My experience is that the battery gauge "rounds up" to the next bar. Therefore, when you have 6 bars showing it means you have between 15 and 18 kWh left (assuming 1 bar = 3kWh).
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Inconsistencies between Miles Remaining and Usage
Since the factory recall updates my Bolt is giving me some inconsistencies on mileage.
Full charge. Hill-top reserve is on, so should be charging about 90% of the pack, or 54kWh.
Range remaining on the dash shows 200 miles when I fire up the car. Now I drive about 4 miles per kWh, which can be confirmed on the usage display on the center console screen. It'll say kWh used since last charge: 1kWh. Miles driven: 4.0 Miles. And it stays pretty consistent for me: 2.0kWh used, 8.2 Miles. So based on that, I should be getting about 216 miles on my 54kWh charge.
So while I'm driving, the battery gauge will start dropping as normal, but seems to drop much faster. Each bar on the battery gauge is 3kWh (as there are 20 bars and the pack is 60kWh). So at "half a tank" I should have 30kWh of battery left, or 120 miles of range.
But after a long drive, I'll get home and the battery gauge says I have just over 1/4 tank left (6 bars), but the usage display on the center console screen says I've used 26kWh and gone about 105 miles.
So which is more accurate? The battery gauge on the dash, which seems to indicate I have 18kWh of power left (6 bars) which translates to 72 miles left - or the usage display which says I have used 26kWh, which should leave me with 28kWh left (54 at charge and 26 used), which would be 112 miles left...
Or is this indicating I have battery loss?!?!
Full charge. Hill-top reserve is on, so should be charging about 90% of the pack, or 54kWh.
Range remaining on the dash shows 200 miles when I fire up the car. Now I drive about 4 miles per kWh, which can be confirmed on the usage display on the center console screen. It'll say kWh used since last charge: 1kWh. Miles driven: 4.0 Miles. And it stays pretty consistent for me: 2.0kWh used, 8.2 Miles. So based on that, I should be getting about 216 miles on my 54kWh charge.
So while I'm driving, the battery gauge will start dropping as normal, but seems to drop much faster. Each bar on the battery gauge is 3kWh (as there are 20 bars and the pack is 60kWh). So at "half a tank" I should have 30kWh of battery left, or 120 miles of range.
But after a long drive, I'll get home and the battery gauge says I have just over 1/4 tank left (6 bars), but the usage display on the center console screen says I've used 26kWh and gone about 105 miles.
So which is more accurate? The battery gauge on the dash, which seems to indicate I have 18kWh of power left (6 bars) which translates to 72 miles left - or the usage display which says I have used 26kWh, which should leave me with 28kWh left (54 at charge and 26 used), which would be 112 miles left...
Or is this indicating I have battery loss?!?!
1 - 2 of 9 Posts
Yeah, I did the same. The only anomaly I noticed was that the efficiency (kWh per 100km here in Canada, Miles per kWh in the US) went substantially down right after the update. I suspect that the "miles since" counter in the software got reset but the "kWh used" didn't.FWIW, when I did the recall my first action afterwards was to charge all the way to full (no hilltop). My theory was that after the reset the system didn't really know which end was up, and the best way to help it get a handle on things was to charge all the way full. Maybe I didn't need to, but it didn't hurt.
But the estimated ranges (min, max, and likely) stayed quite solid with only very minor effect, if any.
If the update resets the "miles since" count but not "kWh used" it would explain why people's estimated ranges go wonky if they have a lot of "kWh used" when they take it in for the update. By fully charging the battery you reset "kWh used" back to zero, and as long as you don't have to use too much energy to get the dealer for the upgrade then it will have a minimal impact on the range estimate.
1 - 2 of 9 Posts
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