[DarthDude]

Hi all,

I'm a new Mini Cooper SE owner, took delivery of my ex-demonstrator 2022 car with 6000km on the clock 3 weeks ago and it's been utterly brilliant- the PERFECT city car for running around Kuala Lumpur when there's only 1 passenger and/or luggage to carry.

The short legs (I suspect the shortest driving range of any car you can buy today) hasn't been an issue with our usage (wife goes to work in it, we go shopping and do other in-city runs with it) and it we average around 3 days between charges- until today.

Today, an unscheduled run to pick up the Mrs' cellphone which she had left at work (departure charge level- 36%) saw me pushing my self-imposed charging limits (20% minimum, 80% maximum) for the first time.

I made it home with 19% showing on the instrument binnacle (I have it showing charge % instead of guessing how many kilometres of range I have left, leaving the guesswork with ME, where it belongs) and for the first time since I got this car, found myself asking, at what point will it actually grind to a halt?

I know you can't use the last few % of charge but can I rely on the car continuing to be drivable all the way down to where the meter displays 0% charge or will it stop dead at some higher indicated charge level... like 5% or something?

Does anybody have any experience with this? Sorry if this has been asked and answered but I did go searching for it, all the way back to early 2022 on the forum and couldn't find it.

Thanks!

 

[jeremybingham]

If you do a search it runs past 0 I think but goes into limp mode for a little while but not100% on this.

 

[CanardAlsace]

Difficult answer because it depends so much on what other uses of electrical power are being used. Eg aircon and how much cooling it has to do which I guess is a factor in KL. I have taken mine down yesterday to just less than 10% with indicated range of 14km left.
I have seen some posts where people have gone to just over 5%.
If you have a good charging infrastructure around it is less of a worry.

But to me going down further than this is rather like driving a ICE around when it is showing empty and big orange refuel light on. You can do it until the day the fuel line picks up all the junk left in the fuel tank.

Just to correct you.. the Mini is not the worst on range. A test by one of the auto mags where they drove tue cars on the same route and speed until they conked out. This showed that the Mini is the ‘middle’ of the small EV / battery cars. More importantly the actual range was better than the ‘claimed range’ where as others such as Peugeot e208 were considerably worse than claimed and worse than the Mini. The best was the Zoe but I wouldn’t want to drive a car with no character.

 

[DarthDude]

If you do a search it runs past 0 I think but goes into limp mode for a little while but not100% on this.

Oh... I thought that was 0 miles indicated. Yes, they can run past 0 miles remaining range but since I have the GOM set to display % charge instead of remaining range, I was wondering if there was any greater-than-zero % remaining charge indicated at which point the car will stop.

Difficult answer because it depends so much on what other uses of electrical power are being used. Eg aircon and how much cooling it has to do which I guess is a factor in KL. I have taken mine down yesterday to just less than 10% with indicated range of 14km left.
I have seen some posts where people have gone to just over 5%.
If you have a good charging infrastructure around it is less of a worry.

But to me going down further than this is rather like driving a ICE around when it is showing empty and big orange refuel light on. You can do it until the day the fuel line picks up all the junk left in the fuel tank.

Just to correct you.. the Mini is not the worst on range. A test by one of the auto mags where they drove tue cars on the same route and speed until they conked out. This showed that the Mini is the ‘middle’ of the small EV / battery cars. More importantly the actual range was better than the ‘claimed range’ where as others such as Peugeot e208 were considerably worse than claimed and worse than the Mini. The best was the Zoe but I wouldn’t want to drive a car with no character.

Thanks! So my 20% lower bound would appear to have a lot of margin built in. If you've gone to 10% and others have gone to around 5% then I'm happy to know I should not get anywhere near the edge of the envelope.

No more range anxiety for me!

 

[figbat]

Remember that there is around 10% of 'buffer' built in - the battery is 32kW.h but only 29 is available to you for use - the remainder is used to help with over-charging and running out. There is absolutely no need to limit yourself to 20-80%. Charge until full, drive until empty if you wish. I generally don't get too low simply because my usage pattern doesn't do that, but I have run to <10% a few times, knowing that I was within range of home or a charger. Others have reported running to 0% and then limping onwards. I always charge to 100%.

 

[ajgriff]

Don't forget that the 3.7kWh grace capacity (buffers) will disappear as the battery gradually degrades and that this will happen more quickly if the battery is continually charged to 100% unnecessarily.

Alan

 

[DarthDude]

Thanks for that. Yes- I too have no reason to excessively go under 20% or over 80%. Our useage is such that the 60% charge between 20% and 80% carries us through 3 days, no worries and the overnight charge on the 3rd night at "Reduced" charge rate is perfect for us to plug in, got to sleep, wake up and do the normal morning stuff before going out to the car- which will be at anything between 77% and 83%- and driving off.

I certainly didn't cover that in my pre-purchase research but it has just worked out that way and if that turns out to be kinder to the battery then that's icing on the cake!

