Have you ever run out of battery?

the_amazing_raisin

I feel like this is constantly something that's mentioned as a drawback of EVs but rarely occurs. Often I see articles posing the question of what happens when an EV runs out of battery as if it's an inevitability

I've had people ask if I'm ever worried I'll run out of battery and what happens if I do. I somewhat glibly reply that the exact same thing that happens to a car that runs out of petrol

Personally, I've never actually run out of battery. Closest I've ever been was 8% in a Leaf24 but I was nearly home and the car didn't even hit turtle mode

I was down to 4% on the ID.4 heading into Holyhead which was a bit hairy. But that's still 30km if indicated range which would have gotten me home from Dublin Port, and in any case there were DC chargers in Holyhead that I used to top up. Again, the car didn't even hit turtle mode

So, has anyone here actually run out? I'm not talking 0% indicated battery, I mean gotten to the point where the car won't actually move?

And if you did run out, what did you do to resolve it? Presumably a tow to the nearest charger, or a roadside recharge was needed?

I've had situations where I've been stuck waiting for a charger, or I've had to slow down to conserve energy. But I feel like actually running out of battery is something that happens on YouTube only and not in real life

yermanthere

I've been down to 2% on my bz4x. Like you it was a calculated "risk". I say risk but it wasn't. Distance from point a to point b ( charge station), is fixed. I had been driving all day so knew consumption. No turtle mode, I was confident that there was at least another 25km in the tank at 0%.

What I did learn is that by going so low, your are married to that charging location. If there is a big queue, you're waiting. And in hindsight, if it was broken I'd be goosed! But it depends where your going. If it's home or a place with a few options, it's really no panic.

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058306559/have-you-ever-run-out-of-battery

No, haven't even come close. Similar to my million+miles ice driving previous history..

munchkin_utd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058306559/have-you-ever-run-out-of-battery

maybe at this stage of Ev adoption the vast majority choosing to have an Ev have a good charging strategy in place, so can charge an Ev at home or work and for the vast majority of their normal use have it nicely topped up and on day to day use would find it hard to run it low let alone empty.

Wait till you have pensioners driving their city run around with low range to a wedding across the country and not being able to operate the app to get the poxy charger to work half ways across the country and then maybe risking it a little more in order to make it to the church in time. Or they just are oblivious and only notice they are running super low at the last minute.

Very keen driveway owning early adopters with a half dozen RFID cards are the ones least likely to go completely out of juice. Oh, and then theres smug tesla owners who have their own private charging network that digs them out of a hole

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899613#Comment_120899613

Yeah I've definitely had the experience of being tied to a single charger and ending up in a queue. It wasn't particularly fun, but that was with the Leaf and life's much easier with the ID.4

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899654#Comment_120899654

Funnily enough I was talking to a couple of people who have run out of petrol in the past

I feel like there's two types of people, folks who run out of petrol or battery, and folks who don't.

I wonder if the people who run out of petrol would do any better or worse in an EV

Calahonda52

Run out 4 times in the 30kW leaf, twice in the one day, all self inflicted using the Leaf pro app and trying to squeeze the last electron beyond what the leap app said was possible, all related to the nenagh dublin commute: 166.7 kms😀

denismc

I've been in turtle mode a few times in the original Ioniq but not since I got the I5.

sekond

I wasn't in it, but my car did apparently go down to 2km range once. The dealer had given it to me without taking it out of transport mode. I drove home, couldn't get it to charge on the granny cable, drove to a fast charge, couldn't get it to charge. Got home with 10km or so left and called dealer. They came to collect it, drove it off, and apparently gave up just down the road and had to get a truck to take it the rest of way to the dealer.

Personally the closest I have got is about a 10km range left. One of those very very cold nights in December last year. Left with what would have been ok range to do the trip in normal circumstances, but range plummeted and it ended up being very tight getting home.

Husband drives the car a lot now, and he has severe range anxiety, so it gets plugged in as soon as it hits about 50% now!

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899832#Comment_120899832

Well the good news is that pretty much all DC chargers will soon have to take contactless payment, so that'll simplify things

And I don't see why pensioners who seem capable of keeping their cars fueled will suddenly be unable to charge an EV. It's not exactly differential equations, once you've done it once then you know how it goes

eagerv

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899874#Comment_120899874

Herself is completely the opposite to me, used to drive her original Ioniq 28kWh regularly down to 10km or less. And they apparently run out at zero (Never tested..). She isn't as bad with her 58kWh Ioniq.

