What happens at the end?

Had a close call today. The last few miles on my recent trip about town, I was down to one bar, with it and the gas symbol flashing like crazy. Made it back home ok. I was just wondering what would have happened if I was further from home - is there any reserve when the last bar leaves? Is there any reserve, or other way to squeeze a few more miles out?

Running the A/C, traveling on freeways, and carrying a bike on a rack definately does reduce mileage.....

Hi, Yes the IMiEV does have a reserve, in testing we found that when both the fuel gauge and the Range remaining were at zero, no bars or RR left, the car continued on what is known as turtle mode, an Orange turtle light comes on. The range after that seems to be another 7 kms at 70 Km hour, no heater or aircon, but with headlights on. The acleration seems the same.

Once really fully flat, the car slows right down, and a orange battery light comes on, looks like the red battery light only at a lower position and orange, this means the main battery is flat.

You will still have the starter battery, for lights and radio though.

So relax, you have a 7 Km buffer, but I wouldn't use it often.

I had a planned "close call" the other day. Fuel bars got down to none, but I still had 5 miles RR left. I drove it down to 2 as I pulled into my driveway. No turtle light came on.

http://myimiev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=559

Don

The heating with 5000Watts is the biggest load, after that's the aircon coming.
To get the maximum range turn the HOT/COLD button into the neutral(green) position!
You can drive with zero km/mi in the range display, it's shown "----"
If you get the turtle, the heating and the aircon will be turned off by the system.
ONLY the motor and the 12V systems are working! So, the seat heating is still working.

Of course, if you are driving down a hill, the turtle go away again by regenerative braking!

once you have --:-- you have another 5 or so miles to go. Then it just sort of short off and rolls to a stop.

Also, the first bit of travel for the break is tied to teh electrical system to kick in regen. When the system if off that part of pedal travel is dead space.

Logandzwon said:

once you have --:-- you have another 5 or so miles to go. Then it just sort of short off and rolls to a stop

Click to expand...

That's something I hope to never experience . . . . it cannot be good for the battery pack

I think before I allowed that to happen, I'd park it and come back with my Honda EU2000i and give it enough charge to make it home

Don

I've gotten to turtle mode twice and its really not that bad. Once I was on the highway when it came on, so I just found the nearest exit and took the side streets home at a low speed and I turned off everything in the car I could. The car felt like it still had plenty of go in it but I wasn't going to push it. You can really go a ways on turtle before the red battery icon comes on. I've never gotten that far before. The best thing is to not panic, turn everything off and slow down. Then figure out how far you got to go to find a charge, you can always go knocking door to door to see if any kindly person will let you charge for a wee bit and a couple of bucks to get you home.

Just dont leave the charge cord in the garage at home.......

Don.....