First reasonoble length drive.... Hmm

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Deleted User 456

Post by Deleted User 456 »

OK. She's a week old.

Need to go see my mum in the midlands. 146 miles each way. Decided to add in a BPpulse charge stop on the way (just for my first experience of garage charging). Total one way trip distance .... 157 miles.
Always in range mode, rarely over 65/70 mph. Daylight. 16.5 deg.

Heating off.... if it actually remembers that fact.

Charged the car to 90% (245 miles?) and we are off. Dropped to 69% after 80 miles of partly motorway, but mostly back roads. Stopped at the charger and threw it back up to 80% in about 12 mins.

Got to my mums with 68%.

Trickle charged it back to 80% using my 13A charger at my mums house. Took 7 hrs at 10A.

Left to come home, Set the same charger in Coventry as the 'stop for a coffee point'. 11.5 deg and night time.

Range FELL OFF A CLIFF. Mostly motorway to start with in the wind and rain and the battery fell from 80% to 39% after 110 miles.

Recharged back to 80% at the garage and got home after another 69 miles with 51% battery


SO..... Deductions.

The range and mileage predications are SO wildly out, I will never bother taking them at any kind of value again. Thank God I bought the 77KW version.
Might as well have a picture of Bruce Forsyth spinning a wheel with numbers on it.

The drive is lovely and relaxed, and I find I drive better (and slower). That is probably a subconscious thing due to the range.

The car definitely had amnesia. Each time I got in, it's forgotten either the lighting settings, the drive mode, or whether the heating steering wheel was on.
Several times my hands suddenly got hot and I had to go back in the menu and turn off the steering wheel when I had not turned it on to start with.

I must have turned the A/C off half a dozen times, yet it kept switching it self back on.

Would have been nice for the HUD to show what drive mode you are in (or any screen actually). Due to the amnesia, I now finding myself cycling through the modes to make sure I am in range every time I get in.

Boot light. Goes off far too quick. Not enough time to do anything. Needs to stay on while the boot is open. Maybe setting the exterior lighting to stay on longer in the menu after exit will make them stay on longer?
Add this to the stupid cigarette lighter socket that only works when you are sitting in the drivers seat proves the boot needed more thought.

Messages that flash up on the screen (such as 'driver take a break') are far too short. I missed several messages, just saw it leaving the screen after the 'ding'. Should stay there until I press 'OK'.

Telephone works very well (hands free).

How the heck do you quickly mute the Android Auto sound? Double tap of the volume bar would have been ideal. Don't want to press 4 buttons to get to the correct page.

All in all, it was a lovely drive and I did get home relaxed.

But, it also confirmed the shockingly random nature of the range and battery predictions. To not be able to make a 150 mile trip by a significant margin in a car sold with a 300+ mile advertised range is pretty poor. I can't believe that if I had charged it to 100% before I left, it would have made a lot of difference.

Anyway... I enjoyed the drive and I love the car.

Would I buy another after this one?

Hmm.

OThompson
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2022 9:08 am

Post by OThompson »

Quite an eye opener. Thanks for this :D
monkeyhanger
Posts: 565
Joined: Tue May 31, 2022 8:12 pm

Post by monkeyhanger »

Could the "random" nature of the range not be due to your mixed driving? Maintaining 70mph on the motorway at around 12C and you're likely to see 3.5miles per kWh with no headwind and minimal heating. Do the same at 50mph on slower roads and you'll be doing 4.5miles per kWh.

I would always charge to 100% on a long journey like yours - you can use that capacity above 80%, you just shouldn't leave it at 100% for more than a day routinely.

You can change the 12V socket fuse position to leave it on permanently. Our messages/warnings stay on for about 10s past the ding.

80% to 39% after doing 110 motorway miles with the 77kWh variant sounds about right, theoretical 270ish motorway miles range. You will not get 300 miles range on the motorway, that's completely unrealistic, same with the 58kWh variant - you won't get 262 motorway miles unless you're sitting at 55mph. My 58kWh E-Boost would do about 220 motorway miles (70-73mph) if I ran it from 100% to empty.

Can't help you with the random steering wheel heating, our 2 Borns do as they're told in that respect.

The car defaults back to Comfort drive mode after every ignition cycle - that's intentional.

Range mode is there to save a few Mike's of range by doing a few things to save energy, like slow recovery to speed after having to slow down in ACC mode. In reality, if you're already driving economically and with good anticipation on uncontested roads, it doesn't really save much - prevention of energy loss is better than recovery of wasted energy.
2022 V2 E-Boost L-Tech Pack - Aurora Blue
2023 Audi S3 - to avoid rapid charging on long journeys.

Octopus referral: https://share.octopus.energy/lush-fawn-565
Deleted User 456

Post by Deleted User 456 »

Don't think my driving changed. I certainly drove a lot slower than when I had petrol (not a bad thing).

Set my cruise control most of the time to 65mph. I think 3.5 miles per KW was displayed most of the time. Can't say I looked that often however.
Rarely hit 70 mph.

I deliberately set my route to drive up the winding Fosseway to Coventry, as its hilly and I wanted to see if that part of the trip made much difference to the regen (it obviously does). Most of that part of the drive was <60Mph.
From Coventry onwards, it's mainly motorway. So that is 65mph cruise control with the occasional spurt to get around a lorry.

Warning messages were more like 3 seconds. Definitely not 10 seconds. I hear the bing, look around and then at the screen, just in time to see it leave. By the third 'bing' I got used to darting my eyes straight to the screen to catch the message but it's very quick.

I realise entirely that I could charge to 100%, and run her down to 10% and get far more out of the battery. I will try 100% next time, but I don't think I would ever let it drop too low before a recharge.
Thankfully, these longish drives are a rare event.

it has proved to me to take the range and battery percentages with a very large pinch of salt. OK. Lesson learned.

I knew ranges and battery percentages were not an exact science (watched many Youtube reviews before purchase), I am just surprised how much it all varied.

Defaults to comfort after ignition cycle? Stupid. Hey, don't worry about how I set up the car. Hey ho. In my opinion, should not have to reset things like that.

Cigarette socket. Will just not use it.

Don't get me wrong. LOVE the car, LOVE the electric experience. But, trips of what I consider to be not that far will take more planning and I would never set a destination based on the sat nav's estimate of range or battery level.

Also found myself not using full beam when I would normally have done. Stupid, but again a sub conscious thing due to the battery I think (Yes, they probably run off the standard 12v battery anyway).

PS... Sat nav was very good.

Go and wash it now
Ghiribizzo
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 8:04 am

Post by Ghiribizzo »

You’re worrying too much about not using full beam!
A solution I use is ABRP with TRONITY. ABRP works out where the stops you need will be, switching if units go offline or are all in use, you choose the road types you want.
Normally anything goes. On holiday, esp. abroad I’ll choose no Highways (aka motorway/autobahn) - see the villages and towns.
TRONITY takes the battery data from the car and feeds it to ABRP.
Yes, there is a subscription, but it’s deadly accurate. I’ve driven abroad in a 22 Zoe - and we’re 560 miles from the Channel Tunnel. Used it with the 22 and the 50, across Europe to Zagreb. Haven’t run out of power yet!

In the photos the Born is at 56% - journey from here to Milnthorpe. Obviously if I was doing that again I’d start with 100% but with the right tools you don’t have range anxiety.

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Ghiribizzo
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2022 8:04 am

Post by Ghiribizzo »

For UK and Ireland - if you haven’t already, get WattsUp App.
It only shows Rapid / Ultra Rapid chargers so you’re not wading through 7 and 22 units if you want to do a decent cross country trip.
Brapsticle
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2022 2:00 pm
Location: England

Post by Brapsticle »

So, he have recently done our first big drive of a very similar distance, about 160miles (58kw battery) and having only charged and home and at work prior I found it quite interesting and fun working out where and how to charge properly. We charged to 100% on the morning of and stopped for food on the way up and just put on a slow charger for 20mins so a fairly small amount of charge was obtained, and we reached our destination with ~30% battery left.

