Efficiency - Is this normal? And any tips?

[CrowSysE243]

I’ve been thinking when analysing kw charged versus kw used to charge and so I’m concluding we should be adding circa 10% to the price per mile figures to compensate for the losses while AC charging. I do believe it takes about 33kw of charge to increase SOC by 30kw. AC charging has losses on the conversion to DC, while I assume rapid DC doesn’t have as large losses.

That seems about right based on my experience. When AC charging the charger module in the car, which converts the AC input to the required DC charging voltage, is specified as having 95% efficiency (kW chaarged/kW used to charge = 0.95 nominal max). Most of the time I get this efficiency when using our PodPoint charger. I would expect there to be some reduction in efficiency depending on cable length/type and with reduced charging current. This seems to be supported by the results when I use the Third Rock 10m "Granny" charger. Typically I get an efficiency of about 86% using this. DC charging does not require the conversion circuitry in the car so can be more efficient, however there can be other losses. The energy lost in the cable will increase at higher charging rates. If the battery needs heating some energy will be used to heat the battery. Typically we have achieved about 98% efficiency when rapid charging. There is also some energy used by the car which does not get included in the miles/kWh calculation, for example to run car systems when the "ignition" is not on.

Over the last 10k miles from July to February we have achieved a long term average of 4.2 miles per kWh as reported by the car but the input used to charge the car is equivalent to between 3.8 and 3.9 miles per kWh giving an overall efficiency of about 91%.

[ricky10]

95miles in 3 days doesn’t strike me as 20min short journeys.

Eco mode or not - makes practically no difference.

D mode is way more efficient than B mode especially if you do 60mph cos you can let the cars momentum carry you without using any leccy.

Aircon obviously drains battery - something you probably want to look at or control. The car automatically defaults to turning on seat and steering wheel heating on if temp drops so you can change those.

[ChangoMutney]

D mode is more efficient than B mode but there's not much in it. It would mostly come down to driving style preference.

[Ken3966]

I feel much safer on road driving in D mode!
My foot is hovering over brake pedal whilst coasting if that is all I need to do rather than trying to keep accelerator in right position to stop regeneration starting.
I can brake as much as needed quickly.
In B I have to move my foot to brake pedal to apply more braking than regeneration does if needed. That delay could be critical in an incident.

[khoust001]

I have an Enyaq 60.

On 80% charge it will only display a range of no more than 115 miles.

I took this to Skoda, who tested it and told me the batteries are fine. I am a man of logic. I have read earlier posts in efficiency about warming the battery and impact of short trips. However, I find it hard to accept that even without warming the battery, that a range of 115 miles is the baseline for range.

My driving style is not that of a ‘boy racer’ as my trips tend to be to school and local shops. I have stopped using heated seats, the wing mirror heaters are off, and nothing has changed.

Could there be anything else impacting the range that could have such a significant drag on my battery.

The vehicle is coming up to its 2nd year.

Thanks for any help

[Aragorn]

You say your a man of logic. There are two possibilities. A) the car is using lots of energy or B) The car is storing less energy.

Most people seem to jump directly to B, assuming some sort of battery issue. But the vast majority of the time its actually A.


What does your car tell you the consumption actually is? Its reported on the infotainment (or on the instrument cluster on cars with newer software installed).


If the heaters set to "max" (windscreen demist) it will chop a good chunk off the displayed range, and its not unusual to use that setting in this weather.

Heated seats and wing mirror heaters will make zero difference to your range. Use those as much as you like. Infact using those will usually allow you to run the cabin heater at a cooler temperature. Cabin heater is the biggest drain in this weather, and ofcourse on a short journey it will make up a good chunk of the energy consumed. Think of it like running 2 or 3 electric fan heaters at full blast every time you get in the car. Once you've been driving for 10mins, everythings warmed up and the heaters turn off to a low "maintain" setting. But if every journey is <10minutes, then every journey has those heaters running full blast.

Tyre pressures checked?

Are you actually doing long trips? Or 3 miles to the shops and back?

The "115miles" doesnt mean thats all the car can achieve. Its saying "if you keep driving it like you have been, you'll get 115miles". If you go for a longer journey, you'll find you'll go much further than that, and the range estimate will adjust itself upwards to account for the less energy hungry drive cycle.

