Battery consumption vs. daily average temperature

[Geoffree]

Have just plotted my daily battery consumption (miles/kWh) against the daily average temperature* (since early January) and there does seem to be trend with higher temperatures giving better consumption. However, how much of this is due less energy being used by the heater is unknown! Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to look at the data. I've also indicated the daily mileage as the diameter of the points (the maximum is 75 miles) to see if this is a contributing factor.
*I got the temperature data from www.visualcrossing.com/weather-data, which is a daily average so only a rough guide to the battery temperature. I do not use the battery heater.

 

[pharrison84]

Which MG4 model is this Geoffree?

Our Trophy set to be delivered last week of the month, following which we have a Scotland trip that we have had planned for months. Going to be a test of the range almost immediately.

At the moment I have eyed up a charge point at about 190 miles, so I'm really hoping we can hit 3miles per kWh on an almost purely motorway trip early April.

These posts might be best moved to the the range thread.....

 

[PeteC]

Which MG4 model is this Geoffree?

Our Trophy set to be delivered last week of the month, following which we have a Scotland trip that we have had planned for months. Going to be a test of the range almost immediately.

At the moment I have eyed up a charge point at about 190 miles, so I'm really hoping we can hit 3miles per kWh on an almost purely motorway trip early April.

These posts might be best moved to the the range thread.....

We've just been to Scotland in our Trophy. It showed around 3.2m/kWh on the way up (about 350 miles mostly on the A1) which was at 70mph wherever possible. We came back down the west side to go to Cardiff and got about 3.3m/kWh. Again at 70mph where possible but with a slower first section through the borders and quite a bit of 50mph through roadworks.

I think the longest leg of our journey was about 165 miles and we still had plenty of charge at the end of that. At motorway speeds the car is estimating something between 200-220 miles total range in the temperatures we have at the moment.

I don't like pushing to the limit of the range. For instance, yesterday coming back from Wales the chargers at the stop I planned weren't working so I went on a further 20 or so miles to get a charge. I like having some slack for that sort of thing, it means never get range anxiety!

 

[pharrison84]

We've just been to Scotland in our Trophy. It showed around 3.2m/kWh on the way up (about 350 miles mostly on the A1) which was at 70mph wherever possible. We came back down the west side to go to Cardiff and got about 3.3m/kWh. Again at 70mph where possible but with a slower first section through the borders and quite a bit of 50mph through roadworks.

I think the longest leg of our journey was about 165 miles and we still had plenty of charge at the end of that. At motorway speeds the car is estimating something between 200-220 miles total range in the temperatures we have at the moment.

I don't like pushing to the limit of the range. For instance, yesterday coming back from Wales the chargers at the stop I planned weren't working so I went on a further 20 or so miles to get a charge. I like having some slack for that sort of thing, it means never get range anxiety!

Very encouraging, particularly given it should be warmer in a month's time.

 

[adiel]

Which MG4 model is this Geoffree?

Our Trophy set to be delivered last week of the month, following which we have a Scotland trip that we have had planned for months. Going to be a test of the range almost immediately.

At the moment I have eyed up a charge point at about 190 miles, so I'm really hoping we can hit 3miles per kWh on an almost purely motorway trip early April.

These posts might be best moved to the the range thread.....

Should be comfortably achievable. I've been getting well over 3 mpkWh on the 12 largely motorway journeys I have done in the last 4 months. Each journey is either 350 or 450 miles and my average motorway speed is 65 mph. Average since I've owned the car is 3.4, with 90% plus of the 5,000 miles I've done on long (largely) motorway trips.

A tactical comfort break with a splash and dash charge after a couple of hours could be helpful to relieve you of any early owner range anxiety.

 

[Geoffree]

Which MG4 model is this Geoffree?

Our Trophy set to be delivered last week of the month, following which we have a Scotland trip that we have had planned for months. Going to be a test of the range almost immediately.

At the moment I have eyed up a charge point at about 190 miles, so I'm really hoping we can hit 3miles per kWh on an almost purely motorway trip early April.

These posts might be best moved to the the range thread.....

It's a SE. I drive quite gently most of the time with heater on low and high regen. but am delighted when I do return 3 miles/kWh or over! Last week when it was warmer the Guess-o-meter said 190 miles on full charge which was a slight improvement. PeteC's trip to Scotland at 70mph and those reported by adiel are certainly more reasonable than what I can get, even steadily on the motorway. I'm in the Pennines in Yorkshire, do folks driving in Norfolk have better consumption?

 

[adiel]

A few things I tend to do on my longer journeys:

• Switch the regen to Adaptive mode on anything other than town/city driving
• Use Strong regen mode with Eco setting when driving in the town/city portions of my journeys
• Use Eco driving mode for all roads (town/cities/motorway etc.)
• Try and cruise at 65-67 MPH on the motorway using Adaptive Cruise Control
• Switch the heating on and off as needed rather than leaving it on all the time

Not sure which/if any of the above help improve range but I like the driving feel of the regen and driving modes I use in the various road settings.

 

[siteguru]

It's a SE. I drive quite gently most of the time with heater on low and high regen. but am delighted when I do return 3 miles/kWh or over! Last week when it was warmer the Guess-o-meter said 190 miles on full charge which was a slight improvement.

There are 2 versions of SE, but given you say 3 mpkWh and 190 miles GoM then I'm going to surmise SE LR.

