[jmarston4]

Just purchased a brand new 2021 Pinnacle Hybrid, and we love almost everything about it. We have been using electric almost exclusively on short rides around the city averaging less than expected but ok ~22 electric miles on average. Today, I had particularly terrible trip though where I depleted the battery entirely on a 9 mile trip (see photo). I know there are a lot of things that could vary the range from day to day, but this is a huge disparity on standard driving habits.

Any thoughts?

 

[peterweb]

What was your weather like on that day? Did you have one of the cold snaps we have seen reported? If so, were you using the climate control to heat the vehicle? If the 46 minutes shown were for that 9 miles, and the heater was on all that time, it would have taken a toll on the battery capacity/mileage.

 

[jmarston4]

What was your weather like on that day? Did you have one of the cold snaps we have seen reported? If so, were you using the climate control to heat the vehicle? If the 46 minutes shown were for that 9 miles, and the heater was on all that time, it would have taken a toll on the battery capacity/mileage.

about 65 degrees, clear skies, and no A/C on the whole drive

 

[KCarubia]

about 65 degrees, clear skies, and no A/C on the whole drive

The AC can be run for a while in all electric mode before the engine kicks on. However, if you have your “comfort” set to “auto” and a temp higher than the outside temp then the car will drain the battery quicker when it kicks in the heat. The engine will kick on 100% after that.

Check all climate stations (driver, passenger, mid and rear) to see if any are set to make heat. My kids always fiddle with them. Therefor I set the comfort to synch to the driver.

Heating coils use a lot of watts (amps x volts). I would also be weary of your inverter outlet. Make sure you’re not running a high watt device on that. Check to see what’s plugged into your 12v outlets. Also, your car’s vacuum needs to stay off.
Best of luck!

 

[KCarubia]

The AC can be run for a while in all electric mode before the engine kicks on. However, if you have your “comfort” set to “auto” and a temp higher than the outside temp then the car will drain the battery quicker when it kicks in the heat. The engine will kick on 100% after that.

Check all climate stations (driver, passenger, mid and rear) to see if any are set to make heat. My kids always fiddle with them. Therefor I set the comfort to synch to the driver.

Heating coils use a lot of watts (amps x volts). I would also be weary of your inverter outlet. Make sure you’re not running a high watt device on that. Check to see what’s plugged into your 12v outlets. Also, your car’s vacuum needs to stay off.
Best of luck!

I found that the van surprisingly will cool the whole car very well on the 20+ mph speeds with the comfort all set to “off” and the fan running on any number without the cab air circulation on. The car will draw outside cool air and won’t use AC or heat in that mode.

Also, I like to open the windows at low speeds around town. It’s one of those things with the auto climate controls and the electric range. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should.

 

[jmarston4]

The AC can be run for a while in all electric mode before the engine kicks on. However, if you have your “comfort” set to “auto” and a temp higher than the outside temp then the car will drain the battery quicker when it kicks in the heat. The engine will kick on 100% after that.

Check all climate stations (driver, passenger, mid and rear) to see if any are set to make heat. My kids always fiddle with them. Therefor I set the comfort to synch to the driver.

Heating coils use a lot of watts (amps x volts). I would also be weary of your inverter outlet. Make sure you’re not running a high watt device on that. Check to see what’s plugged into your 12v outlets. Also, your car’s vacuum needs to stay off.
Best of luck!

Thanks for your help. I can confirm no heat was being used at all during the trip. It still seems odd to me the advertised range of 32 miles would essentially imply you are doing nothing except driving the vehicle, otherwise a single device plugged into the 12V outlet will yield ~30% of estimated range.

I’ll keep measuring results over time and hope things improve!

 

[KCarubia]

Thanks for your help. I can confirm no heat was being used at all during the trip. It still seems odd to me the advertised range of 32 miles would essentially imply you are doing nothing except driving the vehicle, otherwise a single device plugged into the 12V outlet will yield ~30% of estimated range.

I’ll keep measuring results over time and hope things improve!

If it keeps happening then definitely take it back to the dealer. The electrical components and battery has a warranty of 10 years or 100,000 miles. Whichever comes first.

 

[triggerhappy007]

about 65 degrees, clear skies, and no A/C on the whole drive

In those conditions you should definitely get way more than 9 miles. It's either something is wrong with the van or you started the van at about 33% battery. Fully charge the battery and test it again. If you get the same result, something is wrong with the van and you need to take it to the dealer.

 

[kpnnot]

Just purchased a brand new 2021 Pinnacle Hybrid, and we love almost everything about it. We have been using electric almost exclusively on short rides around the city averaging less than expected but ok ~22 electric miles on average. Today, I had particularly terrible trip though where I depleted the battery entirely on a 9 mile trip (see photo). I know there are a lot of things that could vary the range from day to day, but this is a huge disparity on standard driving habits.

Any thoughts?



View attachment 46341

46 minutes to drive 9 miles. That’s the reason. If your car is idling, it will still drain battery.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[triggerhappy007]

46 minutes to drive 9 miles. That’s the reason. If your car is idling, it will still drain battery.

Yeah, but that's way too much of a drain. Think about it, the usable capacity of the battery is about 12-13 kWh, even if the heater/AC was on 100% of the time, it would take 2 hours to drain the battery. Plus the OP said the temperature was 65 and no AC was used.

