Any Way to Change Power Thresholds?

[Tanbam]

This is a long shot, but I’ll start looking here first.

 

I’ve got a long daily commute, 50 miles each way. The first and last 10 mike stretches are very hilly, with the middle portion being a bit flatter. All of it is highway.

 

I charge at home and at work, so I have a full battery each leg.

 

When I got the car (2019 with 9k miles) two months ago, I was just turning it on and drove it like a regular car. I was getting pretty good mileage. The car was predicting 20 EV miles with a full charge, and I was getting around 80mpg.

 

Since then, I’ve started to try to maximize my economy, and I’ve gotten to where I’m getting better economy. On days when it’s not 30 degrees outside, I’m getting around 110mpg going to work and around 150mpg on the way home. No complaints there, for sure. My predicted EV range has been as high as 45 miles with a full charge, so I assume that I’m driving the car the “right” way now.

 

My issue is that to get this performance, I’m constantly toggling between Auto and EV Later modes based on the road. I’m pretty much using the battery to maintain speed, not for climbing hills or acceleration. It was fun to do at first, but it’s starting to be tedious. I could give up and just drive it like normal, but I don’t want to spend the extra money in gas now.

 

I think the car would get the best mileage for my situation if it could just use the EV Later mode power thresholds without saving any battery for later.

 

Does anyone know if this is possible? Some setting that can be changed in one of the modules? I’ve already made some changes to add features with FORScan, but I don’t know if anyone has monkeyed with power thresholds yet.

 

 

[jsamp]

I don't know if you can, but I tend to doubt settings like that can be tweaked by users.

 

I share your frustration.  I like the threshold that EV Later has.  Auto mode relies on the battery too much before tapping the ICE for my liking.  Your current method has one other benefit: battery longevity.  Keeping the higher loads off the battery helps reduce degradation.  Over time, it will benefit you by less loss of EV range.  Yes, it is annoying to have to switch back and forth between modes.  As many on this site say "just drive and let the car do it's thing" but I prefer to take more control.  It's a trade-off.

[Tanbam]

I was a bit afraid of that.

 

I have a bit of experience hacking cars, so I think I might have an idea, though it will take some research. I already have most of the hardware.

 

If I sniff the CAN traffic, I could probably monitor the power load, since it’s displayed on the dashboard. Hopefully (likely) the EV button sends CAN commands to the BCM.

 

If this is the case, I could make a dongle to plug into the ODB port that measures the power consumption and switches EV modes at whatever thresholds I set. Maybe I’ll make this a summer project.

 

If it works, I’ll share the details here.

 

[K22]

I really wish in Auto mode the car switches to EV later when it's past a certain speed.  I think  after  around 50 MPH (80 Kmh) the battery is depleted quite rapidly that's it's better to just switch to ICE past this speed.  Ditto when going up a hill.   But I guess this whole  issue affects only people who go on the highway daily (like myself).

[Tanbam]

My commute is 50 miles each way, almost all of it highway at >50mph. I still get outstanding battery range, because just maintaining speed doesn’t seem too much of a power draw. I’ve gotten better than 40 EV miles during the 50 miles home on days where the conditions are optimal. 
 

My personal goal during the commute is to have the battery empty right when I get to my destination while minimizing my ICE use, but sometimes I end up with a few miles left on battery when I pull in. I blame overzealous EV Now use on my part.

 

If I took myself out of the equation and get the car to switch modes automatically, it would probably work out better!