Range anxiety was never a problem with her, she left that to me..😋

ELM327

Nearly ran out once, arrived at destination with 0% in an ioniq 28 after travelling the last 10km at no more than 20km/h. Had a few other close calls but only ever ran out once, and that was as a test sitting at the navan fast charger in my leaf24 to see what happened.

I never ran out of petrol or diesel either, though, and I used to drive 50-60k a year.

Blup Blup Blup

Carwow have done some really good EV tests where they let the cars run to 0% to compare actual vs projected range and report on what happens when they completely run out of power. Here's one that has a couple of cars including a Model Y. Here's another that includes a Model 3 as well as an iX, a Mach-E and EQS Merc.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899882#Comment_120899882

Haha, okay the first time fair enough, but maybe just use a public charger the other times 😉

I'd say it was definitely a lot easier to run out back in the days the Leaf was state of the art, you could get stuck on a gap in the network with a broken charger and not enough range to get to another charger

There's usually an AC charger in reach, so you could get a slow and painful charge at least

I've been in that position of just going for it when I probably should have stopped for a charge. It worked out but for some headwinds or an uphill climb and I'd have had to stop

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899888#Comment_120899888

Jesus that's pretty bad, hope you got an apology from the dealership for that one

Fian

can you bleed charge from one Ev to another, like getting a jump start, to just get people to the next charger? I have no idea whether this is possible, just wondering.

gormdubhgorm

Surely the problem is not the running out battery but the access to charging points? I am still a dinosaur with an auld banger 'fossil fuel' car. But I know if I ever run low on Petrol there are plenty of petrol stations no queues and easy access.

I was thinking about getting a new car, but I have heard horror stories from electric car owners who had to struggle to find one of the few/only charging points in a county on a journey. I was warned not to go electric the as the infrastructure is just not there in Ireland yet.

September1

Over 10 years ago I arrived at FCP that was broken. I had to get rescue service to take my car home.

fricatus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899989#Comment_120899989

Just curious to know who warned you not to go electric, if you're willing to spill 😁

Tends to be people who make a living out of fossil stuff, or who are opposed to any sort of "new fangled" ideas.

As for me, driving EVs for over 5 years now, and fossil cars for 20 years before that, never ever ran out of battery, or petrol/diesel. Closest I came was late at night, coming back from Meath, and the charger in Knocktopher was inside a locked petrol station - nice one eCars! I did however make it home in turtle mode - with taxi drivers forming a queue behind me wondering why I was doing 20 kph the whole way out to my house...

gormdubhgorm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120900185#Comment_120900185

It was not a fossil fuel industry person that warned me against going electric, said that they never had to eat so much sandwiches in garages etc scrambling around for charging places. And what should have been a two hour plus journey ended up as six plus.

I asked my brother who lives over in a England (who has a hybrid) I asked him is there many charging points in England? He said loads. No problems.

I think that is the major difference the infrastructure is not there in Ireland yet.

Petrol wise I would normally fill up full before I go anyway, so if I did have a charging point at home I suppose I would be ok.

However, I from what I heard if there are any issues with needing to charge when out can be a nightmare - finding a place - queueing for the charger etc.

innrain

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899959#Comment_120899959

Some cars can do this. Vehicle to Load is the name of the feature (V2L)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899907#Comment_120899907

Bjorn has a test, he calls it zero mile and he's measuring among other things how much one can drive after zero. (I would call it the sub-zero). The 28kWh Ioniq stops at zero in his test.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzvvWJHrBS82echMVJH37kwgjE/edit?pli=1#gid=52159941

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899923#Comment_120899923

Yeah I've seen a few of them and they are pretty interesting. I guess it's interesting to see what happens but I also feel like it creates a false narrative that this is a common occurrence

The truth is that it seems to be very rare (unless you're Calahonda 🤣) and I've only seen it happen twice by accident on YouTube. One time Mr.EV ran out near his house because the GOM wasn't calibrated, and I think Bjorn ran out on a degradation test because his Model X sh!t the bed at the wrong moment

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120900256#Comment_120900256

It depends on where you are and where you're planning to go. Taking a 1st Gen Leaf from Dublin to Cork is always going to be a pain

But personally, I rarely need to use a fast charger nowadays in the ID.4 and if I do I generally have several options

The network is expanding, not as rapidly as many would like but I generally disagree with the statement that the infrastructure isn't there

I'd say the exception is if you don't have home charging. There's a few people here who do it, but it's got a ways to go before it's convenient

zg3409

Lightweights!. Luckily I was in my driveway and I could stretch the cable. I was avoiding public charging as much as I could and I passed a public charger 100 metres earlier. At 0% car goes into park. Lots of warning before. It was a bit of a test too. Lots of people run out of petrol every day.

