Understanding Total Power gauge in gas mode

2495 Views 12 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Free2enjoy, Nov 9, 2018

p_f_m

Discussion Starter · Nov 4, 2018 (Edited by Moderator)

Vehicle Car Auto part Technology Hybrid vehicle

Vehicle Technology Auto part Car Electronic device

The gas engine generates maximum 53KW. When the battery is completely depleted (no electric range left) and the car demands access of 53KW then where does that additional power come from ? If it comes from the battery then why not power the car from the battery itself ? What am I missing ?

In the attached pictures you can see that the car is consuming 115KW and if the engine tops out at 53KW where does the extra 62KW come from ? If the battery is capable of providing that much power then why is the electric range 0, why doesn't it use the battery power until the battery can really no longer provide any power ?

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p_f_m

Discussion Starter · #5 · Nov 4, 2018

vtech said:
The Volt always keeps the battery partially charged with some reserve power, even when it says the range is zero. It uses that reserve power when accelerating hard or climbing hills. Then once the power demand goes down, it will use the engine to recharge the battery to maintain the reserve.

Thats a lot of reserve power that could be used for pure electric range, in my opinion.In fact in my 6-7 months of using this car I have noticed that even though it shows 0 electric miles, it does putt around on battery only as long as the power demand is under 18-20KW. Only when the power demand goes above that, the gas engine kicks in.
I would imagine/expect that a electric + gas car would be either 100% electric or 100 gas (when battery runs out).
Now I am curious what do other phev hybrid cars do ?

Don M said:
Because if it did that, the $10K battery would not live as long as the car's warranty

Don

Not just that, it would need a much larger engine + generator to produce the full 100KW+.

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