We were then driving around on and off for most of that day and the next and just ensured that any time we stopped for shopping/food etc we plugged into a charger, ended up using a BPpulse, gridserve and a podpoint over the weekend, again all on slow charge to just maintain the 20-40% for journeys over the weekend and had little to no issues there, although it was a bit of a nightmare finding good places to stop with chargers and the right facilities we wanted, we managed it each time and I expect that will just become easier with time.

On our journey home we plugged into a gridserve charger and was able to rapid charge with a CCS in about 40mins from 20% up to 90%, which left us with roughly 40miles extra on the range calc than the journey distance was reporting. We hit thunderstorms and very varied traffic which really hit our range driving home, taking us from 90%-15% over 120miles. That was the only time that caused any real concern but due to the weather I was having to keep the AC on the windscreen for most of the journey.

Overall I didn't experience many of the issues you are reporting, the drive profile was also resetting which is annoying but something I was aware of (believe it is due to some standard or something). I did also find that I was driving slower and more consistent than in my previous cars and it was such a nice relaxing drive!

No regrets at all so far myself!
V3 58Kw Aurora Blue, since Sept 22
monkeyhanger
Posts: 565
Joined: Tue May 31, 2022 8:12 pm

Post by monkeyhanger »

The driver profile reset is almost certainly some meddling EU regulation to stop you leaving a car in Performance/Sport/Cupra mode all the time and having it potentially less efficient by default. That's the best thing about the E-boost - 1 press of the steering wheel satellite buttons to flit between what's set and Cupra mode, or cycling through the modes with the other button - no clarting around going through the touchscreen menu.

Charging away from home is a PITA, but the amount of pain is variable depending on where you charge and whether the charger is operational when you get there, without a queue, and will take your payment.

I find range pretty predictable once you get an understanding of how much it changes with cruising speed and temperature - short journeys in the Winter are hammered with pre-heating. You need to be realistic with expectations, like the person who drives a "70mpg" little diesel Polo 3 miles every journey and wonders why they're only getting 40mpg.

In the Summer, you can easily get 3.8miles per kWh sitting at 73mph on the motorway. Do the same journey below 8C and you'll be lucky to crack 3.2miles per kWh. It gets worse around the doors in Winter where the battery pre-heating will draw almost as much current as moving the car.
2022 V2 E-Boost L-Tech Pack - Aurora Blue
2023 Audi S3 - to avoid rapid charging on long journeys.

Octopus referral: https://share.octopus.energy/lush-fawn-565
Deleted User 456

Post by Deleted User 456 »

It's not a moan on my part, just an observation. I knew the range/battery numbers were basically nonsense.

The drive was still very pleasant, and I found the quick charge at the BP garage painless (it was recharged by the time I got my coffee).
But, I can see people with smaller range batteries who didn't do lots of research before purchase being a little bit miffed by their performance.

My company are fitting Zappi chargers in the work car park, and only me and the boss have electric cars. So that is going to help a lot, as my commuting will effectively be fuel free.

As for the amnesia. Annoying but liveable with. Changing the mode each time isn't the end of the world. Hopefully stupid things like the lighting changing will be fixed in a software update one day.

Overhead camera? Keep reading about that in the manual, yet I don't see that anywhere. Can only assume it's either an extra (don't remember it however), or not UK spec.
I have the Tech L pack. Not something I would probably use anyway, but wondered where it was supposed to be in the menu (parking I would have thought).
monkeyhanger
Posts: 565
Joined: Tue May 31, 2022 8:12 pm

Post by monkeyhanger »

There's no overhead camera for tge UK currently. If you want the car's L-tech pack to park the car for you, there'll be an icon to press on the touchscreen when reverse is engaged. Used it twice myself - novelty/gimmick unless you're useless at parking.
2022 V2 E-Boost L-Tech Pack - Aurora Blue
2023 Audi S3 - to avoid rapid charging on long journeys.

Octopus referral: https://share.octopus.energy/lush-fawn-565
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