In terms of public chargers I believe there is about 1/3 enough for today and they need to install 5 times what there is now ideally in hubs to cater for peak demand.

Calahonda52

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899904#Comment_120899904

once you've done it once then you know how it goes.... 11 hungry mouths later, back in the '60's😴

Officer Giggles

I ran out of petrol once before. I have arrived at a charger just as the battery hit 0% in my Model Y on three occasions since I got it the first week of May. The last occasion was last week on the way home from a day out. Herself was doing some looking at me as the screen said we'd arrive home with -3%. I was fairly confident we'd be okay but there was a slight doubt. We've a massive hill to climb to get up to our house so she was envisiging a serious effort to push it up if it stopped on us.

loopymum

My first ev was a 15 reg leaf. Regularly get range warning but never turtle.

Second ev is an ioniq 28. Had it less than 2 weeks. Icy cold weather & hilly terrain & the second half of the battery range dropping like a stone. Last dc charger was over an hour from home at the time.

It went into turtle less than 2km from home & stopped 400m from home.

I had to ring a tow truck to pick it up & put it in the driveway to charge

Big Bag of Chips

I regularly get home on 0%-2% in a Leaf. First hairy day that I went down to 1% about 8kms from home I was nervous. I live rurally so was able to go home on backroads and just drove slowly, free wheeled down hills etc. It did go to 0% about 4km from home, but I assumed (hoped) there'd be a small bit in reserve. Never went to turtle mode, which I was almost curious/disappointed about!

I wouldn't like to be so low out and about and depending on public charging, but on my way home I know I'll be ok. I know it takes me about 8% to get from our local town to where I live, so if I'm at 8-9% leaving town I just go for it, knowing I will get home.

Calahonda52

If you run out and you are waiting to be collected, they ask you not to run down the 12V as if it is flat then its a different world of hurt

liamog

First time we picked up the Ioniq 28 from the dealer we drop to the McDonalds in Blanchardstown. The 12V battery was dead from the car being shipped/stored. Made us panic a little, but we were able to get the car started after about an 1hr.

We got pretty low on the traction battery, including one time where we creeped into the estate. Every car behaves slightly differently as it approaches 0%. The Ioniq pretty much rage quit as soon as its 0. I thinks it's important for people to experience it so they know how their car will behave. In a test on the Mini by carwow it did 30km after the display showed 0%. I never pushed it that far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd2ArceiJd0

Big Bag of Chips

Yeah, I wouldn't mind "testing" it to know exactly what happens. But the thing is you'd only want to test it within very close distance to a charger. We can drive around our house, and charger is at the back. I have considered doing laps once it hits 0%!!

25-30km would be a lot of laps though!

Buddy Bubs

That's the lowest I've ever had it. I has done all the 354 kms that day and got to the charger on motorway with 2% battery 7kms left. I did have plenty of options before the charger I eventually used though it was a conscious decision to keep driving.

unkel

Came home with 0% on many occassion in Teslas, knowing there is a little bit left. Not so much fun in the likes of an Ioniq, where the car goes into turtle mode severely limiting acceleration and speed. Never ran out, but if I did, all modern fully comp insurance comes with break down service. And only risk it going home (Dublin) so worst case scenario is you wait maybe an hour or so for a pick up truck. I have saved myself many, many hours just pushing it, by not having to go and publicly fast charge somewhere, which is risky and also costs money.

Almost all the round trips I have done in the past 3 years were less than 350km, which the car can do without charging if you take it handy...

Mind I have been driving EVs almost exclusively for near 7 years now and range anxiety is something that mostly happens to (fairly) new EV owners or people that don't know their cars that well and don't have the guts to find out (perfectly understandable)

ted1

My wife did before we got a EV, she ran out of petrol in the winter and called me to come out with a Jerry can. While waiting for me she had the heating on and the lights. By the time I arrived her battery was dead , does that count ?

We ran out of battery on L24 back in 2016. The charger at Midway was out of action and we ran out of luck 100 mtrs before the J14 exit. Got recovered on the Nissan breakdown assitance 500 meters to the charger. Was a bit embarrassing sitting on the M7 waiting for the tow truck to arrive.

I also semi-intentionally ran out of battery 50 meters before home earlier this year on the L30 when I was testing the 100% to turtle on it. The neighbour helped push it around the corner.

Got the L40 down to 0% indicated once also but no sign of Turtle yet so wasn't even a close call.

