[demick514]

Hey everyone
Got lucky and found a MX30 sitting on a lot at a dealer near me. Prior to buying I knew my range would be limited to around 160km. 1 week in I found straight highway I was getting around 135-140km out of it or with a little city combined around 170km. I'm in Montreal,Quebec so the winters get cold. Most info provided online is based upon -10°C . My daily commute is 110km (100 all highway), so right now I'm lucky to go to work and back & plug in at the end of the day but I know that won't be the case in the winter.... so My question is who has driven in canadian winters (or similar), what temperature and what range were you getting? Is the battery range going to decrease to 100 or lower ?

 

[bassek]

Hi from Finland!
Yes we have cold periods
My range dropped during the coldest period to about 140km. Now its slowly rising again.
Wintertime the range is 150km and summertime closer to 200km.
If your speed exceeds 100km/h the range decreases. I recall the speed limits are 80-110 ?
My guess is that the battery has enough juice for your commuting, with 20-30 km to spare.

Seb

 

[demick514]

Hi from Finland!
Yes we have cold periods
My range dropped during the coldest period to about 140km. Now its slowly rising again.
Wintertime the range is 150km and summertime closer to 200km.
If your speed exceeds 100km/h the range decreases. I recall the speed limits are 80-110 ?
My guess is that the battery has enough juice for your commuting, with 20-30 km to spare.

Seb

Thanks

Yes highway speed limits 100km/h .. with temperatures around -20 to -25. It would be nice to be able to get enough range to make it back from work and only charge it at home. Right now my round trips, once I get back home I have about 60km (35%) remaining

 

[bassek]

Thanks

Yes highway speed limits 100km/h .. with temperatures around -20 to -25. It would be nice to be able to get enough range to make it back from work and only charge it at home. Right now my round trips, once I get back home I have about 60km (35%) remaining

If you have a warm garage at work it will increase the range. If not, wear your Canada Goose coat and turn off heating😬 and you have no OTHER problems even in -30C.
The car works even better than a petrol car in cold.

 

[Thebriggie]

But you can use the seat(s) and steering wheel heater quite happily as the draw on power is absolutely minimal using them. So warm backside warm hands and cold other bits.....🥶

Alan

 

[demick514]

If you have a warm garage at work it will increase the range. If not, wear your Canada Goose coat and turn off heating😬 and you have no OTHER problems even in -30C.
The car works even better than a petrol car in cold.

That's exactly what I was thinking 😅🤣

 

[DarrenB]

Here's a thought (possibly ). Do the USB's and lighter connector use the 12v battery instead of the main one? If so what about getting a plug in heater, then there will be no drain off the main battery

 

[Thebriggie]

Darren, yes. USB constant power with ittle power draw, cigarette lighter 12v only when the vehicle is switched on. It depends what the power draw the heater is demanding combined with the 12v batteries vehicle functions. You would have to ensure the power draw when the heater is in use does not have an effect on some key vehicle functions by drawing down too much power. Just a thought...if it was as simple as that do we not think manufacturers would have built it into their vehicles🤔

P.s looking at Amazon most of 12v heaters are just about OK to clear the windscreen but as strong as blowing into your hand for heating purposes

Alan

 

[Thebriggie]

The slight issue with Mazda is the fact that the car heater seems to draw off the ev batteries rather than the plugged in charger directly when preheating. Most of us have the car on a schedule of some kind to get cheaper rates so the power is not available anyway. If the car was intelligent enough to override the charge schedule and then took power directly from the inbuilt ac/dc charger then we could set a preheat schedule in the car setting for say 30 minutes before you left to warm you up or just remote switch on the heating without loss of range. Unfortunately any car ac or heating is a major draw on the batteries. Less so with the heat pump the MX30 has but a major draw nevertheless.

Alan

 

[Baz1964]

The slight issue with Mazda is the fact that the car heater seems to draw off the ev batteries rather than the plugged in charger directly when preheating. Most of us have the car on a schedule of some kind to get cheaper rates so the power is not available anyway. If the car was intelligent enough to override the charge schedule and then took power directly from the inbuilt ac/dc charger then we could set a preheat schedule in the car setting for say 30 minutes before you left to warm you up or just remote switch on the heating without loss of range. Unfortunately any car ac or heating is a major draw on the batteries. Less so with the heat pump the MX30 has but a major draw nevertheless.

Alan

Hi Alan, I'm on Octopus Go, so the low cost period starts at 12:30AM and runs to 4:30AM. With a 7KW home charger, I practically never use the whole four hours but my charging time is set from 12:30 AM to 8AM to make sure I get a full charge regardless of running over into peak charge period. On a few occasions, I found that when the pre-heating had been running for a while, the car was charging when I went out to it at 07:50 or 8AM, as it was still plugged in and as far as the overall system was concerned charging was available. I didn't do any deep analysis, but my take was that the pre-heat needed to run the battery down a few %tages before charging started again. Not sure if the trigger was a %tage battery drop from 100% to, for example 95%, or some sort of time based "Ping" check from the charger seeing the battery below 100%. I meant to have a deeper look at it but never got round to it, as with our usage the range drop from heating and so on wasn't really an issue.

