changed on my screen immediately whenever I did any of those things. For example, turned the AC on, miles dropped from 26 to 24 instantly. Turned it off, miles bumped up to 26 instantly.

It seems the system is pretty good at figuring out how much parasitic energy you're using from the car at any given time.

Also, I was careful to drive my car this morning without using the IC engine at all (and left the heater off, fans off, etc), and logged pretty much exactly 26 miles before it ran out of EV juice. That was with a relatively aggressive driving style, mashing the gas pedal from a stop as far as I could without triggering the IC engine (50%-ish? Basically I've found you can keep it from using the IC engine as long as you keep the needle at or below the mark between "normal" and "power". Once it hits the "power" area and/or about 75mph, it usually trigger the IC to turn on). So the estimate, as far as I can tell, seems dead on for me. It would probably be a few miles more if I drove like a grandma.

 

[yticolev]

75 mph is the highest speed I've seen in my hybrid in EV mode. I would have thought you could baby a PHEV a bit higher, but the software is in control.

 

[cockedandglocked]

75 mph is the highest speed I've seen in my hybrid in EV mode. I would have thought you could baby a PHEV a bit higher, but the software is in control.

About 80mph is my max in the PHEV, but starting at about 65mph, the ICE turns on more frequently... say, at 25% throttle (rather than 75% when at lower speeds), and at about 75mph anything more than about 5% throttle turns on the ICE. At 80mph, the ICE turns on if you even look at the gas pedal.


It doesn't seem like it does it because the EV motor doesn't have the power for it, rather I think the software does this because the ICE is more efficient at that speed than the EV motor/battery.

 

[cockedandglocked]

I just made this quick chart to (very roughly) illustrate how speed seems to correlate with the max throttle % before ICE turns on:

 

[yticolev]

ICE turns on when power is required. That required power is acceleration desired on top of a air pressure base. The air pressure goes up in a chase curve just like your graph (I would have expected a sharper rate of increase than your graph) as speed increases, becoming significant (noticeable) at around 30 miles an hour.

 

[cockedandglocked]

Very well could be a sharper curve than what I drew, I didn't base that on any real data whatsoever, just meant it to roughly illustrate what I meant earlier about a throttle input/ICE activation curve as it relates to speed.

 

[Fiddlesticks]

Hot Battery Charging

And I made the mistake of treating it like an EV car, coming home and plugging it in hot to recharge. I learned (and apply now to the Niro PHEV) of using the charge on schedule to charge around 1AM (I have a 240 charging station at home) so it's cold when charged and will be done shortly before I leave in the morning.

I'm brand new to my Kia PHEV LX (bought it last Saturday!), so please excuse me if I'm asking something obvious and/or already answered elsewhere. If I do a "hot recharge", i.e. plugging in as soon as I get home, that reduces the battery life? Does the ambient temperature of the garage matter as well? I live in western Washington state and have an insulated garage, so my garage doesn't get really hot or cold at any time, but I didn't know that plugging in on arrival could be harmful to the batteries!