Either way, I'm loving every moment I spend in this car. It's just so much FUN, and now that I know I can safely go down to single-digit charge levels if circumstances dictate then that's the only worry about it gone for me!

 

[SameGuy]

NB: I switched back on to take the pic, it defaults to Sport; the drive was in Green. And no, I reaaaally don’t ever normally let it get that low.

 

[SameGuy]

FWIW, I go with a nominal "2 km per % SoC" calculation in mild weather and "1.6 km/%" in temperatures around the freezing point. I often better those; I regularly got over 200 km last autumn without dipping below 10%, driving entirely normally (ie. not hypermiling).

 

[CoachCookie]

Was just about to chime in and say I too have driven it down to as low as 2%. Not the norm, but I like to get 3 days of driving to work and back on a charge and in the winter it just gets right to the edge sometimes...

 

[SameGuy]

I pulled into my garage with that 1% as it had just ticked over from “1 km” to “——— km” showing, and plugged in for a full charge. My EVSE reported that the charge consumed 32 kWh, wall to car. Assuming the 15% parasitic losses with Level 2 charging, that means I had used around 28 kWh, so I likely still had at least another couple of kilometres available — ignoring the 15-20 km “reserve” that some YouTube testers have noted in running the battery completely flat.

 

[DarthDude]

View attachment 82917
View attachment 82916
View attachment 82915
NB: I switched back on to take the pic, it defaults to Sport; the drive was in Green. And no, I reaaaally don’t ever normally let it get that low.

Oh I LOVE this!

THANK YOU! Now I know it'll work all the way down to 1%, I feel INVINCIBLE!!!

 

[DarthDude]

Was just about to chime in and say I too have driven it down to as low as 2%. Not the norm, but I like to get 3 days of driving to work and back on a charge and in the winter it just gets right to the edge sometimes...

I pulled into my garage with that 1% as it had just ticked over from “1 km” to “——— km” showing, and plugged in for a full charge. My EVSE reported that the charge consumed 32 kWh, wall to car. Assuming the 15% parasitic losses with Level 2 charging, that means I had used around 28 kWh, so I likely still had at least another couple of kilometres available — ignoring the 15-20 km “reserve” that some YouTube testers have noted in running the battery completely flat.

Thanks guys! I really appreciate this. A buddy of mine said that learning a new car is like the early stages of any relationship- you need to figure out where your partner's limits are..... and you guys have really helped me do that!

 

[SameGuy]

Oh I LOVE this!

THANK YOU! Now I know it'll work all the way down to 1%, I feel INVINCIBLE!!!

I accept payment in nyonya kaya 😄😉

 

[DarthDude]

I accept payment in nyonya kaya 😄😉

Can! PM me an address and I'll send some over!

 

[Pictsidhe]

Oh... I thought that was 0 miles indicated. Yes, they can run past 0 miles remaining range but since I have the GOM set to display % charge instead of remaining range, I was wondering if there was any greater-than-zero % remaining charge indicated at which point the car will stop. Thanks! So my 20% lower bound would appear to have a lot of margin built in. If you've gone to 10% and others have gone to around 5% then I'm happy to know I should not get anywhere near the edge of the envelope. No more range anxiety for me!

Whoa, how did you set your GOM to read %?
On the original topic, I've been down to 3%. I hear that it will go down to 0%, which is followed by crawl mode for an unknown distance.

 

[DarthDude]

Whoa, how did you set your GOM to read %?
On the original topic, I've been down to 3%. I hear that it will go down to 0%, which is followed by crawl mode for an unknown distance.

Oh you just press the button on the indicator stalk (which on a REAL Mini would have been the horn) until the display shows % of charge. You'll need to scroll through a couple other things first though. It's basically scrolling through the various bits of information the trip computer will display and stopping at % of charge

 

[DarthDude]

Actually it's quite a complicated car and you really need to familiarise yourself with all the things it can do.

When I took delivery of mine, it was rush hour and I spent much of the time when I was stationary in traffic jams trying out the various features.

"Concierge Service" was a new one on me... so I gave it an experimental press and had the bejesus scared out of me when the voice of a nice, polite LIVE Filipina lady- whose job it apparently was to fulfil my every desire- came across the car's speakers.

Sort of like Aladdin with the lamp.

Apparently I get it free for the first couple years and it's a paid subscription after that. Well we'll see, I can't say I'll find much use for it in a city runabout, but I can imagine it'll be very useful for someone who uses their car to do regional sales or something like that.

The other thing about it happened the other day when I couldn't for the life of me get Google Maps to display the navigation instructions on the screen via Apple Carplay like I wanted it to... and I spent the entire drive alternating the phone between my lap and holding it up so I could see where I was going and when I thought the cops weren't looking.

Lots to learn.

 

[figbat]

Oh you just press the button on the indicator stalk (which on a REAL Mini would have been the horn)

On a REAL Mini the indicator stalk would be the other side of the steering column.

 

[DarthDude]

On a REAL Mini the indicator stalk would be the other side of the steering column.

Would it?

Dang.... it's been a while for me, I guess.