Daveq

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899904#Comment_120899904

Not all pensioners have smart phones and/or are comfortable having multiple apps depending what charger you could arrive at. Once you can pull up to a charger or forecourt and just pay for it without figuring out if you're signed up to this or that and can pay like you can for petrol it will be easier for them (and everyone else TBF)

coolbeans

Never did but I did have serious range anxiety once when the night before a house fuse tripped and I had only 50% SOC instead of a full tank of electrons. As luck would have it an unexpected trip to Midleton from Tipp ensued. Enough to get there but not get back. "I'll charge in Midleton" says I, "be grand". Arrived at destination only to find the charger on the hyundai app was a work of fiction. No other chargers in area. "I'll deal with it later". I went about my business anyway, a date, and about 90 mins later got back into car. Punched home into the sat nav only to be greeted with "insufficient charge to reach destination." GOM indicated I was about 25km short. At this stage it was late so decided "**** it, I'll nurse it home and hope for the best." Was going well bumbling along at 80kph on regional roads when I happened upon a Garda road closure that necessitated adding about 20km to my journey in dark, unfamiliar rural roadd. That's when I started sweating. In the end I got home with indicated 25km range left and about 8% SOC. Upon arrival, and clearly not having run out of charge I got curious/stupid and drove over and back to the farm a few times and back. Only got 17km before SOC went to zero from 4% and straight into turtle mode. Limped into the driveway but the turtle mode was very disconcerting. It seems, in the Hyundais at least, that there's almost zero range beyond 0% SOC.

sekond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899940#Comment_120899940

An apology, a loan of another car while they figured out what on earth the problem was (it was their first EV of that brand so they hadn't a clue what was going on) and the car delivered back out to me with a nearly full charge. 😁 My husband doesn't often make a fuss about things, but he made a very big, polite, fuss until they agreed to all that.

JohnC.

Never did. I think the percentage dropped into the 20s once, which is as low as I got.

Basilio

In Ioniq, when visiting friend did not take to account he lives uphill. Luckily car stopped at the entrance of the farmers house. Managed to charge via granny cable and extension lead provided by the house owner. Got car charged up to 3% and drove remaining 700 meters to my destination.

the_amazing_raisin

So here's what I've learnt from this thread so far

1.Running out of battery is generally rare, about half of the time it happens it seems to be people doing it on purpose

2.A lot of us are chancers who will drive down to single digit percentages rather than go for a public charger (myself included). I guess if ICE owners had a petrol pump at home that charged a third as much then they'd do it too

3.When the Ioniq says 0% it REALLY means it 😂

kieran.

Yes ran out of juice around 100meters from my house. Plug the granny cable into a neighbours house no big deal!

I have had it down to 1% loads of times 😎

obriendj

Anyone else have a original Kona EV

We lost power twice. Both times the range said it had 10km or so left.

At around 20km it went into turtle mode, 60kmphr max then around 1 km from home it stopped. Turned it off and back on again and we got home.

2nd time not so lucky and had to get a tow to a charger!

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120909768#Comment_120909768

I remember one YouTuber, Mr. EV, ran out in his E-Niro with 30km left on the GOM. Turns out the GOM wasn't calibrated and the car thought it had more range than it did

Basically, he had to run out of battery for it to figure out where 0% is

L1011

Got to 1% when there wasn't a charger available anywhere in/around Swords once in a 40kWh Leaf. Eventually a slow opened up at the Airport; then after it had one or two % more the Chademo also opened up.

Fully out, no.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120909779#Comment_120909779

Shoulda sent me a PM, I'd have let you plug in to the house charger 😉

There's actually a lot of EVs around Swords, I'd say if anyone is ever stuck they'd have plenty of houses they could beg for a few kWhs. At least if there's an EV owner there they'd probably be sympathetic

L1011

I'm currently EV less - that was a company vehicle - but I'm more aware of Plugshare and forums etc now!

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120899613#Comment_120899613

Ah turtle mode, the reason we all have to sit in line behind the local climate-saving EV driver

zg3409

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120909776#Comment_120909776

It is recommended to run car down to below 20% and up to 100% once in a while so the car does recalibrate the capacity "guess" to give accurate range and prevent sudden drops below 20%. The battery management system monitors every cell in the battery and estimates when they will be full and empty. Without running near empty the battery management system can get confused then suddenly realise lots of cells are suddenly near empty and the range can suddenly jump down. Some people never let their battery go low and charge every night, and months later the car cannot calculate range accurately.

coolbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120910132#Comment_120910132

How's your backfired wind turbine thread going? Still making you look silly?

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120912905#Comment_120912905

Nobody is more silly than those who believe the climate is broken