Not using battery

[anko]

Thus any "surplus" energy not used for heating will recharge the battery if not being used for driving the wheels (unless battery is full) :mrgreen:

Hmmm, it seems that when the engine is started for heating purposes it only generates as much power as is needed for heating and does not charge the battery. It will also nog engage in parallel mode when you get above 40 MPH. In order to actively recharge the battery, you must select Charge mode.

 

[Neverfuel]

Thus any "surplus" energy not used for heating will recharge the battery if not being used for driving the wheels (unless battery is full) :mrgreen:

Hmmm, it seems that when the engine is started for heating purposes it only generates as much power as is needed for heating and does not charge the battery. It will also nog engage in parallel mode when you get above 40 MPH. In order to actively recharge the battery, you must select Charge mode.

Good info Anko - how did you find that jewel?

 

[anko]

Thus any "surplus" energy not used for heating will recharge the battery if not being used for driving the wheels (unless battery is full) :mrgreen:

Hmmm, it seems that when the engine is started for heating purposes it only generates as much power as is needed for heating and does not charge the battery. It will also nog engage in parallel mode when you get above 40 MPH. In order to actively recharge the battery, you must select Charge mode.

Good info Anko - how did you find that jewel?

"Back in the early days" ( :lol: :lol: ), by looking how instantaneous fuel consumption was affected by hitting Charge button. Normally, when the engine is already running there is no impact. But when the engine runs for heating purposes, there is a difference. Nowadays, I would look at my Torque Pro dashboard and look at engine load and battery current parameters. Need to wait for it to get colder though.

The second part is easy: crank up there heater, speed up to above 40 MMPH and watch the energy flow diags.

BTW: Remember that with less than 5 liters of fuel in the tank you cannot engage Charge mode, as it insists on using up SOC first? Well, it will use the engine for heating nonetheless.

 

[greendwarf]

Thus any "surplus" energy not used for heating will recharge the battery if not being used for driving the wheels (unless battery is full) :mrgreen:

Hmmm, it seems that when the engine is started for heating purposes it only generates as much power as is needed for heating and does not charge the battery. It will also nog engage in parallel mode when you get above 40 MPH. In order to actively recharge the battery, you must select Charge mode.

Surely this doesn't make sense. If the ICE is started for heating then it is the temperature of the coolant that control this, which is likely to be relatively crude and unresponsive. It is also a relatively inefficient energy transfer process. Given the way the rest of the systems actively protect SoC are you saying that the car has not been designed to take advantage of the ICE starting to harvest "spare" energy for the battery by actually disengaging the generator circuits :?:

 

[Ozukus]

I have a GX3h and if I have the car set to 22 degrees, when it's 12 outside when I head off to work at 5.30am, then the energy flow diagram shows charge going from the engine to the battery, as all it's doing is bringing the engine up to temperature to get the car warm. Once the cars warm the engine switches off.

I'm only going off the fairly simple Petrol Engine, Battery and Electric Engine triangular diagram I have on the GX3h.

 

[jaapv]

Thus any "surplus" energy not used for heating will recharge the battery if not being used for driving the wheels (unless battery is full) :mrgreen:

Hmmm, it seems that when the engine is started for heating purposes it only generates as much power as is needed for heating and does not charge the battery. It will also nog engage in parallel mode when you get above 40 MPH. In order to actively recharge the battery, you must select Charge mode.

Surely this doesn't make sense. If the ICE is started for heating then it is the temperature of the coolant that control this, which is likely to be relatively crude and unresponsive. It is also a relatively inefficient energy transfer process. Given the way the rest of the systems actively protect SoC are you saying that the car has not been designed to take advantage of the ICE starting to harvest "spare" energy for the battery by actually disengaging the generator circuits :?:

It does make a kind of sense. Normally the engine will start up when the car is heating from cold i.e. In the morning after an overnight charge. There is nowhere to store the energy in that case.

 

[anko]

Thus any "surplus" energy not used for heating will recharge the battery if not being used for driving the wheels (unless battery is full) :mrgreen:

Hmmm, it seems that when the engine is started for heating purposes it only generates as much power as is needed for heating and does not charge the battery. It will also nog engage in parallel mode when you get above 40 MPH. In order to actively recharge the battery, you must select Charge mode.

Surely this doesn't make sense. If the ICE is started for heating then it is the temperature of the coolant that control this, which is likely to be relatively crude and unresponsive. It is also a relatively inefficient energy transfer process. Given the way the rest of the systems actively protect SoC are you saying that the car has not been designed to take advantage of the ICE starting to harvest "spare" energy for the battery by actually disengaging the generator circuits :?:

When fuel level gets very low, it will still use the generator to generate power to power the E-motors. But not to charge the battery. That is my finding.

