I was getting some rather alarming range in my daily commute to work, so I put the range to test. It performed as well as expected except for one tiny thing.
You picked a bad road in Illinois for a car with bad suspension. 255 in IL is just literally the worst road for potholes and bumps. I live in Herculaneum which is just down 55, so I travel on that a lot to get to 64. Man I hate it.
When you showed the interior shot in the Wheego vs Smart comparison, the speedometer only seemed to go up to 80km/h... 65mph is about 105km/h, so does the range auto adjust, or does it just send the needle way off the top of the dial when you go flat out? EDIT: dammit, immediately after writing that, big ol' zoom on the dashboard and the speedo says "mi/h" on it. Which is a very odd way of writing the units (vs MPH), therefore how I thought it said km/h before. Gah. Anyway, W/m is probably meant to be Wh/mi, for watt-hours per mile. 271 is... eh, fairly decent. Equivalent to about 168 Wh/km, which puts it within the more efficient band of electric cars, though not THE most efficient. If you know how many kWh your battery holds, you can use your average Wh/mi to figure out how many miles you should be able to cover on a full charge - for example if that 271 was your average (the meter seems to go a lot higher as the video progresses...?), multiplying by 85 suggests the battery has about 23kWh usable, which until fairly recently was pretty damn good for anything other than a Tesla - even the Nissan Leaf had only 20kWh to start with, and these days comes with about 30kWh. (And, funnily enough, if you multiply the Amps by the Volts that'll give you a result of your instantaneous power output, which can be another way of estimating it if you get a fairly steady answer at a particular crusing speed... kWh divided by kW gives you how many hours it'll run for at that speed, and of course hours multiplied by MPH gives miles) Also I wonder how the controller software is squaring the circle of being in "Sport" and "Econo Mode" at the same time? And does sport give you some extra acceleration and top speed, or would it cruise at 65 just as well in Drive as Sport?
Honestly that's not bad for a four year old battery considering you were in sport mode, running AC which is a huge draw on a battery and you weren't trying to hypermile. It could have gotten the 100 miles without AC I bet.... Not bad really especially for what you paid for it....the original owners? Well, too bad for them. .lol@the battery reading btw
The volt meter (the gauge on the right) is accurate but not especially linear, if you want to be precise you need to measure watt hours and know how many your pack's been charged to, in a word you need a Cycle Analyst.
@@jorgemendez4517 Like you said "any good electric vehicle", I don't expect any "good" 1st gen product from China, in fact I only expect it from a rebadged name brand and not from a start up.
@mipmipmipmipmip I would be more worried about the spline shaft for the motor and transmission getting stripped out it wouldn't be the first time it happened to a wheego
There is most likely a way to re-calibrate the charge-meter to get a more accurate reading. Next time you do a test, it might be handy to bring along a generator. ;-)
You mean, that a company which was specifically founded to build e-cars was completely unaware of the specs of their own battery? Sadly that sound reasonably.
@@nightmareinaction629 touche`..... ok, I suggest the battery meter is based on 0-3.5v per cell. The point is that it is a 0 to something scale and not an expanded scale meter.
It is very possible, but the battery pack in the Wheego is not a lithium-ion battery pack like the one in your cell phone or laptop PC. The Wheego Life, as its name implies, runs on a lithium iron phosphate battery pack.
85 miles with AC on doing "normal" driving is actually pretty good -I'd have guessed 40-60 miles myself. And hey, I don't know any petrol cars that let you drive the extra few feet home after they've run out!
But at least with a gas powered car you can put in a gallon of gas and get to a gas station, you can't exactly put a gallon of electricity into an electric car.
Jeff DeWitt as he was hoping for the last few feet at the bottom of the hill, I was thinking about a tow truck or a trailer, but then I noticed all those houses he was parked in front of, each with electricity. "... Excuse me, I'm stranded at the end of your driveway... and I was hoping that I could borrow a cup of electricity..."
It's called coasting. I ran out of gas in my truck once, which was entirely my fault. I *had* enough to get home, but ran into a traffic nightmare a mile long, which idled all of that away. I made a B line straight for the closest gas station, ran out of gas about a hundred feet before I got there, my engine cut out and I managed to have enough momentum after shifting into neutral to coast into the gas station up to the nearest pump.
A battery meter about as accurate as the one on my laptop. Part of me wonders if something overheated somewhere in the electrical system after all of that """high-speed""" driving, since it actually got you home after you let it sit for a while.
You'd probably eliminate most of the weight savings with those heavy batteries, even with the plastic body. Maybe if he could get some conventional lithium ions, like that one kind everyone uses for EV conversions. Could be worth it, though, if he could also transplant the regen brakes somehow; that's something off-the-shelf EV conversion kits don't have.
The Trabant had a top speed of about 70 mph and no creature comforts like an AC. I don't know if US stations sell pre-mixed 2 stroke fuel - otherwise you'd have to concoct that stuff yourself from regular fuel and oil. Which is a procedure as godawful as the car itself.
eBike rider here, the amperage meter is always the better "battery meter" in my opinion. I drive a 2500w bike and once it reaches 1500w it's time for me to hurry home bc it'll drop to 200w in about 15km lol
I normally watch the dudes in their Lambos like Vehicle Virgins or the Stradman but this deserves to have more subscribers its far more entertaining seeing the other side of motoring lool :D
I have a small EV like this and I have a 50 foot 14 gauge extension cord for the "just in case" moments like you had. I have had to use it once and thank goodness I was by a friends work to plug my car in to charge.
Amesie's Automotive Corner I enjoy your videos and your personality. Would love to sit down and have a coffee with you but you are all the way north and I’m all the way south
Amesie's Automotive Corner I enjoy your videos and your personality. Would love to sit down and have a coffee with you but you are all the way north and I’m all the way south
"if you hit zero percent battery it automatically voids the warranty" *Look if my ShwongDong trashcan broke I can just go to the hardware store and buy a new, probably better Rubbermaid trashcan for less than $30*
85-mile range is really good, especially with an air conditioner turned on. Sounds much better when you say 136 kM. I would be carrying a small (charged) Battery Pack inside the car, that charges from the Regen Braking, but cannot use the stored power without flicking a 'Reserve' Switch on the Dash.
About 15 years ago I borrowed my Father-in-law's Aerostar van to move my wife and me into our first apartment. It went well, we had 1/3 tank when the car just died in the middle of no where. We called him up, since he was going to meet us anyways, he brings a jerry can, and then says, "oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, fuel gauge is broken and 1/4 means empty". Sounds like my father in law programmed the wheego fuel gauge :|
My car in high school had a gas gauge about as accurate as that. It would go down normally for the first third or so of a tank, hang at about two-thirds full for a suspiciously long time, and then suddenly go "Oh, actually you're into the reserve now." It never quite stranded me, but it was not to be trusted.
According to the specs on the Wikipedia page, the battery in this is 36s LiFePO4, 85v divided by 36 is 2.2v which is REALLY low for this battery chemistry, the usual low voltage cutoff is 2.6v!
My white lab coat seems to have gotten up and walked off on me, but I frequently run my ebike down to 3v / cell. 3 - 3.3v / cell is pretty typical for most lithium chemistries but LiFePO4 runs quite a bit lower. Regardless of chemistry there is no black and white threshold where degradation begins. Anytime you use your battery there will be some degradation, but not running it down to your low voltage cutoff (LVC) will go a long way to reduce it.
The odometer signal in a gas car is a pulse generated from the transmission and fed to the ECM.. In an electric car, pulses are counted from a circuit called a pulse width modulator, and in turn is compiled and displayed.
Some electric cars have low propulsion shutdownsand if you have one cell that dips below a certain current the propulsion unit will go into limp mode and eventually stopeven though the rest of your battery may still be fine it could be a single cell that is faulty
I wonder why there aren't EPA estimated miles on EVs like internal combustion engines. I also wonder why my VW diesel engines got significantly GREATER mpg than the EPA estimates. We all know why... Or should. Record for it was 753 miles on a tank until I chickened out. That was 57 mpg and I think EPA highway was 42. 🤦
Your battery meter is not inaccurate. Poorly designed, yes, but not inaccurate. If you drain each battery cell from 4.2 volts to 3.3 volts, you still have 78.5% of your battery left, but you're at the bottom of a lithium ion battery's useful range. That's why your car died at 76%, you were at around 3.2 volts per cell, and not producing enough voltage to power the engine. They should have made the range of the battery meter 100% at 4.2 volts and 0% at 3.3, just for practicality.
I think you need to know that in China, Shuanghuan is the shittiest end of the stick The fact that this thing still runs is baffling. In 2019 chinese cars that are actually reliable are Lynk & Co WEY Changan Geely Rongwei Chery BYD Haval Wuling
You should be careful about showing too much information about your location. There are some pretty crazy people out there who might use that information for bad. It happened to my friend Carolyn. :(
Really not bad at all. Highway uses a hell of lot less power then city driving.. constant 30hp or so to hold highway speed. That figure can go from 30hp to over 200+ depending on what your doing (and driving) in town just to keep up
I have an E Bike for years I suspect it is something to do with mass of amp and relative potential range. IE As my power is depleted IE further I ride less power there is for torque, And I wonder if that is why the gauge is meaningless or indeed technology allows more even draw on battery. But I am no technician, But love my E Bike.
It kinda makes sense why the battery indicator is inaccurate. There’s circuitry that keeps track of charge cycles, and a cycle is when the battery goes from 100% to 0% and then back to 100%. But when you go from 100% to 80% and back to 100% every time, it can cause the battery to recalibrate itself to show 0% as 80%. It’s the exact same thing that happens with phones. People charge them from 30% to 100% every night, and the battery starts to think that 0% is actually 30% and it’s why they die with charge left. It’s why you should fully charge and then discharge your phone every now and again, it can recalibrate the phone to actually know what 100% and 0% are. *Too bad you can’t fully discharge this car*
I feel like it's just a volt meter. 0% is 0V on that scale probably, like with the citicar, which goes to show how much they know about electronics over there XD
It may have more range than a Chinese knockoff smart - but in every other single discipline the Trabant is worse than any other object known to mankind (even, though only by a whisker, than a Renault 4).
What about the Ford Pinto? Ford decided that it was cheaper for them to pay life insurance for people who died in car fires than to put a shield on the gas tank to prevent fires.
I did this in a new Leaf recently. It took F*^&% HOURS to run it flat, like an entire day driving doing 100 laps of the Huntingdon ring road. It made a fun video but I won't do it again.... You can find it in my videos if you want to see an idiot
My bike has 72v battery at full charge it’s 85v and cuts out at 60v, 60=0 for me, maybe you only get to work within 30 volts of full charge, would be good to get some more experience with voltage on some other lower power setups
You only ran it down to 80 volts, you shouldn't worry about damaging the battery unless you leave the lights on or the like and run it down to zero. I thought the percent meter might be based on watt hours, but it sounds like your battery has not lost much capacity since it was new, so no idea. Watch the pack voltage if you want to go for range again, it's definitely not linear but it's the best you'll get without installing a Cycle Analyst. I have no doubt you could get 150+ miles hypermiling. Of course, if you kept it under 30mph you could probably get 300! XP
Hey I was born in st. Louis! We lived in st. Charles. Is the city still a seperate entity from the county? Most don't know that the city isnt apart of the actual county. Or it didn't used to be.
As a Smart Electric driver - 87ish freeway miles is actually impressive. My 2018 Smart ED couldn't do that, using about 15kW draw to maintain 60mph - I'd be lucky to get 60 miles. Since the Weego battery pack is 30kWh, is it almost double the 17.6kWh capacity I have in my car - not bad for the 2013! Smart cars are built for cities - not road trips :)
Here we go again not. Change lamps for LED thin tyres. I think you should check all bateries cells is it charge to normal power if one of many have low voltage it problem for all power. Thats low voltage cell could ruined
Power required will increase at higher, but the amount of time that power is used will decrease. Traveling at 30MPH uses less energy than traveling at 60mph, but you'll be using energy for twice the amount of time in the same distance which will somewhat close the gap for the total energy consumption between the two different speeds. Correct me if I'm wrong. What I said may make no sense.
it is wrong with electric cars because they have a single speed 'gearbox', in an ice car that may be true because of the reduction gear. But you would travel way further at 30mph than you would at 60.
@Aging Wheels - It's wrong. As with all electric cars if you will go a lot further if you slow down. Btw I think 85 miles on highway is a good range for this little car.
Aging Wheels what you're saying is correct, however due to the fact that the relationship between required power and speed is indeed cubic, the time factor here won't matter nearly as much as you'd think
They do, which is highly amusing given they're meant to be green and eco-friendly, except for the dino-fuel engine they need to keep going and all the emissions & waste from the coal/gas/oil/nuclear power plants they're creating to charge overnight... :P
@twocvbloke Not that there's anything wrong with that. A large powerplant can still create energy more efficiently (citation needed) than a small one, such as what we use in most vehicles. Still, the modern gasoline engine isn't all that terrible either.
twocvbloke Refining fuel also takes electricity from dirty power. It takes around 5kWh to refine a gallon of fuel. An average electric car can go about 15 miles with 5kWh. Also, charging at night during low peak hours is just using electricity that would be wasted otherwise.
@twocvbloke They are more eco-friendly than fossil fuel vehicles. Not everyone uses fossil fuels for energy either - you assume people don't have solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, or hydro. An EV uses about 0.2kwh per mile. A full battery is maybe 50kwh to charge. The EPA says 33.7kwh = 1 gallon of gas. You're using objectively less energy to run an EV than a fossil fuel car.
Seems to me that with a double battery pack, the weego might actually drive at the promoted 35-75 miles range. But with the current pack, once voltage drops below a certain amount, it just doesn't have enough juice to push the vehicle.
You deserve so many subscribers... Your videos are always entertaining, and informative. You should have millions of subscribers... You will someday. Mainly because you're awesome. Thanks!!!
The SangYong cars in my country aren't that bad. Not that many of them, it's basically the Korando, Rexton, and the weirdly spelled Actyon. And there was the Stavic (aka Rodius) which looked absolutely hideous. But right now there's only 23 of them for sale in the entire country.
You really thought that it had over 50% more range than advertised? Then, when it reduced power after 85 miles you kept the AC on? Then, you blame Wheego for not having 100 miles of range through any conditions? Sorry, but this video is just too stupid. I'm glad you went electric and have stuck with it over the years, but that was a bad video.
That ECO-Meter makes no sense - power/distance isn't a physically possible measurement. If it was energy/distance, like Wh/m, or Ah/m, then it would make sense and actually be useful. So god knows what the hell that number is lol.
1 charge = 100 miles those numbers are SUSPISIOUSLY nice round numbers, Doubt they ever truly tested it! Also battery gages are misleading at best! NO meter can directly measure battery capacity in real time. We can measure voltage, current draw, and in the case of a wet cell with a removeable cap we can sample the chemical makeup of the electrolyte, but even that won't help in certain types of batteries. Capacity of a battery is measured in AmpHours (current in Amps X time in hours or AH; smaller batteries would be in milliamphours mAH) and you only know what a battery will do if you have experience with that particular battery by way of charging a specific amount of current over time and then discharging it methodically. When I was charging an aircraft battery I could push in a certain current for a certain amount of time, if the battery was around 80% capable I'd over charge the amphour rating about 140% and get the full "rated" AH capacity of that Battery. Your battery meter is probably just a volt meter. Now I am more familiar with NiCd batteries which will hold a certain voltage level over time then SUDDENLY drop off. All batteries differ. there was a very interesting battery way back when called an Iron-Nickel battery (or an Edison battery) it had a Very high internal resistance which means you could NOT push a lot of current into it i.e. LONG charge times, And AND you couldn't PULL a lot of current which meant long discharge times, but they had fair energy density and would last 60, 70 80 years or more. This is what was used way back in electric cars in the early 1900's. The USA quit making them in the late 70's/early 80's They simply lasted so long replacements weren't needed then the Chinese got into making cheap (and crappy) versions and then battery tech moved on and the Iron-Nickle was forgotten I think it should be revisited.
That's really not bad at all. In the same way that manufacturers claim that a car can do "50mpg", it can't do that at highway speeds with the AC on. Said 50mpg is only just attainable. The 100Mile range on this has to be considered the same, and I'll bet if you did the same test at 45mph with the AC off, you would have achieved the 100mile range. Just.
Hmm you could calibrate things to meet your expectations. Honistly i see bat % confusing a lot of people. And it shouldn't. This is called deceptive advertising by telling the truth. Sure that battery is 75% of maximum capacity To bad the lower 75% cant output enough amps/volts to run the car.
