Etron winter range
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hi paul in general short, middle journeys. I live in the Netherlands so pretty small country.
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It's roughly -1c in my town in Southern England this morning and the figures from my 50 Technik are awful (93% battery and 109 miles of range) I'm not planning on going anywhere today so this is without warming the car up etc. Roughly speaking this works out at 117 miles fully charged (100 / 93 * 109) compared to warmer temperatures where I normally get around 170. I figured a drop of maybe 20% but this is closer to 30% not sure how others are finding their models. Long-term stats also recently dropped to 2.4m/kWh
The range estimate is a GOM.
GOM or Guess O Meter is a term predating EVs. I suspect it goes back to World War 2, maybe before.
If you drive lots of short drives at low speeds, the car uses lots of energy to heat the cabin, and travels only a short distance. Miles per kWh will be low. kWh/100 miles will be high. Calculated range will be low.
So?
It is an estimated range, not a real range. Real range hasn't decreased as much. The GOM is a guess. Sometimes fairly good, sometimes not so good.
I've seen an 6 mile "range" on the GOM in my Leaf and I had 35 miles to drive. No problem. Why was the GOM so low? Driving up Hurricane Ridge, a mile of altitude gained in 18 miles. Near sea level to near tree level. After descending, I added 19% to the Leaf's battery and the GOM after driving more than 18 miles was suggesting I could drive 59 miles. Which was also wrong.
The eTron isn't as dramatic, mostly because of a larger battery. The GOM is just a guess, not reality. It might tell you how far you could drive if you drive exactly the same way in the same conditions. 3 km to the grocery and back at 20 km/h with the heat blasting will not and can not give good mileage and range results. Same with an ICE.
GOM or Guess O Meter is a term predating EVs. I suspect it goes back to World War 2, maybe before.
If you drive lots of short drives at low speeds, the car uses lots of energy to heat the cabin, and travels only a short distance. Miles per kWh will be low. kWh/100 miles will be high. Calculated range will be low.
So?
It is an estimated range, not a real range. Real range hasn't decreased as much. The GOM is a guess. Sometimes fairly good, sometimes not so good.
I've seen an 6 mile "range" on the GOM in my Leaf and I had 35 miles to drive. No problem. Why was the GOM so low? Driving up Hurricane Ridge, a mile of altitude gained in 18 miles. Near sea level to near tree level. After descending, I added 19% to the Leaf's battery and the GOM after driving more than 18 miles was suggesting I could drive 59 miles. Which was also wrong.
The eTron isn't as dramatic, mostly because of a larger battery. The GOM is just a guess, not reality. It might tell you how far you could drive if you drive exactly the same way in the same conditions. 3 km to the grocery and back at 20 km/h with the heat blasting will not and can not give good mileage and range results. Same with an ICE.
Agreed with WetEV, personally I'm seeing cabin heating being the main culprit. Driving without heating on and I'm at 2.1-2.4m/kWh. Switched on and its obviously sucking more electrons. Pre-heating but not plugged in seems to suck ~5% of the battery. I suppose its a big cabin to heat up and it depends how you use the climate contro too.
Using "High" temp and #6 fan speed is the worst, but switching to auto and using a lower cabin heat is better. Or just have the heated seat on for the toughest among us!
Using "High" temp and #6 fan speed is the worst, but switching to auto and using a lower cabin heat is better. Or just have the heated seat on for the toughest among us!
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51 Posts
Yes the quick blast to clear screen on 6 is a killer. Personally I hate the term GOM as it doesn't reflect the accuracy designed by some manufacturers like Tesla & Audi who use topography among other features to provide a more accurate range estimate. Some of the cheaper cars literally are guessing based on simplicity such as "I'm going up a big hill I'd better reduce the number".
Cold weather and batteries go hand-in-hand with loss of range, this is heavily proven for virtually all EVs and heating of cabins just makes the matter worse.
A better GOM is still a GOM. Even adding traffic, altitude and real time weather forecast awareness along with anything else you can think of doesn't make it anything other than a guess. A better guess is still a guess.
The GOM is useful. But it is still a GOM.
The GOM is useful. But it is still a GOM.
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51 Posts
Use the term of it makes you happy with your predicted range. I think it devalues the amount of time & effort some companies have invested and paints EV driving as something you constantly have to worry about just in case you don't make it home. New EV drivers could become very wary of the volatile GOM mentality and worry too much about incorrectly needing to frequently charge just in case or constantly charging to 100% every night out of panic. I went down to 0% and 2 miles once and didn't panic or assume the estimated range was wildly inaccurate.
The best monitor I have found is the State of Charge (SOC). In regular usage the Audi GOM does not take into account elevation or weather. It just estimates how many miles you have gone historically and modifies that for changes in cabin settings, etc. The Elevation comes into play when you use the NAV to plan a trip. I'm not sure if Audi ever accounts for weather: I think the GOM folds that into the calculation only because of the fact that max SOC and max efficiency drop as you drive more often in cold weather.
In cold weather note this: Try turning off your A/C button. In the Audi temp control, turning the system ON turns on the heating system (heat pump and, if needed, resistive heaters). When the A/C is also turned on the FIRST thing the Audi does is cool down the ambient air to dehumidify it. THEN, the heaters heat it up to the desired temp. If the weather is cold, try turning off the A/C to skip that first (energy wasting) step. If your ambient air is dry enough, you won't notice a difference. This will save you some energy by eliminating the uncessary dehumidification step. If your windows fog up, then, unfortunately, you will need to try the A/C Eco or full A/C to get some dehumidification. Otherwise, you only need to turn on the A/C if the ambient temp is higher than your desired cabin temp.
In cold weather note this: Try turning off your A/C button. In the Audi temp control, turning the system ON turns on the heating system (heat pump and, if needed, resistive heaters). When the A/C is also turned on the FIRST thing the Audi does is cool down the ambient air to dehumidify it. THEN, the heaters heat it up to the desired temp. If the weather is cold, try turning off the A/C to skip that first (energy wasting) step. If your ambient air is dry enough, you won't notice a difference. This will save you some energy by eliminating the uncessary dehumidification step. If your windows fog up, then, unfortunately, you will need to try the A/C Eco or full A/C to get some dehumidification. Otherwise, you only need to turn on the A/C if the ambient temp is higher than your desired cabin temp.
Having driven EVs for a decade, I almost wish there wasn't a GOM in EVs. I'd rather have a big percentage of charge display.
New drivers should know that the GOM range will drop if they do only 2km drives to the grocery store with the heat blasting all winter. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the car.
New drivers should know that the GOM range will drop if they do only 2km drives to the grocery store with the heat blasting all winter. It doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with the car.
And yet so many posts...
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51 Posts
The e-tron suggests 80% for daily use and 100% for long trips in the MMI charging screen. Most EV manufacturers seem to suggest similar. You generally don't need to keep topping it up to 100% as this can damage the battery pack long-term (from reliable sources). Yes there are top & bottom end buffers in the battery, but this is also to prevent damaging the battery of SoC is too high/low continually.
The manual says 80% daily to protect the battery. The 2019 has a 4% top buffer, and 2020+ probably have an even smaller buffer.
Hmm. There’s a simple parallel between one’s paycheck and money left at end of month. Stop spending and there’ll be something left tomorrow. Not far away from the truth of EV power management 🤔
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