The gearbox is a bit of a problem for efficiency, but I’m not sure the efficiency is all that bad. 2.5 to 3 miles per kWh is worse than medium to short range pure EVs, but it’s not far off what you see from some long range EVs. It’s not to the standard of the Kona electric, e-Niro or Model 3, but it’s fine compared to the e-tron, i-Pace, Model S & X.
In the winter, I think we see the the impact of conservative battery conditioning on a small battery.
Maybe my calculations are off but I'm seeing from the 350e in the real world about 2 miles per kWh and that's driving very conservatively and I know it will be a lot less in winter. Seeing real world reports of 4 miles per kWh for the Model 3 still seems a massive difference. I still really like the car but do wonder where the major inefficiencies are.
Can anyone remember/confirm how much charge the C350e can take? And is there still just the 6.2kWh battery, or was it ever increased?
I was working on the basis that people on this thread had managed to get over 15 miles on e-mode (my best is 13) from 90% of 6.2kWh. That’s about 2.7 miles per kWh.
Then I was wondering if 100% is really 6.2kWh and 10% is really 0.62kWh...
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From a 10% charge to 100% based on what my podpoint app tells me it takes about 5.2 kWh and I'm assuming thats not allowing for losses. Assuming the 10% as above at the moment I'm getting about 10 miles on about 4.7 kWh. Herder - looks like you may have slightly more capacity left than mine (mine is a 2017 on 32K miles). Dodgy, your best is 13 on a charge, what is your average?
Hard to say what the average is. 6 miles in the depths of winter and 12 on a warm summer’s day? Does that translate into 6 miles of battery conditioning and cabin heating in winter? The same amount of energy as needed to move he car?!
D
Deleted member 126969
Guest
Re the efficiency of our cars vs. Pure EV, I’m not so sure ours are as bad as first seems the case. The problem with such a small buttery capacity is that overheads like heating, accessories etc are quite significant in terms of how much they use up. I’ve seen comments that weight is less of an issue in that you get back some of the energy used to accelerate it when you brake, but again, as we only have a relatively small electric motor we won’t get as full recovery as a pure EV. I often see the regen showing full bars and still have to brake harder.
And the results of the MOT and service:
- 25% wear on front brakes
- 30-40% wear on rear brakes
- 3-4mm left on the tyres, but lots of wear and fatigue cracks on the outer edges of the treads. I’m not sure what I started with - maybe around 7mm?
- Wipers finished. I’m pretty sure that’s two sets I’ve gone through...
Only 17k on the clock after 3 years (why am I leasing??)
Wear rates sound OK, but I do wonder whether my missus is drifting it through the corners. Has anyone else had fatigue cracks? Are they pretty normal after nearly 20k miles?
- 25% wear on front brakes
- 30-40% wear on rear brakes
- 3-4mm left on the tyres, but lots of wear and fatigue cracks on the outer edges of the treads. I’m not sure what I started with - maybe around 7mm?
- Wipers finished. I’m pretty sure that’s two sets I’ve gone through...
Only 17k on the clock after 3 years (why am I leasing??)
Wear rates sound OK, but I do wonder whether my missus is drifting it through the corners. Has anyone else had fatigue cracks? Are they pretty normal after nearly 20k miles?
S111dpc
Member
Mine’s just clocked up 58k miles and has just a new set of rear discs and pads following a vibration at motorway speeds.
paulhx
Active Member
Hi. First post in a long time and after the advice experience of the C350e / E350e community. I changed my C350e to E350e in January 2018. From day one the “range” indicator dropped from 16 to 13 when fully charged, but just this week plunged all the way down to 7!!
So as I had another fault (steering column wont adjust) I have dropped it off to be investigated.
Surely this must be a fault and the battery be eligible for replacement? Any experience of such rapid changes in range, guys?
So as I had another fault (steering column wont adjust) I have dropped it off to be investigated.
Surely this must be a fault and the battery be eligible for replacement? Any experience of such rapid changes in range, guys?
Is it really a change in range or is it just a change In predicted range? If you’re really only getting that range I’d advise kicking up a huge fuss at Mercedes. Unfortunately, my experience of their customer service doesn’t make me hopeful that they will grab the opportunity to fix your issue.
I wonder if anybody knows how to run a diagnostic on the battery condition? I asked for a report on mine when it was last serviced and the report I got was 'it's in good condition' What would have been nice to know is the % battery degradation, like you can see easily if you have an iPhone. My guess is it's lost between 10 & 15%, though I have charged it quite a lot, say 600 times.
D
Deleted member 126969
Guest
I still think the most useful diagnostic for us users is to measure how much energy you have to put into it to charge from a known level. It's always going to be a bit of guesswork as we've discussed, but other than that, maybe see what something like the iCarsoft reports?
As far as loss of capacity though, that is specifically EXCLUDED from the MB warranty. When a loss of capacity becomes a fault...now there's the question!
As far as loss of capacity though, that is specifically EXCLUDED from the MB warranty. When a loss of capacity becomes a fault...now there's the question!
wivenhoe
Active Member
My E350e is a March 18 car so about the same age, it has 13k on it. Recently I have obtained the best range, a mixture of the temperature and my local driving. I am regularly getting 14 miles on electric / regeneration, much better than I got on my C350e but that was more distant driving. What mpg are you getting, has that gone down as well ?
Before taking it to the dealers I would try a few things - on a full charge have it in E Mode and drive locally and see the true miles achieved. Then after a charge use Hybrid Mode and drive like a vicar and then recharge and see if at start up it reports a much greater range.
It’s not really relevant to a car only 18 months old, but the battery warranty doesn’t guarantee a minimum charge level being held, just warrants against failure of the hybrid equipment. Even Mercedes would have difficulty justifying selling a car with an alleged range of 19 miles and 18 months later only achieving 7 !
I thought the unofficial position in terms of battery capacity is if it drops below 70%? That's also what Nissan covers I believe and what Apple warranted interestingly on the iPhone, when their software was slowing their phones down.
paulhx
Active Member
It’s a genuine plunge in actual range as well as predicted range. I have completed around 25k miles, charge from Rolec unit at home every day and also at office plus numerous other locations. I have consistently achieved 13-15 miles per trip in E-mode before this plunge in both range and predicted range.
I collected the car tonight having had the steering adjustment fault rectified and the customer care guy told me that this has split opinion between the technicians. Various software updates have been carried out to no avail and they are going to take further advice from MB UK.
Driving back from the dealership this evening, again in E-mode, I achieved the new predicted range of 7 miles, whilst driving conservatively on flat terrain. Something has changed. I never had this with the C350e over almost 3 years use. It was consistently achieving 12-13 miles throughout.
Personally, I think MB would have a hard time claiming this isn’t a fault. I don’t know much about the battery in the MB hybrids )I don’t know much about high voltage traction batteries at all!) but from a technical perspective, my guess is that the pack is divided into several modules and you’ve completely lost at least one module.
From a layman’s perspective, it’s just not fit for purpose. I wonder what general consumer protection legislation says about this?