EQC Battery Rang really bad or is it me!

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EQC2020

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Hi all, fist time post here so here goes and please let me know if its in the wrong section......

Been lucky enough to have just picked up a new 2020 EQC in the last 2 weeks with 8 miles on the clock and as the instruction manual says, best to charge to 80% to try to maintain battery life. Bit crap i thought if we need to start down that road but thought ok lets see what we get at that level of charge. Driving is 10 miles on the school run with country roads and using the regeneration D minus, minus rather than brakes with no hard acceleration and i mean none as you simply cant with all the twists and narrow roads. So given we dont want to run the battery down anything less than 30 miles and the car starts moaning at you from under 40, we charge it from around the 30 ish level. This allows us 2 full school trips and so circa 40 miles in total over two days before another charge to 80%. On an 80% charge it says we have around 145 miles from the start. Bit naff i thought so the wife needed to go further today and so we charged it fully to see and also to give her some peace of mind. Well, fully charged showed 225 miles and yet by the time she got 2 miles down the road it was showing 160 miles. There is no AC being used or heated seats and or demist. Just heating on 22 degrees. So im thinking is the weather at plus 4 degrees really the issue here or do we have a problem. This car is supposed to do around 250 and i know it will never do that, but though we would at least get 200. At this rate and from what i have seen, we seem to be around 120 miles if we are lucky. Any thoughts or other EQC experiences out there and thanks........
 
My experience with a rented Leaf was that once I started driving it up some relatively modest hills, the battery range dropped off precipitously - and despite using regen, it didn't really recover going down the other side either. So hilly routes did seem to really cut back the range. If the longer trips are mostly on major roads with shallower gradients, you may find the range holds up better than predicted.

On the heating front, I've read that it's more efficient to use heated seats than warming up the whole cabin. So you could try setting a bit lower cabin temperature, 18 or 20 degrees, and using the heated seats to keep warm. I'm not suggesting being uncomfortable, just experimenting with a different way of being comfortable to see if it works for you.

The other thing that's a big win for range on short trips is to pre-heat the car while connected to the charger (via Mercedes Me, perhaps?). This way the car's warm when you get into it, and the energy to heat it up doesn't come out of the battery. If you're not doing this already, I'd try and do so as a first thing to help.

I'm not lucky enough to have one, but I'm fascinated with electric cars, so be interested how you get on.
 
Samoht beat me to it. Unlike an ICE car, where the cabin heating is effectively a 'free' by-product of the engine's poor efficiency, cabin heating in an electric car is a direct hit on the range. The reason electric cars tend to have heated seats and steering wheels is because heating the entire cabin is less efficient than just heating the bits you touch.

As for your typical journey, twisty, narrow country roads don't sound like a recipe for economy and so being closer to 'motorway' than 'urban' figures might not be a surprise. I can only suggest trying a motorway journey to get a better idea if your car is outside expected range.
 
My experience with a rented Leaf was that once I started driving it up some relatively modest hills, the battery range dropped off precipitously - and despite using regen, it didn't really recover going down the other side either. So hilly routes did seem to really cut back the range. If the longer trips are mostly on major roads with shallower gradients, you may find the range holds up better than predicted.

On the heating front, I've read that it's more efficient to use heated seats than warming up the whole cabin. So you could try setting a bit lower cabin temperature, 18 or 20 degrees, and using the heated seats to keep warm. I'm not suggesting being uncomfortable, just experimenting with a different way of being comfortable to see if it works for you.

The other thing that's a big win for range on short trips is to pre-heat the car while connected to the charger (via Mercedes Me, perhaps?). This way the car's warm when you get into it, and the energy to heat it up doesn't come out of the battery. If you're not doing this already, I'd try and do so as a first thing to help.

I'm not lucky enough to have one, but I'm fascinated with electric cars, so be interested how you get on.
Thank you and some valid points. The wife does pre heat the car as the little one always complains about the car being cold but the heated seat trick i will need to investigate. In terms of roads, all pretty flat from that perspective. Appreciate your response and will keep you posted as we test the car out more.
 
Samoht beat me to it. Unlike an ICE car, where the cabin heating is effectively a 'free' by-product of the engine's poor efficiency, cabin heating in an electric car is a direct hit on the range. The reason electric cars tend to have heated seats and steering wheels is because heating the entire cabin is less efficient than just heating the bits you touch.

As for your typical journey, twisty, narrow country roads don't sound like a recipe for economy and so being closer to 'motorway' than 'urban' figures might not be a surprise. I can only suggest trying a motorway journey to get a better idea if your car is outside expected range.
Thanks and will certainly try the heated seat trick, however what about the daughter in the back lol. The trip today is some short motorway and A roads so lest see what happens when she gets back and a mix of b roads. I just thought it would be better than this and its a good job we swapped out from the Etron with the 180 mile range to the EQC at the last minute. Appreciate your post!!
 
