How I got overconfident & ran my EV down to 0% charge

The SoC was plummeting fast and the usual math of ~3km for a percentage was not holding well.

BHPian navinmra recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

So I was on my way back from Udupi to Bangalore yesterday and made my usual stop at Hotel Skybirds near Hassan. A 40-minute charge here is good enough to get me home. For some strange reason, I stopped charging after 25 minutes, thinking I would stop for chai at Paakshala Yediyur and charge for another 15 minutes while sipping chai and taking a restroom break. As I got closer to Yediyur I felt overconfident that I would reach Bangalore without taking the second charging break. As I touched Hebbal I was at 13% and 20 km more to go. Not bad I thought.

When I crossed KR Puram the SoC had dropped to 8% with 8 KM to go. When I reached Rainbow Children’s Hospital I was at 5% and had 6 km to go. That’s when fear gripped me that my calculations were going awry. The SoC was plummeting fast and the usual math of ~3km for a percentage was not holding well. Just managed to reach Bagmane Solarium and reversed into a shell recharge bay and the battery went 0%. I was just 2 km away from home but would’ve got stranded if I did not make this stop.

Moral of the story: Don’t be overconfident or stupid. Charge when you can

For the interested, here’s how the bottom fell off the last 5% where all math fails!

Here's what BHPian Shreyans_Jain had to say on the matter:

Yeah, there is no bravado in running the battery down to the last %. Just avoidable stress. It is for good reason that the car goes into tortoise mode at 10%. The calculation should be to reach home without going that low.

Here's what BHPian Geo_Ipe had to say on the matter:

Just curious, had you run out of juice fully and the car stopped on the road, what would you have done?

Tow it to the nearest charging point or home? Flatbed it? Portable generator?

Here's what BHPian GutsyGibbon had to say on the matter:

If it's in the city, and you are a few meters away from a charging station, switch it to neutral while the electronics are still powered up. If the car has a tow hook, you can tow it with the help of a friend's car. Or, get someone to push the car, or get someone to drive, and you push the car. It's important to do all this while you are still at 1% charge, and not wait till electronics also go off, where you can't switch drive modes, power steering, brakes etc. On a Tesla at 0% limp mode, the main batteries and AC do not work. But in the dash electronics keeps working for you to put the car in tow mode.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.