Lost range at home after Charging at Electrify

[SleeperZero]

After charging to 440 miles at Electrify America, I drove home and plug into my wall charger and screen shots 435 miles, then within 1 hour, I keep hearing the fan and lights going on and off and all the sudden the range shows 418!?!?

Anyone else have this strange exp ?

 

[hydbob]

The fans will run for quite a while after charging at a DCFC, especially if you added quite a bit of energy into the batteries. What was your charge level set to? Was your wall charger delivering power? Was your key within range?

If you have a charger plugged in, but not charging, the fans will run because the car thinks you will be pumping it full of electrons and make the batteries hot. If the lights kept going on and off, it's because it was detecting a key within range and was locking/unlocking and that keeps the car from being in a sleep state, keeps all the electronics running, etc and will drain your battery.

Suggestion moving forward

1) After fast charging, there's really no need to go home and plug in
2) When you lock your car or walk away, keep your phone (if using mobile key) away or put the key fob at least 25 feet away with a wall in between and that will prevent lights going off and on and doing the whole lock/unlock sequence.

 

[Coltonw011]

I lost 20 miles over night after my first EA session. I attributed it to the fans cooling the battery and the possibility I kept my key too close. The key is now stored in a faraday box since it’s somewhat close to the car, and I will see how my next EA session goes. As hydbob said, no need to plug the car in at home after already charging. The one thing I haven’t tried is preconditioning the battery while plugged in (which I’m pretty certain the car can do). This would optimize battery temp by running fans and maybe, in theory, cool them enough that the fans won’t run once you get home. I had reached out to customer care and they told me the range loss can happen during the “break-in” of the car. So just keep an eye on things and keep the key away from the car. I also put the car to sleep after I park anywhere by long pressing the handle in, it helps. I have very minimal range loss now over night (most nights 0-2 miles). Will be fast charging this week.

 

[hydbob]

I lost 20 miles over night after my first EA session. I attributed it to the fans cooling the battery and the possibility I kept my key too close. The key is now stored in a faraday box since it’s somewhat close to the car, and I will see how my next EA session goes. As hydbob said, no need to plug the car in at home after already charging. The one thing I haven’t tried is preconditioning the battery while plugged in (which I’m pretty certain the car can do). This would optimize battery temp by running fans and maybe, in theory, cool them enough that the fans won’t run once you get home. I had reached out to customer care and they told me the range loss can happen during the “break-in” of the car. So just keep an eye on things and keep the key away from the car. I also put the car to sleep after I park anywhere by long pressing the handle in, it helps. I have very minimal range loss now over night (most nights 0-2 miles). Will be fast charging this week.

From what I understand the preconditioning only gets the batteries to the optimal temp to be ready to accept the fast charge. I don't remember ever hearing it have any benefit for after charging is complete?

 

[Coltonw011]

It’s very possible it doesn’t do anything. I just assumed it may cool the batteries enough to prevent the fans from coming on frequently overnight . Just something that popped into my brain, I’ll test it if my brain remembers when I charge next (which this car takes a long time to need a charge).

 

[Tim-in-CA]

You should never charge your vehicle to full and then let it sit. Good rule of thumb is to charge it to about 80% or so. Charge only to 100% if you are going to immediately leave for a trip or a drive that will at least drain your battery down to the 80% level. Keeping batteries at full charge is not good for them And can reduce their longevity.

 

[SaratogaLefty]

So back to my "vacation" question. Assuming you are going to be away for a few weeks. You charge the car up to around 90% a couple of days before you leave. You let the car sit in the garage for a day or so and then you set the charge limit to 50%. So now you plug the car in. It should not try to charge since the battery is still around 90%, correct? Obviously you don't want the car to keep waking up and running the fans to cool the battery. Does this approach work or would it just be better to leave the car unplugged for the couple of weeks you are gone and hope it doesn't completely discharge???

 

[hydbob]

So back to my "vacation" question. Assuming you are going to be away for a few weeks. You charge the car up to around 90% a couple of days before you leave. You let the car sit in the garage for a day or so and then you set the charge limit to 50%. So now you plug the car in. It should not try to charge since the battery is still around 90%, correct? Obviously you don't want the car to keep waking up and running the fans to cool the battery. Does this approach work or would it just be better to leave the car unplugged for the couple of weeks you are gone and hope it doesn't completely discharge???

Well the way the Lucid works now, you can't set a charge level below what you currently have charged. So that might be an issue...probably just set the charge to 80% and plug it and just let it sit for a few days to test would be my method.

