How low can you go (remaining range)?

[Hillbilly]

I went 2 miles past 0 while towing an enclosed utility trailer. It was summer and I had the windows up and all air off. Family was sweating to death and the portable speaker had no charge when I checked it after I got home. I'm convinced the truck drained it for the drive up my driveway.

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[BeanEW]

A friend tried that with his Bolt... but no downhill in his case. He ended up getting towed less than a mile to his house

But my was happy ending... pulled into an EA charging station in Quartzsite AZ, lucky that there wasn't any waits, in turtle mode and crawled into the spot. Ever since then, I won't miss a chance to charge.

 

[ThumprMN]

I went 2 miles past 0 while towing an enclosed utility trailer. It was summer and I had the windows up and all air off. Family was sweating to death and the portable speaker had no charge when I checked it after I got home. I'm convinced the truck drained it for the drive to my driveway.

Holy Smokes… I have anxiety just thinking about that low capacity situation. Fascinating anecdote about the speaker battery. Sure would love a Rivian engineer to talk about if thats true…. To pull watts out from the speaker like that.

 

[Hillbilly]

Holy Smokes… I have anxiety just thinking about that low capacity situation. Fascinating anecdote about the speaker battery. Sure would love a Rivian engineer to talk about if thats true…. To pull watts out from the speaker like that.

We were unsure as to whether we should drop the trailer right off the exit and try the rest of the way without it but it was full of new furniture and didn't want to risk it being stolen. Figured we would get as close to the house as possible. If it died I'd have walked back and used my diesel to go back and get everything. Tense situation.

 

[NY_Rob]

But my was happy ending... pulled into an EA charging station in Quartzsite AZ, lucky that there wasn't any waits, in turtle mode and crawled into the spot. Ever since then, I won't miss a chance to charge.

At a certain point, the Bolt stops displaying remaining range and starts throwing up all sorts of urgent messages, then it goes in to turtle mode... then it just dies if you continue driving it. The good news with the Bolt is you can tow-charge it to get some range back with no damage to the vehicle or systems.

 

[edman007]

Lowest I got was like 6%, and that's mostly because it's hard to figure out when to stop charging.

One time I did a long trip, came back without charging, and in all purpose nav said I wouldn't make it even though I did the math and knew it shouldn't be a problem. Switched to conserve 80mi from my house and arrived with 20mi left, honestly, no noticable dialing back of the power (it dialed it back to about what conserve dials it back, which doesn't impact anything)

For my trip last month, I was going to try and do the same with my stop at the RAN, it said I wouldn't make it, but we needed to make a bathroom break so I added 15kWh, I think I arrived at the RAN with like 50mi, which was way more than I wanted. I left the RAN and nav told me if get home at 4mi... nope, was like 35mi or something.

So if I know I'm somewhere that has decent chargers (like within every 50mi), and nav says you'll make it, even at 1mi, just go, you'll be fine. Worst case you bail out at an earlier charger 50mi early. But in my experience, nav is way conservative for the last bit of the leg

 

[TheWoo]

Backing off a few mph also helps in those situations.

This is the way. Speed at the top end has such a huge impact. Even 75 vs 80 is a big difference in efficiency. The other thing you can do if you find it getting tight is tuck in behind something big. A little drafting will make a big difference.

As you get to learn your vehicle, stretching more range becomes pretty easy when needed. And while I subscribe to charge quickly and often, is you can skip that last charge by slowing a bit, it's almost always worth it.

Driving an EV has actually contributed to me having less stressful drives - I've taken a few mph off my normal speed and am less prone to feeling like I need to keep up. Just chill and drive and get where I'm going in fine time...

 

[Nuclianba]

My record. In the picture you can see the severe power limitation at this range, I saw the power meter start to have a limitation at about 5%, limitation wasn't severe, you would barely hit it under most circumstances. At 2 or 3% it started to get impactful and then was getting noticeably more draconian. I live up a steep hill and the last mile (2% to 1%) was at max available power going up the hill, truck was barely holding 25 mph on the steep grade.

I had left a hockey game 40 miles from home (almost all highway) with 50 miles of range, but nav estimated 3 miles when I got home. I decided to push it, just to see... Lots of exits along the way with chargers if I needed to bail. As others have stated, it's pretty easy to adjust speed to get more efficient, I was watching the 'range at destination' calculation the whole drive and when it dropped to 0 mi estimated I went to conserve mode and slowed down. Pro-tip: don't try and come out of conserve at 2% battery. Clearly caused an undervoltage and threw all the errors (but somehow didn't actually impact drivability and it did go back to all purpose). In the morning all the errors were gone like nothing happened.

 

[Supratachophobia]

Tried a number of search queries without luck. On the return leg of a recent (our first) road trip my R1S told me I had 42 miles of range when I was 30 miles from home. As it was my first venture into such a low SOC, I made a quick stop to ‘top off’. My question is in the title of the post: how low can one go? Could I have gotten home and what if anything happens when one gets very, very low on ‘gas’ (PLEASE forgive the metaphor)?

Peace

I would never go under 5% personally. Regardless of how many miles it claims. Power reduction will kick in because of physics and you'll be driving a completely different car at that point. Successful driving = predictability, and a car that is behaving differently than normal introduces way too many unknown variables to operate it safely IMO.

 

[CharonPDX]

While it's still drivable under 5%, as others have said, it will have problems maintaining high freeway speeds.

Note that when towing, it's way way worse. When towing a moderate trailer (3500lb teardrop) power starts to disappear at ~10%, and at 5%, maintaining even 45 MPH becomes impossible. And the BMS seems to be far less accurate at the bottom of the pack.

After multiple "nearly stranding" incidents while towing, I won't plan a charge stop to arrive at less than 10% any more. It hasn't stranded me yet, but I've now had three times that I was at 15% with less than 15 miles to go - and pulled in to a charger turtle moded to less than 20 MPH.

My wife screenshot this while I was existing the freeway.

After plugging in and calming down from the near-disaster (In the parking lot, I floored it, and only got up to 4 MPH,) I took this. It says I'm at 2%. Yet have added 3.4kWh - which should be 3% *ADDED*.

So… Don't expect to be able to use the last 10 miles of range.

 

[PhatDaddy]

2024 R1T Max Pac DM Perf. with 20” ATs… Excerpt from another post of mine:
“…arrived home with estimated 28 miles of range remaining, so didn’t stop and instead continued another 13 miles down the road, then turned around and drove back to burn off the last few miles and see what the vehicle would really do at close to zero. Received ‘Low Battery’ warning at 5 miles remaining and arrived at home with SOC at 1% and 1 estimated mile remaining.”

 

[usulio]

YMMV. Literally. 30 miles uphill at 80 mph in the rain with a headwind and that 42 miles of range might not get you home.

Yeah, "miles of range" is not a physical thing. Car companies act like drivers don't need to understand range ourselves, but we do.

 

[R1TCntrlMaIzzy]

^ one word my friend... paragraphs!

YES!

What is it with folks and the inability, or lack of desire to separate a long post into paragraphs. So many people do this.

I skip the post.

 

[R1TCntrlMaIzzy]

I sweated my way home with 0% for ~4 miles. I drove 35 mph for the last 10 miles. I will not do that again.

 

[R1Thor]

But my was happy ending... pulled into an EA charging station in Quartzsite AZ, lucky that there wasn't any waits, in turtle mode and crawled into the spot. Ever since then, I won't miss a chance to charge.

You should've checked the flashlight, too!!

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