[MyColorIsGreen]

So I like testing things... so I was wondering...

What if I run out of gas? Will the car still run? Will it leave me stranded? What will happen..
I have run the car out of gas 3 times now and it runs fine with no gas.

I drove the car with 0 gas and 0 electric miles for an additional 3 miles and the car was fine.. I got to the gas station ok..

The next test I will do is to see how long I can run the car with 0 gas and 0 battery...
I will bring a few gallons of gas with me and record what the car does while in survival mode..

Its fun pushing the limits just to know if the car will leave me stranded...

 

[michaelCA]

You are a brave man. Looking forward to see the results!

 

[P90XMC2]

Can't wait to hear the result, has anyone done that with other hybrid plugins like the Volt?

 

[MyColorIsGreen]

I have also done this with my friends volt... I encouraged him to push his limits..
By putting the volt in hill mode and driving it until the engine quit.
Then the car switched to electric mode with 10 miles range remaining. We drove until it had 1 mile left and then filled it up.

everything worked fine.

My neighbor is not brave enough to push his Plugin Prius.. although the battery range is very little 4.4kwh

 

[Raven]

I would advice you to take a really long extension cord with you as you might not be able to start the ICE if the battery gets too depleted ( less than 10% ).
This could happen in some circumstances, the only remedy is to plug in and charge the battery to an acceptable level.

 

[drliu]

If you really want to do the experiment, perhaps the safest way is to first run all the gas out of the car, then park it in your garage with the A/C on until the battery is dead. At least if you can't start the ICE at that point you'll have a charger nearby.

 

[MyColorIsGreen]

I do have a portable 240v charger that I can deploy so I am not too worried..

 

[Karma 2012]

Maybe take a portable generator with you for the experiment.

 

[MyColorIsGreen]

Alright so today was the perfect day.. I had to drive like 100 miles and did not have very much gas left in the tank so I played the game..

I took video.. Ran the car out of gas with 6 miles left on battery.. I had about 8 miles to go before the gas station.

Drove with 0 miles on gas and 0 miles on electricity for 5 extra miles..
When the Battery illuminated RED it started blinking and beeping at me..
The gas actually started and ran a little more when this happened.
drove the car even furthur until the battery illuminated solid red and the gas was red.

pulled into the gas station and filled up 10.1 Gallons of Petrol.
turned the car on and the car seemed to recharge the battery back and illuminated white again.

drove about 2 more miles and then plugged the car in. Turned on the screen and the car reported 12% charging state.

I love this car.. I have run my jeep out of gas, have run my cls out of gas, there is no other option except to call AAA for gas. haha
I took video and pictures.. here is a picture

 

[scottf200]

That was a very cool experiment. The Volt will do something similar. ~20% SOC is when the ICE kicks on and you are running on gas.

When you run out of gas it will switch back to the battery and run down close to ~15 SOC. Something like 3-4 miles.

 

[EVer1]

Useful info!