Miles per kwh confusion

[FLKiaEV]

I have a couple of questions about the guess-o-meter. If I go into the history of my driving I see that the miles per kilowatt hour has actually gone up a tiny bit since I first got my vehicle yet my guess o meter has gone down because of a recent trip of about 90 miles. For a long time it was 3.9 miles per kilowatt hour but now it's hovering around 4.1 or 4.2 MI per kilowatt hour. So if I'm actually driving more miles per kilowatt hour shouldn't my range estimate be going up instead of down?

The second question is related to the first one. Is there a way to reset the guess-o-meter so that I can get a fresh read from average driving?

 

[IanL]

Purely by my own observations, the value of M/kWh used by the GOM is not the same as the that displayed on the dash. If you have not reset that latter for quite a long time, it will reflect a longer timebase than used by the GOM, and if you have recently reset it, the GOM timebase will be longer than that on the dash.

Another factor is the ambient temperature - the GOM will reflect current conditions, whereas your dash will, again be dependent on the length of timebase relevant.

As an example, my dash value has been 5.3 M/kWh for some weeks, and the GOM at the start of that period showed about 120. This morning it was 135 (still 5.3). The ambient temperature this morning was about 4degC higher than previously.

 

[FLKiaEV]

How do I reset the GOM? Is this something I can do myself or would a dealer have to do it? Also, that GOM has never shown an estimated range higher than about 86 miles. I figured since the advertised range for this vehicle is 93 miles that the GOM range is just reducing the estimated range because of driving conditions, etc. What are your thoughts?

 

[IanL]

The only way I know for the GOM to be reset is by an update being applied to the BMS, and that resets the GOM to its default value. The BSI then "re-learns" and slowly moves down to what one might term the "correct" value.

The fact that you see a lower value than the car's nominal range is probably due a number of factors, including the SOH of your battery, which is bound to be below 100% if its a 27 kWh model with the original battery. If you want to know the SOH, use the SoulEV Spy Android app.

 

[FLKiaEV]

I have SoulEVSpy and the dongle (the one recommended by the author is no longer available it seems but I found one that other people seem to be using with success). I guess I should get around to hooking it up and seeing what's what. It's a 2016 and I've just hit 25000 miles so I can't imagine that the battery would be too degraded, but who knows? I'll see what I can find and report back.

 

[JejuSoul]

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Reset the 'Energy Consumption' shown in the instrument cluster by pushing the triangle button by the steering wheel.
The value we call GOM which shows the estimated range is officially called DTE on this display.

I think the values for the energy consumption' and range are sent from the instrument cluster to the navigation computer.
Although the lengthy trip history is stored on the navigation computer. This can be reset separately.
Again 'Energy Economy' is wrongly labelled as 'Energy Consumption'
On the Navi the GOM is simply referred to as 'Range'.

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The GOM is always calculated. It never gets fully reset.
What we call a 'GOM reset' is actually a reset of the BMS computer. This resets the SOH to zero.
The GOM will be calculated as if the car was new. It still varies from car to car depending on temperatures and driving styles.

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About the use of language. The screenshot in my car says Energy Consumption but this wording is wrong - it should say Energy Economy.
Energy Consumption is correct in Europe where kWh / 100km is used.
The European system may be better but it is not what drivers in America or Korea are used to.
However I prefer better efficiency to have higher value, hence like seeing Energy Economy.
Also the units used in Europe are not the best. Wh / km makes much more sense.

I went to the American EPA website to get the info about these two ways of expressing fuel efficiency.
In this screenshot you can see that the Soul EV has an official fuel economy of 105 MPGe and an energy consumption of 32 kWh / 100 miles.

The terminology is explained here - EPA explanation of the Electric Vehicle Label

... it may be more meaningful to express fuel efficiency in terms of consumption (e.g., gallons per mile or per 100 miles) rather than in terms of economy (miles per gallon). A fuel consumption metric allows for more accurate energy usage comparisons among vehicles.

 

[IanL]

The triangle button may be used to reset the Energy Consumption Display (Page 4/61 and 62 of the Owners Manual).

The GOM (KIA name is Distance to Empty) (Page 4/64) is not affected by the triangle button.

 

[JejuSoul]

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I was editing my post above at the same time Ian commented on a draft version of that post.
His reply was to a short comment about the GOM.

 

[FLKiaEV]

I will reset the not-quite-correctly-named "energy consumption" display just to see how it changes (if at all). Your display is showing 8.1 km per kwh which translates to about 5 miles/kwh, which is quite a bit more than what mine is showing (usually around 4.0 to 4.1). Hopefully this will reveal that my actual energy efficiency is closer to yours. In the EV/energy use/history menu I believe those are averages for those particular trips rather than an average of total driving. In any case this may reveal some more info. I need to hook up my dongle and check out my battery with SoulEVSpy.

 

[JejuSoul]

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If you reset the instrument cluster at the top of a mountain, you will have a very good 'energy consumption' number at the bottom.
(This example was actually caused by a glitch in the Navi software - not a reset - but the idea is the same.)
As you can see this does not fool the GOM into giving you an absurd range.
Maybe if I had cleared the Navi computer as well?

 

[IanL]

-...
As you can see this does not fool the GOM into giving you an absurd range.
Maybe if I had cleared the Navi computer as well?

I can't prove it, but I think the BMS computation of the GOM is completely separate to the energy consumption computation, and independent of it. So I don't think there is anything you can do to affect the GOM, apart from the absurd notion of poking values into the BMS memory.

 

[FLKiaEV]

Heh heh, can you imagine actually getting 99.9 km/kwh? That would be awesome. Maybe some day?