Battery woes

[Cobnapint]

The problem I've got with Porsche (and probably other manufacturers) is that the first indication you get that the battery is going down a bit is a flurry of spurious alarms. It's as though the electronics have a higher voltage threshold of failure than the engine because the thing was turning over beautifully.
If that's the case, in this high tech world, why isn't the car warning of this BEFORE the gremlins start to show.
And even better than that, why don't the cars monitoring systems learn the fact that the car is doing short journeys on a regular basis and allow charging from the alternator from the get-go, just like the old days.
Or build in an option in the car's menu that allows the owner to input the expected driving profile so they don't have to worry about charging it up all the bloody while or taking it on a run to achieve the same objective. It wastes fuel and defeats the primary object of smart charging in the first place, which is to reduce emissions. It's nuts.

How do owners of small 'city' cars or town cars go on. What are the dealers telling them - sorry madam, you're doing too many short journeys.....what?!

If I didn't know any better I'd say it's another ploy to increase the number of visits to the main dealer because having a partially charged battery isn't a warranty item. It's a built in Porsche tax if you like.

I'm not chuffed, as you can probably tell.

[Nuclear Nick]

Think you’re obsessing rather too much on this, batteries need charging and that means sufficient mileage to do so. I’m not convinced on your conclusion that the car isn’t charging when it should, ie a design flaw in the smart charging algorithm. And if you find in an EV you might own in the future that its range is anything down to 50% of the quoted range in winter would you blame the designer too?

If your use case is regular short journeys then an EV charged at home might be a better choice but otherwise leave yours on a float charger and chill!

[andreas]

The problem I've got with Porsche (and probably other manufacturers) is that the first indication you get that the battery is going down a bit is a flurry of spurious alarms. It's as though the electronics have a higher voltage threshold of failure than the engine because the thing was turning over beautifully.
If that's the case, in this high tech world, why isn't the car warning of this BEFORE the gremlins start to show.

Sadly, it's because the VW Group does software about as well as the NHS does it.

[Woodhouse]

Having spent 24 years in the NHS we can only dream of the VW groups IT capabilities

[Cobnapint]

Think you’re obsessing rather too much on this, batteries need charging and that means sufficient mileage to do so. I’m not convinced on your conclusion that the car isn’t charging when it should, ie a design flaw in the smart charging algorithm. And if you find in an EV you might own in the future that its range is anything down to 50% of the quoted range in winter would you blame the designer too?

If your use case is regular short journeys then an EV charged at home might be a better choice but otherwise leave yours on a float charger and chill!

I suppose I'm obsessing because I've got £70k worth of high tech, premium German engineering sat in the garage that after enduring just 4.5 months of our harsh East Midlands temperate climate, can't cope with me nipping round to my dad's, going to the local snooker hall or to pubs for Sunday lunch.

I haven't done ALL short journeys, I've been to the coast a couple of times and other places not so far. So it's had a couple of runs in that time, and I haven't exactly needed the heated seats and steering wheel on just lately....

I wouldn't mind if there was a built in heads up that the cars electronics were going to get a bit sniffy in a few minutes if they find out they're going to be getting 0.3 of a volt less than they did when the car rolled out of Leipzig. They manage to be able to warn you about everything else that's getting near acceptable limits - tyre pressure, boost pressure, fluid levels, fuel level, when the infotainment is going to shut down to conserve battery - why not system-supporting battery capacity? Why is it such a secret? It's 2023, man went to the moon in 1969! Why throw random fault messages out that would cause an ill-informed customer to panic and book the car in at the dealership? - question answered there I think....!

And why is the so-called battery management system allowing this to happen in the first place? It's not doing a very good job of 'managing' the battery is it?
No. And the reason for that is because it's priority isn't the battery at all, it is fuel consumption and EU emission regulations.

Before all this emissions paranoia came out I had no such problems with short journeys. A car's alternator would charge quite happily without being told otherwise by today's regulation hungry mouse pushers.

I'm looking forward to winter....

As for EVs and cold temperatures. That's a natural consequence of battery chemistry. Nobody can do anything about that.
What they can do though is stop fretting about how much physical resistance there is in an alternator when it's doing what it's supposed to do - charge. And let the damn thing 'charge'.

[Neil1911]

Having spent 24 years in the NHS we can only dream of the VW groups IT capabilities

[TheTraveller]

As I have said before, the engineering of the cars is pretty good, but the software is dreadful. I wonder how much of this is outsourced.
And regarding the NHS IT systems. Didn't a ruling party in England a few years ago, spend, I mean waste a couple of Quid on a system that never got under way.

[andreas]

And regarding the NHS IT systems. Didn't a ruling party in England a few years ago, spend, I mean waste a couple of Quid on a system that never got under way.

Labour started it in 2002 and it was abandoned in 2013, after only spending around £10 billion.

[bennachie]

Fancy that. How unusual.

[SmallWheels]

Mine has gone up to 4 weeks without running and often it’s a 2 to 3 week gap. When it goes out the runs are always medium to long. Always starts easily on the first turn of the key and never had any problems with warnings etc. The only symptom – and it’s very minor – is that the stop/start system might not begin stopping the engine until I’ve done 200 miles of driving.