 

[Alex]

Well the way the Lucid works now, you can't set a charge level below what you currently have charged. So that might be an issue...probably just set the charge to 80% and plug it and just let it sit for a few days to test would be my method.

Yes, that’s right. I reported this to Lucid some time back. They thought it was a good idea to let you set the charge limit below the current charge value.

 

[SaratogaLefty]

Well the way the Lucid works now, you can't set a charge level below what you currently have charged. So that might be an issue...probably just set the charge to 80% and plug it and just let it sit for a few days to test would be my method.

You are correct!! Apparently they are working on a "fix to the situation". Here is the answer I received from Lucid:

Thank you for emailing Lucid Motors Customer Care, my name is LaShawna. I see you have some questions about the maintaining your Lucid's battery while you're on vacation.

Regarding charging procedure, when the vehicle is not in use for long periods of time, we recommend plugging into a charging source and setting the charge target to the minimum "Daily" value from your Pilot Panel or Mobile app.

Regarding the charge limit, you can set your charge limit to 50%, but - as you may have seen on the forums - the current state of charge will need to be lower than the desired charge limit. We are aware of this issue, and are currently working on a fix to the situation.

As the battery is at 90%, we recommend letting the battery go below 80% so that you may set you charge limit to "Daily"

Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns. We are available 24/7 for support.

Best regards,
LaShawna
Customer Care Specialist
888-995-8243

 

[hydbob]

As you may have seen on the forums...

Maybe Lucid should route CS through here

 

[cabood]

As you may have seen on the forums...

Maybe Lucid should route CS through here

They said the same thing when I inquired about 1.2.5. They knew we saw your pic on the forum. They said only 10 cars had it. No info on a wider release.

They would save themselves a lot of calls and emails if they just responded here…

 

[hydbob]

They said the same thing when I inquired about 1.2.5. They knew we saw your pic on the forum. They said only 10 cars had it. No info on a wider release.

They would save themselves a lot of calls and emails if they just responded here…

Uh oh...radio silence from now on...

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Ok, maybe this is a newbie question, why would you want to set charge level lower than current level of charge?

 

[hydbob]

Only because I've done this recently, but when I charged to 100% for a road trip, I wanted to set it to 80% for charging while I was on the road, but I had to wait until I was at the charger. Not a big deal, but besides the vacation thing, I can't think of another reason.

 

[LCIDdreams]

Ok, maybe this is a newbie question, why would you want to set charge level lower than current level of charge?

Generally “storing” these batteries at, say, 50% charge instead of 80% is thought to reduce amount of degradation (and keeping them at a very high state of charge, like 100% is supposedly really hard on the battery). For a 2-week vacation I don’t think it would make any difference. If I was going away for several months and had 80% battery charge I would want to be able to set a lower charge level, like 30%-50%and not have the battery sit at 90% for that amount of time.

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Only because I've done this recently, but when I charged to 100% for a road trip, I wanted to set it to 80% for charging while I was on the road, but I had to wait until I was at the charger. Not a big deal, but besides the vacation thing, I can't think of another reason.

Generally “storing” these batteries at, say, 50% charge instead of 80% is thought to reduce amount of degradation (and keeping them at a very high state of charge, like 100% is supposedly really hard on the battery). For a 2-week vacation I don’t think it would make any difference. If I was going away for several months and had 80% battery charge I would want to be able to set a lower charge level, like 30%-50%and not have the battery sit at 90% for that amount of time.

I guess I'll be playing around with this next month. Charged to 80% and left unplugged with keys no where near it how many days would it take before battery is critical in lets say 70 degree average temp?

 

[hydbob]

I guess I'll be playing around with this next month. Charged to 80% and left unplugged with keys no where near it how many days would it take before battery is critical in lets say 70 degree average temp?

Given the other post, he saw 5% over 14 days...that is a long time to be away and be okay

 

[dawktah LucidGT]

Given the other post, he saw 5% over 14 days...that is a long time to be away and be okay

I guess it's a good thing I'm planning on a manual transfer switch for bidirectional power. All of the items powered (sub panel) have to be turned on manually, even though nowadays you can use an app to turn practically everything on remotely.

 

[histal]

So, food for thought. In a regular ICE car, if you were to leave for 6 mo, you would most likely come back to a dead battery and need to jump your car to restart it. Then you would drive it around for a few minutes so it would charge back. This has always been my experience, although I never left a car for 6mo. Most was ever 6 weeks, but often when my parents would take 2-3 mo trips we would have to ask the airport security guy to jump start our car in the lot. What I wonder is why not let the car go down to 0%? Then when you come back, charge it back up. There would be no worry about stress on the battery, using electricity, etc...