 

[DelBoy]

Just did a drive south (13 Mar) on the M56/6/5 in driving rain, approx 30-40 mph head/cross winds, 8 Degs, 70 mph speed, got about 2,5-2.8m/kWh, slowed down to 65mph, entered road works, traffic jam etc then approx 2.9-3m kWh. If you need to extend the journey slow down a little. Went the other way, slight tail wind, 5 Degs, across county (slower) got around 3.3m/kWh. Pays your money, takes your options.

 

[PeteC]

A few things I tend to do on my longer journeys:

• Switch the regen to Adaptive mode on anything other than town/city driving
• Use Strong regen mode with Eco setting when driving in the town/city portions of my journeys
• Use Eco driving mode for all roads (town/cities/motorway etc.)
• Try and cruise at 65-67 MPH on the motorway using Adaptive Cruise Control
• Switch the heating on and off as needed rather than leaving it on all the time

Not sure which/if any of the above help improve range but I like the driving feel of the regen and driving modes I use in the various road settings.

I use Eco mode and strong regen all the time. I set ACC to 70mph when it's reasonably clear but not when there's lots of traffic going at variable speeds as I find ACC a bit over enthusiastic with its braking! We have the heating on all the time set to 22 or 23 degrees and my wife very often has her heated seat on.

When I did my first longish motorway journey I set ACC to 60mph as I had no idea what the range would be like at a constant speed. On the return journey I upped it to 65mph. But now I always use 70mph as I found at the slower speeds I was always looking out for stuff coming up behind me. At 70mph I can usually find a lane going at about that speed. Every so often I'll accelerate to 75-80mph to get by things if necessary before settling back to 70. I still get reasonable economy at that speed and find it more relaxing to be going with the flow.

It all felt a bit slow to begin with after doing the same journeys in our old diesel, but now we've got used to it and actually quite like knowing where we're going to stop along the way. The car will charge at a good rate (best I've seen ours peak at is 139kW) so it's no real pain to stop. It's getting easier (but not easy!) to find ultra rapid charge points which makes longer journeys not that bad.

We've made the trip to Scotland twice so far in the MG. We make two stops on the journey (360 miles), both stops at ultra rapid chargers. One is at lunch time where the car will be back up to 85% to 90% by the time we've been to the toilet and had something to eat. The second stop has a cafe and we charge more than necessary there so that we've still got around 50% when we get to our destination and don't have to find a charger straight away once we're there. We might just be able to make the journey with one charging stop, but we'd be wanting to stop twice anyway so we might just as well make use of those stops to charge.

 

[pharrison84]

This is all helpful. The total journey for us (Wigan to Loch Lomond) is only 220 miles, so only 1 stop needed. However stops with rapid chargers before hitting Glasgow seem very limited, hence the hope we manage 190 miles and then can get a decent charge to drive a bit over the easter weekend while we're they're.

 

[PeteC]

This is all helpful. The total journey for us (Wigan to Loch Lomond) is only 220 miles, so only 1 stop needed. However stops with rapid chargers before hitting Glasgow seem very limited, hence the hope we manage 190 miles and then can get a decent charge to drive a bit over the easter weekend while we're they're.

If you are going M6/A74 there's the services around Gretna has some new Applegreen(?) 180kW chargers. I went in there on the way down from Scotland to Wales as there are 4 Ionity ultrarapids there and was surprised to see them as they are not yet on Zapmap. There are 6 chargers, each for two cars, although only one cable on each station was in use when we went. Took a few attempts to connect to the car and then only charged at about 60kW. But it was ok as the Ionity ones had a queue!

That's probably only half way up your journey so may be too early.

 

[siteguru]

I've used the GridServe chargers (in the car park near the main building - the Ionity ones are near the BP garage) which report as 180kW chargers (although I think that's total, so shared between both charger connections). I only got about 50kW charge rate - though I have the SE SR and I was at 50% (first time) and 40% (second time) when starting the charges, so not the optimum starting point.

 

[PeteC]

I've used the GridServe chargers (in the car park near the main building - the Ionity ones are near the BP garage) which report as 180kW chargers (although I think that's total, so shared between both charger connections). I only got about 50kW charge rate - though I have the SE SR and I was at 50% (first time) and 40% (second time) when starting the charges, so not the optimum starting point.

The new Applegreen chargers are in the car park too, near the Gridserve ones. I was also around 45% when starting so not optimum either. I would have gone further before charging if I could have found a suitable charger within range but couldn't.

 

[nbenn]

Have just plotted my daily battery consumption (miles/kWh) against the daily average temperature* (since early January) and there does seem to be trend with higher temperatures giving better consumption. However, how much of this is due less energy being used by the heater is unknown! Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to look at the data. I've also indicated the daily mileage as the diameter of the points (the maximum is 75 miles) to see if this is a contributing factor.
*I got the temperature data from www.visualcrossing.com/weather-data, which is a daily average so only a rough guide to the battery temperature. I do not use the battery heater.

View attachment 15874

Great job with this. Love to see longer term data properly recorded like this. Gives a much better sense.

 

[siteguru]

The new Applegreen chargers are in the car park too, near the Gridserve ones. I was also around 45% when starting so not optimum either. I would have gone further before charging if I could have found a suitable charger within range but couldn't.

Ah - they'll be the ones which weren't in service when I was last there. (The row behind the GridServe ones?)

 

[PeteC]

Ah - they'll be the ones which weren't in service when I was last there. (The row behind the GridServe ones?)

Yes, they're the ones. Only half in use at the moment as only one cable on each station is working, but should eventually give 12 charge points.