You'll begin to crave that exhilarating feeling that comes with barely making it home, I call it "range anticipation!". lol. I kid.
Using Economy mode and "Driver only" heating and cooling mode (if alone) can make a noticeable improvement in range for longer drives, as can reducing your speed (if on the highway).
Yes, the dealer should have topped it up for you before your trip.
My experience taught me the below priority of the main enemies of possible range:
1. SPEED(!),
2. sloppy driving, (unnecessary accelarations & slowings: no matter D or B drive mode),
3. overheating or overcooling, (set temperature with unnecessarily big difference comapring to outside temp.),
4. battery use out of the recommended SoC range,
5. lack of using scheduled charging & preheating(or precooling).
In details, who want some explanations:
1. SPEED
a) Kia Soul was never the best aerodynamically designed car. Therefore we suppose to use it as it was made for: urban traffic + agglomeration transport.
b) Unfortunately energy consumption above 50-60km/h is getting higher, but above 80-90km/h it becomes significantly higher.
So pushing it over 130+km/h is only possible for about 30-40 minutes, as you will run down on battery even from full charge.
'Air resistance' increases exponentially with speed. For axample: driving at 130km/m instead of 100km/h means +70% more counterforce against the car.
Hint: Slow down your driving style & enjoy the quet ride at low cost, with less 'range stress'.
2. Sloppy driving
a) This is not a sportscar, therefore we should not use it to feel the torque of the electric drive all the time. Enjoy it for the first couple of weeks/months, but later we should adapt our driving to the actual traffic & most importantly "THING AHEAD". Pushing it at speed to the red light leads us to break intensively when we reach near & it's still red. Slowing down a bit (to 30km/H for example) & patiently approaching the red light usually gets the time for the lamp to turn into green before we reach it, so we can continue our ride without a full stop.
b) Acceleration needs the most energy & B-breaking mode won't regenerate that much charge, that we wasted on accel. All electric components have its own loss (usually 5-8% or even 10%), so it is better not to push it & break it, but to choose our speed well properly adapting to the traffic options.
3. Heatpump is great & efficient way of aircon in our car, but you can save energy by being smart.
a) During summer, we can try to park our cars in shades (or into a position, which will be shaded during our shift), so a few hours before we go home from workplace, our car was resting in shades, therefore it is not hot as hell.
b) Durung winter, we can use seat heating & wheel heating, which are both consuming very little energy, as they both transfering heat to our bodies with (let's say) direct contact. On the other hand, air is not really a direct contact. Heating the full cabin air is very energy waster. At least use the "Driver only" function.
c) Try give little demands to the heating system. When you set the desired temp too high compared to the outside temp. the system will automatically start the
catalytic converter, which is not as efficient as the heatpump. If you set 2-3°C difference from outside temp. the system will use only the more efficient heatpump system to fulfill your demand.
It also applies to cooling during summer, but in other way. The inverter controlled air conditioning compressor is more efficient when it works with lower RPM. So when you set little demand, as 27°C when outside is 29°C, the system will run the A/C at lower RPM. It is also better for our health not to make too high temp.difference.
d) We can help to cool down our car left under the sun first by only rolling the windows down. Or opening all the doors for a 30-60sec. before start our ride. It will dramatically reduce the heat without loosing any energy from our battery.
4. SoC level: 20-80%
a) Keep our charging level between the recommended range. It is not only good for battery lifetime...!
b) ...but this is the charge level range, when our battery can be charged easier without less resistance. So when we use B-breaking driving mode, the regenerative function is more effective. When we charge our cars to 100% SoC level, what do we expect the B-mode can regenerate? Even the charging processes slow down after we reach 80-85%. We cannot expect our battery to accept regen.energy when it is already full.
I'm starting my day from home with a short downhill ride and my average energy cons. is better when I start it from 80%, then from 100% SoC level.
5. using scheduled charging & preheating(or precooling)
a) In summer, we shalI prefer to set the scheduled charging timed to charge the battery during the less hot period of the night hours, so we can avoid the heat stress of the battery. In the morning, we can start with a 80% SoC, but with a moderate temp.of the battery. I realised, that aftern a hot day, reacing home in peak traffic, running the A/C... when I stopped the battery vent was operating. I decided to leave it to cool down first, instead of charging it right away, just as we people need a minute to catch our air after an energetic sprint-run.
b) Scheduled air/con or preheating can save your battery, as you can spare it, while the system mainly uses the pluged in AC-power. That means, that energy has been never charged into the battery & discharged from it, but directly used from the AC-powerlines. This can extend battery lifetime & helps to keep longer possible driving range.
c) Scheduled charging in winter + scheduled preheating combined can be a good solution again. Preheating can help the battery to melt out from its frozen state, so it can be charged better & easier. Also the car will display higher possible range, when the battery is closer to its optimal temp. and not frozen. Very low battery temp. means we loose some Amps, which will reduce our range.
In the movie: Apollo-13, they heated up the batteries, so they got out more energy of them. It is a profitable investment of energy in freezing cold.
