otedawg said:
BTW, I don't trust the mileage range gauge, it seems to change too much for me. I think the ammeter on the left is infinitely more useful.
Once you come to understand how the estimated range remaining (RR) meter works, it will be lots more useful for you and you'll trust it more - The changes you're seeing are there for a good reason
The RR meter computes your remaining range by tracking what has happened over the last 15 miles and then it
assumes you'll be driving pretty much the same for the remaining charge left in the battery, so it's 'guess' of how far you can go is actually quite accurate
assuming you will be driving the same for the rest of your charge
We all know if you drive very carefully around town at 25 or 30 miles per hour, you can probably go 75 or 80 miles or more on one full charge, and that if you're driving on the freeway at 70, you can maybe only go 45 or 50 miles. If you start out doing either of those on a full charge and keep doing the same until empty, the RR meter will tell you pretty accurately how many miles you have left. But if you leave town after using half your charge and hit the freeway, you're going to run out before the number on the RR gauge says you should, because it has calculated that number based on the previous 15 miles when you were doing 25 or 30 around town
Similarly, if you drive on the freeway for the first half of your charge and then get to town, your RR number may show 20 or 30 miles and as you slowly drive around town, you will see the RR number actually go
up as it recalculates based on the past 15 miles and now part of that 15 is around town and not all freeway speeds
Just keep in the back of your mind that it's predictions are based on the last 15 miles and then realize if you're now doing a different type of driving, the number won't necessarily be accurate, but at least you'll know which way to fudge it so you can trust what it's telling you
When you do a full recharge, the RR number you'll get is also based on how and where you drove the past 15 miles - Fast or slow, uphill or down etc. It's kinda fun to predict what the number will be after thinking about how you drove those last 15 miles and you can get pretty good at guessing what it will be. The numbers are never lying to you once you understand where they come from and they're never jumping around without good reason and when you understand the calculation behind what it's telling you, the RR gauge is a much better range predictor than using the ammeter
If you drove slowly around town for 15 or more miles, recharged and got a new RR of 70 miles on the gauge . . . . and then you head for the freeway to do 70 mph, you
know beforehand that you're never going to make anything close to the 70 miles it was predicting when you left home. As you drive, you'll see that 70 number dropping like a
rock until you've gone 15 miles or more and then the number it's showing you will be pretty accurate. The reverse is also true. If you come off the freeway and then recharge, your new RR number may only be 45 or 50, but as you drive around slowly for 15 miles, the number will actually rise until after 15 miles when it will be pretty accurate
Make sense . . . . or have I thoroughly confused you??
Don