 

[Ozukus]

It does make sense. Normally the engine will start up when the car is heating from cold i.e. In the morning after an overnight charge. There is nowhere to store the energy in that case.

As soon as you drive off you are draining the battery, and when the engine is just being used for heating purposes I expect that the residual energy it is sending to the battery isn't enough to replace that which is being consumed.

I also, under those circumstances, 12 degrees, I do not turn the heating on until I've travelled a way down the road, so have already started to drain the battery.

 

[jaapv]

The car will not store energy for the first 3-4 mile or so, until the SOC has dropped. Try it - regen won't function either. That is about the same distance that the car needs to heat up.
If Anko is right, turning the heating on later will not give you any advantage.

 

[greendwarf]

Say what you like, but when burning petrol to maintain the fuel system the car automatically goes into charge mode (and you can't stop it!) even though you may already have a high SoC. If there is spare capacity it will also top up the battery. I still can't see how the control systems are sensitive enough to start the ICE but not provide charge if the energy is not needed either for heat or motive power.

 

[jaapv]

According to another thread the car does not charge when going into heating mode.

 

[anko]

Indeed, we must not confuse a running engine with Charge mode. When the engine is started for heating purposes, it will generate heat and produce power needed to propel the car. But it will not produce additional power to charge the battery. You must select Charge mode yourself to make this happen.

 

[Ozukus]

Indeed, we must not confuse a running engine with Charge mode. When the engine is started for heating purposes, it will generate heat and produce power needed to propel the car. But it will not produce additional power to charge the battery. You must select Charge mode yourself to make this happen.

I think the above is a little confusing.

When I turn the car on, in winter, and elect to set the temperature to a level that requires the engine to start in order to provide heat any residual energy that the engine has will be used to charge the battery (assuming SOC is below 100%). The battery then provides power to the electric engine to propel the vehicle. So it doesn't produce additional power, however if it has residual power and SOC is below 100%, this will be used to charge the battery.

 

[jaapv]

Well, that is exactly what Anko says is not happening - as he does full OBD readouts, I assume this to be the case.
Unless one follows the rather convoluted reasoning that the energy, fed to the wheels in the first place, is converted into kinetic energy which, in turn, is fed into the battery by regenerative braking.

 

[maby]

Indeed, we must not confuse a running engine with Charge mode. When the engine is started for heating purposes, it will generate heat and produce power needed to propel the car. But it will not produce additional power to charge the battery. You must select Charge mode yourself to make this happen.

I think the above is a little confusing.

When I turn the car on, in winter, and elect to set the temperature to a level that requires the engine to start in order to provide heat any residual energy that the engine has will be used to charge the battery (assuming SOC is below 100%). The battery then provides power to the electric engine to propel the vehicle. So it doesn't produce additional power, however if it has residual power and SOC is below 100%, this will be used to charge the battery.

I was about to jump in and argue with anko, but he is right in the sense that the PHEV never actively attempts to increase the SOC unless the Charge button is selected. If the engine is running to produce heat, then power to the motors will be drawn from the generator in preference to the batteries.

 

[anko]

It is to bad, we don't have a liters/hour indicator. If we did, we could compare the fuel consumption of a car while parked with heater cranked up to that of a car parked with the heater cranked up and Charge mode enabled.

With an OBD dashboard we can. I am pretty sure I created screenshots of DashCmd for this situations the previous winter. Or the one before that. Need to find them ....

 

[anko]

Found them on the Dutch forum. From dec 1st, 2014:

When parked, heater on, charge disengaged: 1098 RPM, 29 Nm, 3 kW
When parked, heater on, charge engaged: 1100 RPM, 85 Nm, 10 kW

Nm en kW are estimations by DashCMD, based on an assumed fuel efficiency. But they cannot be that wrong.

 

[Neverfuel]

Found them on the Dutch forum. From dec 1st, 2014:

When parked, heater on, charge disengaged: 1098 RPM, 29 Nm, 3 kW
When parked, heater on, charge engaged: 1100 RPM, 85 Nm, 10 kW

Nm en kW are estimations by DashCMD, based on an assumed fuel efficiency. But they cannot be that wrong.

That sounds about right - from the Technical Briefing Document, the engine will run at 1100rpm when stationary and 1700rpm when moving. But does that mean that there is no extra "load" to charge the car when it is parked?

 

[anko]

The whole point was to demonstrate that output goes from 3 to 10 kW when you engage charge mode while parked.

 

[Grigou]

But the point in this thread was to demonstrate that the ICE charges (or not) the battery when it is working just for heating, wasn't it ?
So what about the 3 kW at 1100 RPM ? Just enough for moving the ICE, or a little bit for charging the battery ? :?: