161: Tuesday 28th September 2010

Last night I went for a run along the main road near where I live to get a better idea of my range with these new batteries. I had already come home from work (7 miles) in sport mode without much regard for economising. I then dropped my daughter off at her friends house and started my run with about 9 miles already done. I completed 34 miles and ran the batteries down to 115.2 volts which is a bit further than I wanted to go. The car was still driving fine when I pulled up at home with hardly any noticeable loss of acceleration or speed. I did the whole distance in sport mode, so on several occasions I would have been drawing 800A. I also completed the whole run in 3rd gear including pulling away and cruising at 55 to 60 MPH. I hope to do another trial tonight from when I leave work with a full charge, I will drive in economy mode and use the gears for pulling away and above 40 mph I shall use 4th and 5th gear in order to maximize regen braking. I still could do with setting my brushes to a neutral position as they are currently set advanced for CCW operation. This is not ideal for regen braking and causes arcing above approximately 3500 rpm. However I can go up to 57 MPH in 4th gear at 3500 rpm, so I should not need to go above 4th to get max regen without arcing. Also 4th gear should be able to take me to 80 MPH at about 5000rpm. In economy mode the current will be limited to 500A, so this should also increase the range a bit.