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stolenmoment

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Posts posted by stolenmoment

  1. Additionally, slowing down from highways speeds can generate a few percent of charge.

     

    My son went to college in Vermont, and it was really fun to climb the hills with gas, then charge the battery rolling downhill.  You can get out of Hybrid mode this way: charge it going downhill, park it, turn it off, and when you turn it back on, it might have enough charge to go into EV Later mode, from which you can recharge as you go.  I generally arrived with a fully-charged battery, even after driving in EV mode on the flats.

     

    "Recharge as you go": watch the battery percent in the Settings screen, remember what it was when you last hit EV Later.  If it's higher than that, cycle the mode button three times to reset the target charge level.

  2. Right, the cabin heater is a resistance heater and eats the battery, cuts range down by perhaps half on days like this in New England.  Try the test again, as above: charge to 100% (percentage shown on the big screen), EV mode, heater off (you'll survive the chill), seat heater off, run in EV-only mode, no highways, until it drops into Hybrid, park and turn the car off.  The left-hand screen will briefly show kWh used in this trip, that's your current usable battery capacity.

     

    Yes, "EV mode not available" is displayed when the battery is below the hybrid-only threshhold.  The displayed range (guess-o-meter) is based on recent driving activity, so it's useless for the first couple of trips while it observes your driving style.

     

    I don't use the cabin heater on my Energi unless I have to, or if I'm going on the highway (and running the gas motor) anyway.  The seat heater and gloves work just fine.  But, I'm a fanatic.

  3. I had a similar "adventure", I managed to pull a K-turn by backing up (down the hill), but there is only the one way in to where I was going.  I have alternatives, so all was not lost.

     

    Scary, trying to climb the hill, speedo says 10mph, but we're not moving.

  4. So, the TCU contains both the phone and bluetooth radios?  That would suck, I take phone calls all the time and the car reads (most) text messages to me.  I also have a 2013, and I've gotten used to losing the phone network (I never upgraded), but losing bluetooth would really annoy me.

  5. Both modes recharge from slowing down or going downhill, but you can play games with the accelerator when the motor is going to recharge ever so slowly; learn to glance at the up/down arrows on the dash.  I always drive in L to give me more control over that sort of thing.

     

    EV auto has different thresholds for starting the engine, and will do that if you floor it.  I live near a busy traffic circle, so I have to goose the car just to enter, which will always start the motor.  One of the "My View" modes has the thresholds displayed if you want to get a feel for this.

     

    I want a more customized "My View" mode that shows me more details: it should turn on the tach whenever the motor's running.  But, I'm a programmer and we all have a bit of OCD.

  6. Right, when it's depleted, the battery switches to showing only how much of the hybrid range of the battery is filled.  That said, I have been able to charge the battery back up into the EV-only range by taking a long downhill run and parking at the bottom, turning the car off.  When I turn it on again, it had enough charge that I can switch to EV-later and play our OCD games to get more charge.  When it's switched to EV-later mode, it won't deplete down into hybrid-only mode.

     

    EV-later mode operates as a "normal" hybrid, only with the target charge whatever the charge was when you switched into EV-later mode.  Some of us (*ahem*) pay attention to the charge numbers and rotate from EV-later around and back (tap the button three times) to nudge the target up.  Hilly terrain (gas uphill, recharge downhill) and decelerating from highway speed (stoplight, offramp) can garner a few percent of charge at a time, leaving more charge in the battery for the "last mile" once you're off the highway or onto the flat.

  7. I just got a new phone (pixel 6, if that matters) and when I play podcasts via bluetooth, the audio is fine, but the title and such no longer show up on the car's screen.  I expect it'll be some setting on the phone, even though it's the same podcast player, but I'm hoping that somebody here has the answer.

     

    My car is a 2013 Energi, stock Sync 2.

     

    I did find some online help that said using AVRCP 1.4 (instead of the default 1.5) helped some people, but not my case.  Trying 1.6 didn't help, and 1.3 wouldn't even connect.

  8. Remember that the meter on the dashboard is a guess, based on recent driving habits.  If you drive EV on the highway, or run the heater in the winter, range drops like a rock.  If you drive carefully (not hypermiling, but paying attention), it likes that better and goes up.

    The "real" test is to charge up, then drive some fixed course until the battery runs out.

    My 2013 is still giving me about 20 miles on a charge, and I'm careful with it.  EV later on the highway, seat heater instead of cabin heater, etc.

    I have two or three shopping/dinner trips that are right at the edge of my range; if the outside temp is perfect, I can do them all on battery.  If it's too hot or cold, I can't.  I'm using those trips to tell me if my battery is degrading.  So far, so good, I'm at 110k miles.

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