Regenerating Power while driving

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maref

***
Joined
Dec 4, 2018
Messages
4
Hello all,

I have '15 Premium

I'm wondering if the e-golf really regenerate power while driving. For example, if the street is declining or while breaking, I can see the GOM getting more miles, however, the battery indicator (the small circle on the right of the dashboard) never increased.
 
If you look at the power/regen meter (where the tachometer would go on gasoline/diesel models), any time it swings to the left (into the green) you are in regen. You can also feel it when you lift off the accelerator pedal as the car slows down. Of course how much regen you get depends on a number of factors, including drive mode (D, D1, D2, D3, B), and how full the battery already is (you will get minimal or no regen if the battery is at or near 100%).

You will not see enough regen to make the battery level indicator move unless you are driving a VERY long and steep downhill incline.
 
The guess o meter will jump around if you start going downhill a lot on a trip. It is applying a rolling consumption average against the remaining battery. The battery is draining but the miles per kWh is increasing.
 
Thank you all.

I noticed that, however, once I go back to the uphill, all the gained miles are lost. When going downhill, the battery indicator is constant, neither increasing nor decreasing.
 
Going downhill, the battery SoC % will increase but since VW put an analog dial on the dash, if you go down a short hill, you will never be able to notice a difference in the needle position. If there were a digital readout on battery SoC, you might able to see a difference (depends on hill size). If you can tap into the computer (via dongle and software, you will see an increase in SoC because the computer reports SoC with a decimal point, so you can get more resolution of the true SoC.
 
maref said:
Thank you all.
I noticed that, however, once I go back to the uphill, all the gained miles are lost. When going downhill, the battery indicator is constant, neither increasing nor decreasing.

Maref, the battery indicator is the only true reliable representation of how much charge is left in the batteries.

The guess-o-meter is exactly that: just a rough estimate how far you can go before you need to recharge.

It's based on how you've driven so far. If you drive on the highway or go uphill, the guess-o-meter will go down. If you drive downhill, the guess-o-meter will stay steady or go up.

I have one large hill on my commute where in about one mile the guess-o-meter drops from 45 miles remaining to 35 miles. The next 10 miles to my house is downhill or flat, and when I arrive the guess-o-meter still says 35 miles.
 
maref said:
Thank you all.

I noticed that, however, once I go back to the uphill, all the gained miles are lost. When going downhill, the battery indicator is constant, neither increasing nor decreasing.

Try riding a road bicycle or mountain bicyle up and down a mountain, or cross country skiing up and down... and you'll get a feel for the physics involved with going up and down, and how your "legs" recharge or get drained.
 
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