Not something you want to experience often....

[supersnoop]

I have yet to make mine go that far low and it scares me!

Random question, is it worse for the battery to drive in range mode or to drive in standard and let the battery get down to say 10 miles left of ideal range? It has been a little bit colder so my daily commute has been taking more charge and a couple of days I have gotten low on ideal and not wanting to use my range I leave it there but I am not sure which has more harm in the longterm?

Driving in range mode just reduces the amount of power supplied to the motor. Basically, it doesn’t allow you to floor the accelerator and drain the battery quickly. Range mode also unlocks the bottom 10% of the battery. Nothing makes it inherently “worse.”

Driving in standard mode, the car will warn you when you hit 20% and will reduce the power the same as range mode.

 

[NigelM]

Standard mode hides the bottom 10% or so of the battery capacity from the VDS calculations, so Standard mode's "0" miles is about 20-ish miles in Range mode. ...

The reason that Standard mode hides the top and bottom of the actual capacity is that running the battery in those end zones is harder on the battery than in the center. Range mode also limits power to 50%, which also helps a bit with battery stress, especially at the low end.

Part of my head knew this and I was only about 5 miles from home when the sudden drop to zero, still the other part of my head was "oh, cr*p"...

 

[simonog]

If we are talking long term battery health, we know it’s not good to run the battery too low, and near bricking is low. As with very high levels of charge, the battery chemistry is more destructive there; on a Model S for example the 20% to 80% Range seems to be best for the battery.

 

[Indian Steve]

So I am pretty good running it low if I am in Standard opposed to running on Range as I am not touching the high/low points of the battery. That is kinda what I thought but figured I would ask for future reference.

 

[bolosky]

I have yet to make mine go that far low and it scares me!

Random question, is it worse for the battery to drive in range mode or to drive in standard and let the battery get down to say 10 miles left of ideal range? It has been a little bit colder so my daily commute has been taking more charge and a couple of days I have gotten low on ideal and not wanting to use my range I leave it there but I am not sure which has more harm in the longterm?

Assuming that you're talking about whether to switch to range mode as the battery is getting low and not whether you charge in range mode, then it makes no difference at all. What matters is the battery's state of charge (lower is worse). Changing from standard to range mode doesn't do anything to the state of charge, it just changes how it's displayed on the VDS (as well as unlocking the bottom 10% and cutting power). So, don't worry about it.

 

[smorgasbord]

Driving in range mode just reduces the amount of power supplied to the motor.

Small nit: Range mode also reduces cooling to the battery while driving to save energy for miles. During charging, it's the opposite - extra power goes towards cooling to keep the battery cool to help prevent more degradation.

Trivia: OVMS's Cooldown feature uses Range Mode intermittently to cool down the battery without giving it much charge.

 

[supersnoop]

Small nit: Range mode also reduces cooling to the battery while driving to save energy for miles. During charging, it's the opposite - extra power goes towards cooling to keep the battery cool to help prevent more degradation.

Trivia: OVMS's Cooldown feature uses Range Mode intermittently to cool down the battery without giving it much charge.

I knew Performance mode affected cooling, but didn’t think it was impacted in Range mode.