[HampshireEV]

I drove my brand new Enyaq 85 off the forecourt this week, and I have to say, it's an absolute joy to drive.
However, in the 3 days I've had it, I've only done 95 miles, almost all of which were under 60mph in ECO mode (not too hilly, going easy on the pedal, and cabin target temp set to 16C), but the percentage charge shown has already dropped from 98% to 58%.
At this rate, this would give me a 100% range of only 164m - or about 2.2m/kWh.
It's currently showing an estimated range of 182 miles, but I've read that you can't really trust this until it has at least 300 miles of usage data to go on.

Admittedly, it has got a bit colder outside - about 6C, which I know affects efficiency, but is there anything else I can do to maximise efficiency?

I'm a little confused over this notion of pre-heating the car to improve battery efficiency. Isn't this offset by the power used to do the heating?
On the Skoda website, they seem to contradict themselves, saying yes - preheat to boost efficiency, and then somewhere else they recommend turning off the climate control altogether to boost range.

Also, is ECO mode always more efficient than trying to fine tune the regen levels manually?

Should ECO be used in the D or B setting?

I was hoping the full initial charge at the garage would see me through to the installation of my Ohme wall charger next week, but this is now looking doubtful, so any tips or advice would be gratefully received

We don't get too hung up on day-to-day data, but as a guide which may help to reassure:

We drive on ECO mode in auto regen position B, almost always, and this over 12 months/11,000 miles shows our long-term average consumption to be 3.5 miles/kwh (Feb 2023-Feb 2024).

Most trips, including motorway in all temps, even out to around 3.4 miles/kwh. We use pre-heating if it's cold, do normal a/c and heating, and use heated seats & steering wheel if desired, in the colder months climate control is usually on auto with heat around 20/21 degrees, occasionally using the defog or 'warm my feet' functions in the Smart a/c. In other words we never feel the need to compromise our personal comfort for the sake of economy.

Hope this helps, and you arrive at a comfortable balance in your car

[HampshireEV]

I have an Enyaq 60.

On 80% charge it will only display a range of no more than 115 miles.

I took this to Skoda, who tested it and told me the batteries are fine. I am a man of logic. I have read earlier posts in efficiency about warming the battery and impact of short trips. However, I find it hard to accept that even without warming the battery, that a range of 115 miles is the baseline for range.

My driving style is not that of a ‘boy racer’ as my trips tend to be to school and local shops. I have stopped using heated seats, the wing mirror heaters are off, and nothing has changed.

Could there be anything else impacting the range that could have such a significant drag on my battery.

The vehicle is coming up to its 2nd year.

Thanks for any help

I wondered if this mileage (115) is showing in the car, or on the app? There's a long-standing query that points to a bug in the software that means the app display is often much lower than expected (for instance ours often shows a range of ~120 miles when the battery is at 80%). I understand this may be an anomaly between miles and km, but I'm not convinced. Skoda replied to me recently with the following:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thank you for your patience.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
The incorrect range value is caused by a software bug in the vehicle. This issue will be planned to be solved in one of the following software versions.
In case of any further assistance do not hesitate to contact us.
Thank you for your understanding.
We hope that within this procedure the complaint will be resolved to your full satisfaction, and you will continue to favor the ŠKODA brand.

With kind regards,


Support for Digital Services
ŠKODA AUTO a.s
T: 00800 80 247 247
support@skoda-auto.com, www.skoda-auto.com

[Dav00]

In my case, I think there is a similar bug in the "from start" screen, but not in the SOC+range prediction bar. Distance from start doesn't make sense, occasionallyconsumption either, and they are at odds with the other 2 metrics.
You can question your own assessment re consumption, fair enough, but a route is a route, there isn't much you can invent about it.
Odd enough, I have never noticed this issue until (relatively) recently. I have software 3.5 but the car received a while ago those minor updates that didn't change the software version. Which is probably the most insane thing in their software lifecycle management...

[Aragorn]

If you drive multiple journeys in a day, "from start" only resets if the car has been stationary for some period of time, perhaps an hour or more.

So if you drive 10miles, stop for 20 minutes, drive 5 miles, stop for a half hour and then set off to drive home, "from start" will already be at 15 miles.