2017 FFE 100km range

[FEX]

I've owned this car since the summer, usually got 190-210 km estimated range on the dash. Then about two months ago the range started decreasing until it reached about 100km on a full charge. This was accurate irl as I could only drive it that much until empty.

Brought it in to the dealer. They said a connector was loose on the battery. They said they fixed it. They said to drive and charge and it would recalibrate and I would get 200 again. However it didn't get better. I get around 100-135 km range (no heat) at 100%. Battery has been discharged many many times over the last month. Recharged with L1,2,3 chargers. Today it said 104 km at 100%. Turn the heat on, 90 km. Always leave the car plugged into L1 at home due to cold weather here.

I also noticed something recently at just one L3 this week, it wouldn't charge. Machine said my car stopped the session during initialization. My dash showed "accessory power active". All leds besides the plug were flashing. Tried an L3 later that day, np.

Do I have a dud battery?

 

[joeyfraser]

Hi,
In the summer, I usually got 180/200 km of range with my FFE 2017.
With extreme cold weather as we have now in Quebec province (-23C/-10F), I have a maximum range of 100/120 km. If the temperature is around 0C/32F, it goes up to 130/150 km.
Do not be surprised that L3 charge is very slow in cold weather when the car lithium battery is not warm enough. Do not forget to stop the car entirely before plugging L3 charger. I forgot once and I got the same error message.
Most dealers don’t know well how the FFE works.

 

[FEX]

Ok so it's normal to get half or almost half the range in cold Canadian weather? That's brutal. Its below zero five months out of the year here. This tech has a ways to go yet for cold climates. Not keeping this car for long then as 100 km is not practical with only one car. I mostly drive it in the winter too lol. I expected some drop in range in winter, ie 25% due to heating, but 50% drop when it's really cold is too much :-(. Is the Bolt a 120 mile car in the cold winter then? Same issue/ drop with the Teslas too?

The car was stopped when I tried the L3. Tried for about half an hour lol. It almost left me stranded out of town in a blizzard in the middle of the night (I would have missed the blizzard had the L3 worked). Luckily there was a l2 available, five hour later I had another 100km. Long night.

 

[cecil-t]

Shut off your climate control and see what the range jumps to.

Cold weather is a double whammy - the battery doesn't work as well plus we're asking it to heat the cabin as well.

In the 5°F - 25°F weather I've been having here lately my dash shows 65 mile range. When the temperature got over 50°F it went up to 100+ miles. I haven't used it in warm weather yet.

The L3 or L2 charging should run the battery warmer as needed.

 

[FEX]

Shut off your climate control and see what the range jumps to.

Cold weather is a double whammy - the battery doesn't work as well plus we're asking it to heat the cabin as well.

In the 5°F - 25°F weather I've been having here lately my dash shows 65 mile range. When the temperature got over 50°F it went up to 100+ miles. I haven't used it in warm weather yet.

The L3 or L2 charging should run the battery warmer as needed.

104 km (65 miles) no climate control. 90km with climate control.

 

[triangles]

104 km (65 miles) no climate control. 90km with climate control.

Holy crap! how awful do you drive? That's only about 10 miles more than I get with my 2014 (23kWh battery) How is it that bad when you supposedly have an extra 10kWh capacity?

 

[FEX]

104 km (65 miles) no climate control. 90km with climate control.

Holy crap! how awful do you drive? That's only about 10 miles more than I get with my 2014 (23kWh battery) How is it that bad when you supposedly have an extra 10kWh capacity?

In the summer I do between 140 wh/km - 160 wh/km. The app now alleges I do over 320 wh/km. I dont think I'm driving any differently other than going slower. Keep the cabin at 20c (68f), heated seat only runs for less than ten minutes on low/ medium. Yes the range has been terrible this winter.

I did notice something interesting in the Zen Master rankings in my region. The top drivers in the summer were doing 130-140wh/km. Now the top ones are doing around low 200s wh/km. That's 40-50% increase in energy consumption or mostly likely a loss of about a third of range. If my car is acting "normal", I hypothize that they must be keeping their cars somewhere warm. Mine stays outside plugged in in our current Arctic like conditions.

 

[triangles]

40-50% reduction in extreme cold conditions is normal. My winter range ('14 FFE) tops out at about 55mi (88km) down from my summer range of 75-80mi (120-128km). Worse case winter for me is about 40mi (64km). I would have expected a 2017 FFE to have a bout 69mi (111km) winter range. talking a second look, your numbers aren't as far off as I initially though. Parking outside makes sense that they are more toward the extreme end and I assume your winter temps are a little lower than mine. My typical winter range is 50+ mi (80+km) probably due to my "warm" garage. It's usually at least a few degrees above freezing. It's not heated just poorly insulated from the house. When it's single digit F out I use GO times (max heat) set at about 15 min before I leave. The extra 15 minutes is so the charger can finish topping off the battery before I leave. You really NEED 30A L2 EVSE to plug into at home. L1 is inadequate at keeping your battery warm enough in those arctic temperatures. I have noticed on my '14 that even with a 12A L2 the battery heater didn't come on when I plugged in. When I switched it to a 30A L2 the heater kicks in immediately when I plug in. I would assume it's the same way with a '17. This doesn't make sense to me since the battery heater is supposedly only 900W and even a L1 provides 1440W. Maybe there's more to it than I know... I do know the onboard charger gives off a fair amount of heat. Maybe the car is smart enough to use that extra heat for the battery?

I don't know if it will help you get any more range or not but the strategy I use to maximize range/minimize climate control is that I primarily use the seat heater set at 3/5, crack open driver and passenger front windows (occasionally the back). This usually is enough to keep the windows from fogging too much. If I need to use the heater I set it at 64F (18C) and I recirculate inside air with the thinking that I'm reheating the cabin air instead of always heating the frigid outside air. Sometimes the cracked windows aren't enough to keep the fog/frost on the windows to an acceptable level and I set the heat it's default of using outside air. In extreme cases I have to use the window defrost setting but I usually can turn it off once the windshield clears. It probably helps that I have a pretty high tolerance for cold. Before my FFE I used to ride my motorcycle year round even down to 6F (-14C). I guess what I'm getting at is if you dress appropriately for the weather you really don't need to use much climate control other than to clear the windshield.

 

[spirilis]

In sub-20F temps my FFE consistently got around 70-75mi max. >20F it gets a little better and >32F, >40F etc it just gets better...

There's definitely a persistent loss beyond the heater though. IIRC the battery coolant warmers might be running, though I haven't validated that with FORScan yet, but also the air is denser so that should add some drag.

 

[FEX]

Thanks for the replies guys ( and gals). So the drop I'm seeing seems typical. I also noticed that when driving through the aforementioned blizzard through unplowed country roads, my 100 km turned into 70 km as I was essentially off roading driving drough shallow snow dunes that sweep across the fields onto the road. The high resistance terrain really killed the range on top of everything else. I guess living and driving in these extreme climates means one needs to really oversize their battery to mitigate the chance of one inadvertently getting stranded in a storm an hour out of town.

 

[elec2017]

There's something wrong with your car. With heat always on, I get around 120km in the coldest days(below -10C). If you turn off heat you should at least get 150km range.

 

[Kamroud]

I get 110-120 KM in cold weather of Toronto and 140-150 KM in milder weather. In good days, it goes up to 180-200 KM.