Dead with 10 miles of range

[Bill B]

So today my car died with 10 miles of range. Lucid would not offer any assistance as far as a tow. I have 14,800 miles on my car as a side note.
I was less then a block from a Electrify America charger and nothing!!!!!! STUCK in the middle of traffic in the middle of an intersection, raining and cold!!
I called Lucid and was told they do not provide help due to low range??????? I got out of the car locked the doors to have the computer go to sleep/reset. Jumped back in and was able to move the car 5 car lengths and proceeded to do this 8 times and limped it in to the charger! the mileage slowly went down from 10 to 6 miles of range. Has anyone experienced this?
last I then for the first time charged it to 100% and it read 469 with 14,800 miles meaning I have had no loss of range.

 

[Halodde]

Holy cow! Did you know that you were going to be able to 'trick' it by getting out and back in? I never would have thought to try that

 

[Tim-in-CA]

Ford, GM, et al don’t tow you for free if you run out of gas. Get AAA and don’t run so low on a charge.

 

[kerplunk]

Ford, GM, et al don’t tow you for free if you run out of gas. Get AAA and don’t run so low on a charge.

The concern here is if the car is saying there is 10 miles left then I'd be expecting 10 miles.

10 miles is a pretty good distance, especially when so much talk about taking advantage of the charging curve is to run it low before juicing it.

 

[SaratogaLefty]

For myself I would never let it intentionally go below 10% (which should be 30-40 miles) and I always try not to go below 20% SOC. What is the point of running it down so low???

 

[kerplunk]

For myself I would never let it intentionally go below 10% (which should be 30-40 miles) and I always try not to go below 20% SOC. What is the point of running it down so low???

I think I'd personally only go down to 10% as well, probably not even. But from videos of people on longer road trips they'll say go low because then you'll be able to charge faster during the stops. I don't understand the physics of it but batteries have an easier time charging the lower the SOC.

2-3% is a bit extreme though. This is going to be my first EV (just got assigned a vin today) so maybe there is a learning curve, but most cars I've had give a pretty generous reserve tank so I've run it to 3 miles and still managed to get to the corner gas station. Never had to deal with puttering out when the car still thinks there is gas in it.

 

[hydbob]

10 mile range calculation assuming EPA,21" wheels, GT is 2.38% battery. You mentioned cold, so reduce that further to 1% SOC. That's craziness! Glad you got it to the EA station by tricking the car though, good tip to have in the back pocket

 

[DeaneG]

...This is going to be my first EV (just got assigned a vin today) so maybe there is a learning curve, but most cars I've had give a pretty generous reserve tank so I've run it to 3 miles and still managed to get to the corner gas station. Never had to deal with puttering out when the car still thinks there is gas in it.

In an EV, there is typically no reserve. Also, they generally lose power at low SOC - some are known to not be able to drive safely on the freeway below 7% SOC. With the current state of CCS charging, I wouldn't plan to go below about 20% SOC and would definitely be worried at 10% SOC. You may have read of Tesla drivers regularly going lower than 10% on road trips - their charging situation is different.

 

[SaratogaLefty]

I think I'd personally only go down to 10% as well, probably not even. But from videos of people on longer road trips they'll say go low because then you'll be able to charge faster during the stops. I don't understand the physics of it but batteries have an easier time charging the lower the SOC.

2-3% is a bit extreme though. This is going to be my first EV (just got assigned a vin today) so maybe there is a learning curve, but most cars I've had give a pretty generous reserve tank so I've run it to 3 miles and still managed to get to the corner gas station. Never had to deal with puttering out when the car still thinks there is gas in it.

It is true that the car will charge faster at lower SOC at DCFC stations all other things being equal. That said at 20% SOC on a good DCFC station you should see significant ramp up and continued high Kw until you reach 50-60% and then it will gradually decrease but still fairly efficient until you hit around 80% SOC. At that point the charging rate will slow down fairly dramatically. That said if you can plan your long drives to do quicker stops more often and just charge up to 80% you will come out ahead with less anxiety.

 

[Bill B]

The concern here is if the car is saying there is 10 miles left then I'd be expecting 10 miles.

10 miles is a pretty good distance, especially when so much talk about taking advantage of the charging curve is to run it low before juicing it.

On a gas car when you hit zero there is always another gallon of gas and with Toyota products there is more like 2 gallons.
Electric cars should be no different. I would not expect my gas car to say that you have 10 miles of range and leave me stranded dead on the side of the road.

