Range problems

RSR said:

Hi

I recently picked up my Fisker Karma from the UK importer that I used, what an amazing car, can't drive it anywhere without drawing crowds and being quizzed about it (although I am already getting tired of trying to explain to my fellow Brits what a Fisker Karma is!).

I absolutely love it but am not sure about the range I am getting, on a full charge it shows a range of 49/50 miles but I am lucky if I get half that, 25/26 is average and if I go uphill it can drop 4/5 miles in the space of 1 actual mile!

I am fearing the worst in that it is a battery problem, can anyone out there give me any clues? The car's VIN is YH4K14AA1CA001036.

Kind Regards

Simon

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As for my customer cars they only average around 35 miles on electric .The way you will really know if you have a battery problem is when you get down to around 10 miles left and all of a sudden it drops down to 0 thats one of the first signs of a bad module . Sometimes that follows with a check engine light .

I have two Karmas and both get around 38-42 miles of range under normal driving conditions. One Karma has about 5,000 miles and the other has just over 10,000 miles, early VIN 5XX and late VIN 16XX.

Temperature can also play a big role. Not just because the A/C and Heater can draw around 15% of the battery power, but also because Lithium batteries are notorious for having a steep power dropoff when they're cold. We've had crazy weather here in Texas lately, and on days when my battery has been sitting overnight in a 34º garage I'll lose 10 miles of charge after driving only 3 miles. Once the battery warms up the drain is more 1:1. On other days when the battery is around 60-70º the I don't get that steep dropoff for the first few miles.

That being said, my battery (this is the 3rd one in my car and only has about 6,000 miles on it) is currently getting about 1-2 miles less per charge than it did when it was new. That's a significantly higher dropoff than expected for a battery with so few miles on it.

-Brian