RANGE INDICATOR ON CITROEN C-ZERO

I HAVE JUST TAKEN DELIVERY OF A C-ZERO WHICH WAS A "DEMONSTRATOR" WITH A CITROEN DEALER AND HAS 750 MILES ON THE CLOCK AND IS 15 MONTHS OLD. I FULLY CHARGED IT LAST NIGHT BUT THE RANGE INDICATOR ONLY SHOWED 44 MILES. SHOULD I PAY ATTENTION AT ALL TO THIS OR GO BY THE NUMBER OF "BARS" SHOWING ON THE CHARGING SCREEN? WHAT IS THE AVERAGE RANGE ONE SHOULD EXPECT.
THANKS

borisg, do not worry about this initial reading of your Range Remaining (RR) indicator. It will take about 25km for this to reflect YOUR driving habits, and the present reading merely reflects the fact that the car had recently been driven hard, which is normal for a demonstrator. As you drive more gently, when you recharge the car fully this number will climb (often dramatically).

Incidentally, capital letters in posts are normally used only to add emphasis to a word or phrase.

Thank you for the very rapid response! What would you expect an "average" range to be under normal driving conditions?

borisg, first of all, most of us do not normally fully charge the car (in order to further preserve its battery life), and unless you fully charge the car the maximum RR will not be indicated.

Please note that RR is an indicator of YOUR driving and NOT an indicator of battery condition.

Does the Citroen C-Zero have a 16KWh battery pack (like in the USA), or is it smaller? For us, typical readings in the summer (no heater or air conditioning) are around 75 miles. There are posts on this forum where people have achieved an RR of greater than 100 miles, but also a terrible 35miles after a full recharge. See:

Maximum Range Remaining

Minimum Range Remaining

Here is one of my best commutes to work. I think this was the day I started with 159km on my RR. I arrived to work, using only 5 bars and had 96km range according to my RR. My commute is about 45 kilometers long, 90% highway. It was a warm day and I didn't use the A/C. Just something to give you an idea of what you can achieve with careful driving and with the right factors in play.

Yes it is indeed a 16kwh battery.

Boris, you can expect anything between 60km and 170 km, depending on your driving speed, acceleration, using regenerative braking, heating, AC, tyres quality... My record with C-zero is 169km without turtle (you can add another 15-20 km max with turtle on) My low record was 68 km driving fast (mostly 130km/h on highway) heating on full, partly AC on for deicing and defoging windshield glass. You can check my e-consumption here and my experience on my blog. Just use Google translate for near acceptable translation into your language.

Thanks. One more (last!) question
I am not too clear on how the "turtle" works. Is this a "reserve" of power which will allow you to run another, as you say, 15-20km. I ask because I live in London, UK and no journey I ever take is more than 15km from my home charging point and thus I should be safe to get home under all circumstances.

Almost everybody suggest you stay between 2 and 14 bars. Citroen's manual says that at least once in two weeks you should fully recharge your battery. So, yes, turtle is your reserve of power. If possible, start recharging before turtle appears, or even better, before the last bar dissapears.

borisg said:

Thanks. One more (last!) question
I am not too clear on how the "turtle" works. Is this a "reserve" of power which will allow you to run another, as you say, 15-20km. I ask because I live in London, UK and no journey I ever take is more than 15km from my home charging point and thus I should be safe to get home under all circumstances.

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I doubt this will be your last question. :lol:

There is a lot to learn driving an EV, I'm new as well and had to read a lot, listen a lot and experment a lot.

Turtle is not only the reserve it also has an effect on your car as well. The power to the motor is reduced and the AC/Heat will turn off. If you have a 15-20km range then you won't have any problem with making it home. Just slow it way, way down - take the side streets, shut everything down and slowly drive it home. No problem making it to your destination. How is London on public charge stations? You may have a lot of choices and will have another means to make it home.

London was quite good with public charging stations until recently. However, in central London there are huge concessions for electric cars notably free parking at meters which can save you $50 a day and an exemption from the daily congestion charge of $14. The result has been many more e cars ( g whizz, smart electric, leaf and Citroen c zero). So now the charging points tend to be taken and its difficult to find one. In addition, there are at least two companies running schemes and you need a separate subscription for each one.

The turtle is our holy spirit, taking care of the battery and its cells - in other word the BMU battery managent unit.

You have got a gauge display with 16 bars that might look like the battery with its 16 kilowatt hours but that is a deception. That is what the turtle spirit wants you to believe. The BMU is actually hiding some 20% at the top and another at the bottom.

When the gauge drops down to 2 bars the display begins blinking and bottombalancing the battery cells starts.

When the gauge drops down further the turtle light suddenly comes on.

When the gauge drops even further the car gets down to creeping, the heater and AC switches of ...

If you dont find a charger soon the car will stop running - but that does not mean the battery is down to zero it only means the Turtle Spirit has deemed you unfit to drive this car.

MLucas said:

The power to the motor is reduced and the AC/Heat will turn off.

Click to expand...

This is one of things where C-zero and Ion differ from i-miev. When turtle lights on, power is not reduced, AC and heating still work. IMHO that sucks. Ion and C-zero should automatically turn off all major power consumers, just like I-miev.

Regarding turtle, the answer is simple: plan ahead and DO NOT ever go there. In my year of ownership we've gone below two bars only twice, and never reached turtle. In a similar vein, we normally charge up to about 13 bars, and only fully charge just before setting off on a longer trip.

Zelenec said:

Citroen's manual says that at least once in two weeks you should fully recharge your battery.

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WHOA! This is dramatically different than the information we received via a letter from Mitsubishi (almost a year ago), stating that this should be done once in the first year of ownership and then every two years thereafter.

Is this correct that you have in US 8 years or 100.000 miles battery warranty?

Citroen version offers only 5 years or 50.000 km (31.000 miles) :evil: I just don't understand why somebody downgraded original Mitsubishi terms when all vital parts are the same in all 3 versions.

Peter, what are your battery warranty terms in Germany?

peterdambier said:

When the gauge drops down to 2 bars the display begins blinking and bottombalancing the battery cells starts.

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Peter, Could you reference or link us to whatever documentation you have that this is actually happening please?

Thanks!

Don

The battery warranty in germany is 7 years.

The blinking when down on 2 bars I have seen myself and I was told by somebody developing CHAdeMO chargers what happens right at that moment in the BMU. The guy has told me a lot more and some of the things he has told me I have seen actually happening. They are managing a fleet of Citroens and some roofs with solar energy.

From what I learned top balancing only works for lead acid and they are overcharged on purpose. The BMS guys have made a fortune with lead acid and now they want to repeat it without even looking at the different chemistry. They have not learned from exploding laptops and cellulars. (Dont mention the Boing)

peterdambier said:

...From what I learned top balancing only works for lead acid and they are overcharged on purpose. The BMS guys have made a fortune with lead acid and now they want to repeat it without even looking at the different chemistry. They have not learned from exploding laptops and cellulars. (Dont mention the Boing)

Click to expand...

Peter, I think we are talking about apples and oranges.

Flooded lead-acid batteries are periodically subjected to a desulphation cycle where the battery is purposely overcharged so the electrolyte will bubble and physically 'clean' the plates.

This is definitely NOT the technique applied to Lithium batteries, whereby a series battery bank is gradually brought up to its 'balanced' state by managing each cell's voltage level and controlling the 'finishing' current into that cell so that the cell's voltage does NOT rise above its preprogrammed limit. Over time, the current into each cell drops to zero at that voltage. This, I believe, is referred-to as Top Balancing. I have a model-airplane battery charger (Revolectrix CellPro PowerLab8) which does just that for my 8S3P Headway LiFePO4 cell banks (as well as some different Lithium-Cobalt banks) and which, among other things, displays the individual cell voltages over time on a PC as the bank is charged and balanced - we're talking about cells achieving stabilization all within a couple of millivolts of each other! I've been using these cells in my electric scooter for almost two years and am presently putting together a larger partial LiFePO4 bank for one of my Sparrows and maybe use it as a range extender for my iMiEV...

Peter, to repeat the question, where did you find the information that led you to believe that the iMiEV's battery bank is being bottom-balanced when the battery is being severely depleted?

Note: perhaps this discussion should have its own thread? I'm reluctant to move these posts into a new one as I botched it up the last time I tried...

I'm 99% sure Joe is correct - I know our BMU employs top balancing near the end of every full charge, but I seriously doubt we have any 'bottom balancing' going on at any point in the discharge cycle - Pretty sure all we get when we discharge below 2 bars is a recalibration of the RR display

As I mentioned earlier, it would be good if Peter would post a link to something which backs up his claim that bottom balancing is going on . . . . with OUR car

Don