I don't typically run it that low.

 

[Bill B]

Holy cow! Did you know that you were going to be able to 'trick' it by getting out and back in? I never would have thought to try that

I was just thinking it needed a reset and when I was able to move the car after a reset I kept trying since I was less then a block from the charger.

 

[Bill B]

Ford, GM, et al don’t tow you for free if you run out of gas. Get AAA and don’t run so low on a charge.

I didn't run out of gas or so I thought!

 

[KenAir]

I'm glad you made it safely to the charger. I see your argument, but it's just the nature of EV's to have no useful reserve. I think a good assumption is if you have less than 40 miles of range left, you are running on empty, and charging is urgent.

It's good to keep the battery between 20% and 80% SOC as much as possible.

 

[Bill B]

I'm glad you made it safely to the charger. I see your argument, but it's just the nature of EV's to have no useful reserve. I think a good assumption is if you have less than 40 miles of range left, you are running on empty, and charging is urgent.

It's good to keep the battery between 20% and 80% SOC as much as possible.

I think its software and its an easy fix but what do I know

 

[KenAir]

I think its software and its an easy fix but what do I know

I do agree with you the car should be indicating 0 miles of range left before it starts refusing to move. Maybe just subtract 10 miles from the range in software would make it more accurate.

 

[joec]

Most road tests of EVs trying to drain the battery to zero conclude that the car will indeed go a little further, even after you hit zero. At least a few miles.

It is, of course, very much discouraged to let your battery get anywhere near that low. It's just bad for the long-term life of the battery. Keep it above 20% as much as you can.

However, given that I've seen plenty of videos showing EVs draining to 0 and then still going for a teeny bit, it feels like in this case something went wrong with the Lucid. Whether it's a glitch in this particular Lucid, or something in the current software for all Lucids, it very likely is not supposed to just die with 10 miles left.

Of course, the real issue is using miles instead of percent.

I'd be curious to know what the percentage read out on the battery was when this happened. As I've been preaching for many months on this forum, estimated miles are nonsense. Totally made up number based on guessing, completely unable to factor in many conditions that the car couldn't possibly know.

Always trust the percentage, not the milage.

If the car said 1 or 2 percent and it still died, then I'd say there's some sort of reporting glitch going on. Estimated miles remaining are by definition a glitch.

 

[Tesla2.0]

Maybe it’s a dumb question. Can our EV be put on neutral gear and push it to the station just one block away?

I once was in EA charging and saw 7 high school kids pushed a Mach-E to EA station to charge. I know our Air is heavier car, but have you tried to push or let it slide as soon as you get the car going?

 

[LCIDdreams]

Most road tests of EVs trying to drain the battery to zero conclude that the car will indeed go a little further, even after you hit zero. At least a few miles.

It is, of course, very much discouraged to let your battery get anywhere near that low. It's just bad for the long-term life of the battery. Keep it above 20% as much as you can.

However, given that I've seen plenty of videos showing EVs draining to 0 and then still going for a teeny bit, it feels like in this case something went wrong with the Lucid. Whether it's a glitch in this particular Lucid, or something in the current software for all Lucids, it very likely is not supposed to just die with 10 miles left.

Of course, the real issue is using miles instead of percent.

I'd be curious to know what the percentage read out on the battery was when this happened. As I've been preaching for many months on this forum, estimated miles are nonsense. Totally made up number based on guessing, completely unable to factor in many conditions that the car couldn't possibly know.

Always trust the percentage, not the milage.

If the car said 1 or 2 percent and it still died, then I'd say there's some sort of reporting glitch going on. Estimated miles remaining are by definition a glitch.

Yes- my understanding is most EVs are designed with a little reserve after “empty” in the same way gas cars are.

In this test the spread was 7-10 miles reserve range.

 

[tmilone103]

I also would have thought you could have made it to zero. On my Tesla I made it to zero more than once and even at zero it would let me go a bit more but it would limp there.

 

[Bill B]

Maybe it’s a dumb question. Can our EV be put on neutral gear and push it to the station just one block away?

I once was in EA charging and saw 7 high school kids pushed a Mach-E to EA station to charge. I know our Air is heavier car, but have you tried to push or let it slide as soon as you get the car going?

Yea you can put the lucid in neutral