Thanks and will certainly try the heated seat trick, however what about the daughter in the back lol. The trip today is some short motorway and A roads so lest see what happens when she gets back and a mix of b roads. I just thought it would be better than this and its a good job we swapped out from the Etron with the 180 mile range to the EQC at the last minute. Appreciate your post!!
Hi eqc2020 congrats on your eqc purchase. As a eqc specialist for mb ( hush hush ) we have found a few people have come back to us regarding the range etc. In regards to the charging as you say it has been said the best way to maintain the battery is to keep the vehicle charge level between 10% and 80% below 10 battery is stressed and above 80 is when the battery heats up the most. But in the modern day we all expect with the cost of an electric vehicle to be able to charge as we see fit. What happens is after a few trips and charge cycles the range will change to an average range of what you have been getting due to usage of kw. The way around this if you want to see the full charge range would be to reset the system by that I mean the mbux system yes you lose all the data etc but the range will go back to approx 255 then the cycle will then revert back to working out the average range over the preceding mileage and charge cycles.
The heating and air con are the most hungry electrical consumers so as been previously mentioned. Pre conditioning is the best way forward. Leave on the charger and then set the connect me app with your departure time and it will pre warm the vehicle heated seats as well so when you get in nice and toasty and you dont have to use more electrical energy from the battery to warm the vehicle. Hope this is a good insight so far from the eqc we have seen customers have been generally happy and loved the driving experience
 
My wife has difficulty in making sure that the fuel needle stays above the reserve level , there's no way she could plan ahead so that the battery is charged and the preheating is done before she leaves the house . She always sets the heating at max first thing in the morning so I wonder what the chances are of her getting to work and have enough charge left to get home ?
 
My wife has difficulty in making sure that the fuel needle stays above the reserve level , there's no way she could plan ahead so that the battery is charged and the preheating is done before she leaves the house . She always sets the heating at max first thing in the morning so I wonder what the chances are of her getting to work and have enough charge left to get home ?
Can you not get her to understand that trying to get the maximum temperature from a cold engine will mean it takes longer to warm up both the engine and cabin correctly?
 
My experience from the Model-X is that the range display in miles isn't actually connected to the car's battery, instead it's operated by a random number generator :doh:

However, when the range display is switched to showing the percentage of battery charge, it is pretty consistent and actually makes sense.

But then the same can be said for ICE - to most people, the fuel level gauge makes more sense than the range in miles showing on the onboard computer.
 
Hi all, fist time post here so here goes and please let me know if its in the wrong section......

Been UNlucky enough to have just picked up a new 2020 EQC in the last 2 weeks with 8 miles on the clock and as the instruction manual says, best to charge to 80% to try to maintain battery life. Bit crap i thought if we need to start down that road but thought ok lets see what we get at that level of charge. Driving is 10 miles on the school run with country roads and using the regeneration D minus, minus rather than brakes with no hard acceleration and i mean none as you simply cant with all the twists and narrow roads. So given we dont want to run the battery down anything less than 30 miles and the car starts moaning at you from under 40, we charge it from around the 30 ish level. This allows us 2 full school trips and so circa 40 miles in total over two days before another charge to 80%. On an 80% charge it says we have around 145 miles from the start. Bit naff i thought so the wife needed to go further today and so we charged it fully to see and also to give her some peace of mind. Well, fully charged showed 225 miles and yet by the time she got 2 miles down the road it was showing 160 miles. There is no AC being used or heated seats and or demist. Just heating on 22 degrees. So im thinking is the weather at plus 4 degrees really the issue here or do we have a problem. This car is supposed to do around 250 and i know it will never do that, but though we would at least get 200. At this rate and from what i have seen, we seem to be around 120 miles if we are lucky. Any thoughts or other EQC experiences out there and thanks........
Fixed your typo for you 🤣
 
Well, fully charged showed 225 miles and yet by the time she got 2 miles down the road it was showing 160 miles. There is no AC being used or heated seats and or demist. Just heating on 22 degrees. So im thinking is the weather at plus 4 degrees really the issue here or do we have a problem. This car is supposed to do around 250 and i know it will never do that, but though we would at least get 200. At this rate and from what i have seen, we seem to be around 120 miles if we are lucky. Any thoughts or other EQC experiences out there and thanks........
Hi, I have been driving an EQC for over a year now, the single biggest influence on the displayed range is ambient temperature, re your above comments, was the car indoors whilst charging? this would explain the big change, during a hot day in the summer I had 245 miles displayed, today (3Deg) I am lucky to get 190!

As Markjay says above the range is only an indicator same as a fuel gauge and links to temp, and your Kwh/m reading, so there is an algorithim in there somewhere!
 
As a eqc specialist for mb ( hush hush ) we have found a few people have come back to us regarding the range etc. In regards to the charging as you say it has been said the best way to maintain the battery is to keep the vehicle charge level between 10% and 80% below 10 battery is stressed and above 80 is when the battery heats up the most.
So if it is not recommended to charge above 80%, do MB chargers stop at 80%? Or are owners supposed to know psychically when the battery has reached that level and then jump out and switch it off?

Is the range quoted in the ads etc based on 80% charge and recharging at 10%? I suspect not.
 
So if it is not recommended to charge above 80%, do MB chargers stop at 80%? Or are owners supposed to know psychically when the battery has reached that level and then jump out and switch it off?

Is the range quoted in the ads etc based on 80% charge and recharging at 10%? I suspect not.
I don’t have an EQC but I believe it manages the charging schedule for you so if you wish you can impose 100% charge should you wish to. I suspect most will be financed/leased and replaced after a few years so reducing battery life won’t be a concern for many current keepers.

The range will also be the range the car is capable of, not the range if observing recommendations for good battery health. Just like the published range in your ICE car will assume completely full to completely empty, but you may choose to never let the tank run dry.
 
I don’t have an EQC but I believe it manages the charging schedule for you so if you wish you can impose 100% charge should you wish to. I suspect most will be financed/leased and replaced after a few years so reducing battery life won’t be a concern for many current keepers.

The range will also be the range the car is capable of, not the range if observing recommendations for good battery health. Just like the published range in your ICE car will assume completely full to completely empty, but you may choose to never let the tank run dry.
My ICE car doesn't have a "published range", because I can refill it (all the way to full, not just 80% in order to ensure I don't break it) in a couple of minutes, not hours.
 
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