Nissan Leaf

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Astro

Would it be possible to preheat the batteries at home and thermally insulate the battery rack?
If the system already has a battery heater in it then maybe it could be ran from the wall outlet whilst in the garage.
Get the batteries up to a decent temperature without using any of the battery capacity.

The closest to this I have come is to have the charge timer set so the batteries are fully charged until just before I need to depart, trouble is you really need the car to idle about a half hour before departing without draining the battery to get the battery heated up, this is only really possible on 220v

In terms of insulation there is only room to do it up on top of the battery, to the sides is a person (me)

Ah well, my volt is in the shop because I finally hit a deer

[Xist]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

Ah well, my volt is in the shop because I finally hit a deer

I am glad that you seem to have avoided needing a shop yourself.

[Astro]

Originally Posted by rmay635703

The closest to this I have come is to have the charge timer set so the batteries are fully charged until just before I need to depart, trouble is you really need the car to idle about a half hour before departing without draining the battery to get the battery heated up, this is only really possible on 220v

Ok, here's a crazy idea, probably not suitable for a commercially made vehicle (or any vehicle ).
But how about a low loss capacitive setup where the batteries charge up some capacitors and then the capacitors return the charge to the batteries. Not talking about the whole battery charge just a tiny portion. Like a mini charge and discharge cycle. Repeat the cycle over and over and the batteries would get heated and if losses could be minimised then maybe it would use less power overall compared to having the car on idle for a prolonged time.
In each cycle there would be heat generated in the batteries on both the charge and discharge portion of the cycle.
Maybe even have it integrated into the controller and use the controllers capacitors and ability to feed regen back to the batteries?

[NeilBlanchard]

The weather is warming up, and driving efficiency gets better proportionately.

On a recent charge in the Leaf, I got just under 220Wh/mile, or ~153MPe.

I am popping it into neutral by shifting into R - above 7MPH this puts it instantly into neutral. The Nokian Hakka R2's are wonderful - I will have to put the stock Ecopia's on it soon (a week from tomorrow), and I will see how they compare.

[Daox]

I'm quite curious to see what kind of wh/mile a good ecodriver like yourself can get out of your electric cars.

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

I am popping it into neutral by shifting into R - above 7MPH this puts it instantly into neutral.

Using Reverse because there is no Neutral?

[P-hack]

It is a quick way to get it into neutral, otherwise you have to hold it in neutral for a second. Turns out the prius goes immediately to neutral if you put it in reverse too (above 7mph).

And you have to put it back in drive to get regen back (obvi)

[MetroMPG]

When I was a young-un I accidentally discovered my parents' Caprice station wagon would stall the engine if you put it in reverse above 7 mph.

Kids.

[NeilBlanchard]

Originally Posted by Daox

I'm quite curious to see what kind of wh/mile a good ecodriver like yourself can get out of your electric cars.

I am looking forward to the warm weather, to see how well I can do.

A caveat with EV's is that most people cannot measure the actual charge, and I think that most of the other EV drivers are going by the dashboard readout of miles / kWh, which is roughly 15% higher than the actual charge, because of the wall-to-wheel losses. That and also the odometer on most is either slightly or quite optimistic.

Oddly, NONE of the EV specific forums have an energy log "garage", so I am glad the EM does.

[freebeard]

Your Mileage May Vary... - EVTV Motor Verks

This points out that watt-hours/mile depends on the state of charge of the battery pack, IOW the first mile comes easier than the last one.

And so we came up with a rule of thumb. And that rule, based on just our own outcomes, was that for every 10 lbs of car, it will require 1 Watt hour of energy to cover 1 mile of travel.

Would you believe that Tesla Model S did VERY well on this at 12.22:1? While the SmartforTwoED, which we have found their corporate management none to Smart, is predictably enough down around 6.5.

Here's their chart: