Endurance Test

Time Posted on September 22, 2010 User ChargeCar Team

Today, between 8:30 and 10:40 AM the car went through it's first prolonged endurance test.

From the Electric Garage, the car was driven (with two adult passengers) to 2nd Avenue and two laps were made between downtown and Bates.  Very little voltage decrease was observed and it became clear that more rigorous driving would be required to run the batteries down in a time-effective manner (we have a weekly technical meeting at 11AM as well).  So, the car was taken on the highway, at speeds of approximately 55 mph and driven between the Carnegie Science Center and Squirrel Hill.  Twice.  To finish off the battery, a few laps of the Panther Hollow/Schenley Golf Course were made, starting from Squirrel Hill.  Finally, the minimum voltage sagged enough to cause the BMS to fault.  This was after about 48.3 miles and 11 kWh of driving!  The return to CMU was fortunately mostly downhill, coasting on regen and only causing two more faults from fairly conservative accelerations.  The Civic is recharging in the Collaborative Innovation Center (CIC) Garage, having traveled a grand total of 49.5 miles on 11.26 kWh.

4.40 miles per kWh, with perhaps only 15% regen (due to highway driving).  Also, the Civic drove nearly 50 miles, which is outstanding range!  This should be sufficient to travel to Pittsburgh International Airport and back (to CMU campus)!  It also appears that voltage vs. load can be used to estimate the state of charge, which will be a very useful tool for driving, replacing the fuel gauge.  The voltage-load curve definitely shows gradual decrease with regular driving and a very much accelerated rate near full depletion.  We suspect that we were very close to full depletion because of the additional 2 BMS faults on small hills driving back to campus.

This is very exciting news, we will have more endurance tests in the future, perhaps to the airport next!

Cat News Tag honda

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