 

[Thebriggie]

Baz, ditto re Octopus. Like yourself I have never deep dived the actual draw/charge scenario but I will give it a go one morning.

Alan

 

[seasidebaz]

It's written everywhere that the preheat will use mains electricity WHEN CHARGING. If its not charging it will draw from the battery.

 

[Thebriggie]

Seasidebaz, in truth it doesn't. It draws from the battery and tops up from the mains charger. I had this discussion with Mazda Europe and the power goes via the battery control unit and not directly to the heat pump. They said it did draw from the AC/DC charger but try it, as our friends in Norway have, and in reality it draws from the battery and tops up from the mains. I hope I can be proven wrong...please

Alan

 

[Thebriggie]

Mazda MX30 Cold battery and heating issues!

Well, here we are.....We have a 2019 Kona (64Kw) and today we bought a 100th Anniversary MX30, White with Maroon roof. We now have 2 cars at totally...

www.insideevsforum.com

Possible issue with the battery heater function

There have been reports from the Mazda MX-30 club on Facebook that indicate the batter heater is not working correctly. At least one car was towed to a dealer. It seems that the battery is getting so cold the car throws a error message saying "EV system Malfunction have the vehicle inspected"...

www.mx30forum.com

Alan

 

[Thebriggie]

Here is my experience this morning. Car at 100%, still connected to charger with power available, no schedule set etc. Remote started interior heating. Battery dropped from 100 to 98% during the process. Charger did not kick in. Stopped heating and dash read 98% charging complete. Had to unplug and plug back in for charger to start and charge the vehicle. Make of that what you will. Would someone else like to try it and tell us their experience?

Alan

 

[seasidebaz]

The point to note here is that your car wasn't charging - therefore the heating was powered by the battery irrespective of whether it is plugged in or not. If the heating had kicked in while active charging was still ongoing I believe it uses the mains - you should see the charge time remaining increase by a proportional amount

 

[Thebriggie]

Baz, that is the confusion and also the problem. Is the battery control unit splitting the DC from the charger between the battery and the heat pump or is it topping up the batteries whilst the heat pump draws down from them?

If you need the 100% range and you preheat why would the car not be designed to recognise that the power is available to go directly to the heat pump and leave the batteries alone because the current scenario reduces range until at some stage (unknown yet) the charger clicks in to top up the batteries. It did not click on to charge as I watched the % drop. You may have to leave immediately and not have time to wait for the top up. So in my mind the statement Mazda make about using mains power is confusing because it does not mention it has to be in charging state. Most people would have charged overnight anyhow so that kinda screws that.

Alan

 

[seasidebaz]

Couldn't tell you to be honest. You could try plugging into a >6.6kW charger and seeing if the draw goes up when climate is active, i pretty much exclusively use the 3-pin so can't check myself.

 

[Thebriggie]

Baz, that was on my 7kw charger. The green light was on at the charger and the car. The strange thing was when I stopped the heater at 98% the dash stated charge complete...and never kicked in until I unplugged, plugged it and it started charging to go above 98%. During that whole process I never got a charging indication within the car or on the app (plugged in not charging). I didn't have the patience to wait for the % to drop further to see if the charger clicked in. I have no idea what does what...its a baffler!

Alan

 

[VivaMazda]

Hey everyone
Got lucky and found a MX30 sitting on a lot at a dealer near me. Prior to buying I knew my range would be limited to around 160km. 1 week in I found straight highway I was getting around 135-140km out of it or with a little city combined around 170km. I'm in Montreal,Quebec so the winters get cold. Most info provided online is based upon -10°C . My daily commute is 110km (100 all highway), so right now I'm lucky to go to work and back & plug in at the end of the day but I know that won't be the case in the winter.... so My question is who has driven in canadian winters (or similar), what temperature and what range were you getting? Is the battery range going to decrease to 100 or lower ? View attachment 625

Canada is seriously cold in winter. As a former exchange student in Québec all too familiar with that. The south of Sweden seems almost Arabian in comparison.
100 km should not be a problem. Its a great car in winter you just need to charge it A LOT. If you are planning a Monte Carlo like race in minus 20 C you will not make it home. The great thing with the MX 30, and probably most EVs, is that it really respons if you slow down and chill driving wise.
Consumption goes way down. Sadly the opposite is also true.
Check out a range calculator on a German website below. Probably 116 km is in the right ball park.