 

[Link64dx]

Yeah seems like something is wrong, i have 2021 pinnacle and I can average 30 plus miles in electric mode. If there is a lot of stop and go i can go even higher than that ~37-38 because of all the brake regen

 

[CANADAHYBRIDGUY]

I think you might add up climate , driving style , power usage inside , etc and all within 42 minutes .

 

[392DCGC]

I would also be weary of your inverter outlet. Make sure you’re not running a high watt device on that. Check to see what’s plugged into your 12v outlets. Also, your car’s vacuum needs to stay off.
Best of luck!

The inverter is only rated for what, around 150W? No, it would take days to drain the battery from the 12V outlet. And the PHEV does not have a vacuum (even if it did, same story, it's a relatively low power device).

46 minutes to drive 9 miles. That’s the reason. If your car is idling, it will still drain battery.

Yeah, but not in less than an hour. Just doesn't happen.

In those conditions you should definitely get way more than 9 miles. It's either something is wrong with the van or you started the van at about 33% battery. Fully charge the battery and test it again. If you get the same result, something is wrong with the van and you need to take it to the dealer.

This is the only decent reply in this thread.

A lot of bad information in here. Considering this happened to OP in mild temperatures, let's assume even a slightly poor consumption figure of 500 Wh/mi. 9 miles would have used up 4.5 kWh. My PacHy typically pulls ~13 kWh into the battery pack, so OP would have about 8.5 kWh remaining for any climate use, idle use, etc. Under full load, the heater draws 7 kW... in 1 hour, that'd use 7 kWh. No (or very little) heat was used, and it was in the span of 42 minutes, not an hour. And, the heater does not run at full load the entire time. Once the cabin reaches a decent temperature, the draw decreases. And AC uses significantly less power - only 1-2 kWh once cooled down.

There is no good explanation for why your PacHy died after 42 minutes and 9 miles. Charge it up, and continue observing its behavior. If the range is not as advertised, take it back and do not stop fighting until they fix it. These can get 32 miles all day long in weather like that.

 

[jmarston4]

The inverter is only rated for what, around 150W? No, it would take days to drain the battery from the 12V outlet. And the PHEV does not have a vacuum (even if it did, same story, it's a relatively low power device).

Yeah, but not in less than an hour. Just doesn't happen.

This is the only decent reply in this thread.

A lot of bad information in here. Considering this happened to OP in mild temperatures, let's assume even a slightly poor consumption figure of 500 Wh/mi. 9 miles would have used up 4.5 kWh. My PacHy typically pulls ~13 kWh into the battery pack, so OP would have about 8.5 kWh remaining for any climate use, idle use, etc. Under full load, the heater draws 7 kW... in 1 hour, that'd use 7 kWh. No (or very little) heat was used, and it was in the span of 42 minutes, not an hour. And, the heater does not run at full load the entire time. Once the cabin reaches a decent temperature, the draw decreases. And AC uses significantly less power - only 1-2 kWh once cooled down.

There is no good explanation for why your PacHy died after 42 minutes and 9 miles. Charge it up, and continue observing its behavior. If the range is not as advertised, take it back and do not stop fighting until they fix it. These can get 32 miles all day long in weather like that.

great advice. Thank you!

 

[CANADAHYBRIDGUY]

Something isn’t right , 9 miles equal 42 minutes . Even if you were going 30 miles a hour it would take you about 12-15 min , then sitting there approx 30 minutes if you had all the hvac controls , heated wheel seats , rear hvac , uconnect , screens up you would kill the battery idiling .

 

[jmarston4]

Something isn’t right , 9 miles equal 42 minutes . Even if you were going 30 miles a hour it would take you about 12-15 min , then sitting there approx 30 minutes if you had all the hvac controls , heated wheel seats , rear hvac , uconnect , screens up you would kill the battery idiling .

what can I clear up? The 9 miles in 42 minutes is right. City driving + traffic. As noted above, no Uconnect screen, no heat on, no rear AC on.

 

[triggerhappy007]

Don't worry about that, it's impossible to drain the battery 100% on the time and conditions you described unless something is wrong with the battery/EV system.

Charge it to 100%. Reset one of the trip meters and drive around again until you run out of battery. Stop and take a pic of your trip screen. If you're not getting around 30 miles in the conditions you described, there is something wrong with the van.

 

[Pac1]

Yes, there is probably something wrong with the van. I had the same problem before I got the dreaded "service charging system" warning on the dash that made the van inoperable and had to get it towed to the dealership. I delayed taking it in and now I am driving a loaner.

 

[lutorm]

I agree that something seems wrong in this case, but the climate uses a lot of energy. We've mostly had the climate on auto set to 72F with an outside temp of around 75F, and I recently experimented with turning off auto and AC to just have circulation. This has approximately halved our battery usage for around town trips, as judged by the percentage difference between start and end. (It's had a much smaller difference on the average MPGe shown in the dash, from just around 60 with climate in auto vs ~72 with no AC. I suspect this is because its inability to correctly handle regen.)

Remember that the slower you drive, the more power the accessories will use as a fraction of total energy used, since their use is close to constant with time. As I understand it, AC and heating use has a fairly low weighting in the EPA MPGe rating, so if you use those a lot, you won't get anywhere near the EPA rating/range.

 

[Jerith]

What a headache to start off with.