Efficiency - Is this normal? And any tips?

[BigSimon]

I drove my brand new Enyaq 85 off the forecourt this week, and I have to say, it's an absolute joy to drive.
However, in the 3 days I've had it, I've only done 95 miles, almost all of which were under 60mph in ECO mode (not too hilly, going easy on the pedal, and cabin target temp set to 16C), but the percentage charge shown has already dropped from 98% to 58%.
At this rate, this would give me a 100% range of only 164m - or about 2.2m/kWh.
It's currently showing an estimated range of 182 miles, but I've read that you can't really trust this until it has at least 300 miles of usage data to go on.

Admittedly, it has got a bit colder outside - about 6C, which I know affects efficiency, but is there anything else I can do to maximise efficiency?

I'm a little confused over this notion of pre-heating the car to improve battery efficiency. Isn't this offset by the power used to do the heating?
On the Skoda website, they seem to contradict themselves, saying yes - preheat to boost efficiency, and then somewhere else they recommend turning off the climate control altogether to boost range.

Also, is ECO mode always more efficient than trying to fine tune the regen levels manually?

Should ECO be used in the D or B setting?

I was hoping the full initial charge at the garage would see me through to the installation of my Ohme wall charger next week, but this is now looking doubtful, so any tips or advice would be gratefully received

[Dav00]

Uhm, it's an 85 so different software from my 80.
With the 80 and the old software, I have noticed and reported here that range collapses just around the temperature you mentioned. My understanding is that the software version on the 85 has resolved that issue but there aren't many 85s around yet and, to be honest, I'd not be surprised if Cariad/Skoda have failed again.

Anyway, trying to stay positive:
a) Range: the range prediction is generally speaking reliable in the Enyaq but with only 95 miles, it should be taken with a pinch of salt.
b) consumption: 2.2m/kWh seems a bit low and there may be various reasons, depending on the scenarios. Are you doing short trips with the car (battery) cold? Also, have you got heat pump? Asking because in similar situations, I noticed the performance going down and it's not the Enyaq sweet spot.
Edit: just to clarify, this seems to be related more to time since start than actual distance, e.g. it's cold, the car (battery) is cold, you drive only a few mins, then maybe stop and go to off and re-start after a while, etc. The system doesn't have enough time to reach the optimal temperature and consumption&range are affected. Once it gets there, which doesn't necessarily take long, performance improves significantly. This is virtually unavoidable unless you preheat battery and car before leaving.

c) Eco/Auto: in my experience, for urban trips yes.

d) in my experience B is better. If you have never driven electric before, it may take a while to familiarise, but not too much because it's not a real iPedal feature.

e) preheating: there is another thread about that but the short answer here is not that simple. One thing is preheating/conditioning the battery, another is pre-heating/conditioning the vehicle (air, seats, steering wheel). You get the most of out the battery when it's within a certain temperature range, so if the software works well, the answer is no, not offset. But see my first point above.
If you watch this short video, you can get some info about how the system works:

[Deleted User 2446]

We got our 85 edition 3 days ago and have done about 350 miles. Ours has a heat pump.

First few days with temperatures around 11’C it was reporting 380mile range that dropped to 330 eventually. This was higher than I expected.

Yesterday was our first long trip ~180 one way, temperature around 5’C and torrential rain for first 40 miles. Mostly motorway with travel assist on doing 70. This is giving a reported range of about 260 which is what I was roughly expecting. Usage started off at about 2.7m/kw and then went up to average of 3.2 by end of the 180 miles. Car was fully loaded with two adults, 2 kids 20’c for me and 23’,c passenger side.

[Aragorn]

As above, theres what i like to call a "departure tax". When you set off it uses a bunch of energy to heat up the cabin etc. As a result the start of every trip the consumption is much higher. If you do a single long journey of 90 miles you will use far less energy than 10 trips of 9 miles each. You should bear in mind this is also no different to an ICE car. If i drive to the shops in my ICE, it'll average about 15mpg. If i drive to work the trip average is more like 35mpg.

Preheating from the mains means your not using the battery to provide that pre-heating energy, and thus it reduces the impact on range. The energy still needs to come from somewhere though, and day time electricity is expensive, so its not typically worth doing unless for comfort reasons.

Drive modes are a personal preference thing. Personally i disable eco-assist as i really hate the variable regen. I like the throttle pedal to be consistent when i lift off. I then use sport mode which defaults to level 2 regen which i find is a nice balance. Level 3(or B mode) is too aggressive.

My commute is around 45miles each way. In this weather i'm typically averaging 2.6-2.9mi/kwh over that journey depending on the exact weather, driving at motorway speeds.

[BigSimon]

Hey, many thanks for your responses, Dav00, EnyaqAndy, and Aragorn. It's really useful to get tips informed by some real-world experience!

I think the main problem is that, as you correctly guessed, Dave, we're mostly doing lots of short trips with a cold battery, and no, I didn't go for the heat pump.

Having said that, the efficiency seems to be creeping up a bit now, so I'll continue to experiment and maybe report back in a few weeks.
Cheers

[RichR]

Agreed - if you do journeys of under 20 minutes, you'll never get great efficiency. But once the cabin and battery are warmed up, you can sit at 70mph on cruise control on the motorway with climate control set to something sensible for hundreds of miles and often attain 3.5 mi/kWh in winter (or over 4.0 in summer if the aircon isn't working too hard), In my experience, the Enyaq's pretty good on long constant (or almost constant) speed journeys. Start-stop with lots of acceleration and braking isn't great for efficiency in any car, EV or ICE, so getting away from towns, junctions and traffic lights is key.

[Dav00]

we're mostly doing lots of short trips with a cold battery

Not a permanent issue, though. The optimal temperature range is relatively low and fairly close to external temp. Fair enough, higher than winter min, but it's not like an engine in an ICE working at very high temperatures. Don't know the exact details for the batteries in an 85 but you usually see references to a range like 15-30 degrees for EV batteries, just to give an idea.
In a few days, with the min temp going up in a stable way, the battery would be naturally in/very close to the optimal range, you'll see performance going up massively.

[Ken3966]

If you are charging at home ideally off peak and doing lots of short trips don’t worry about it.
The costs if you are say on 7.5p a kWh-
At 2.2m per kW is 3.4p a mile for your short trips
At 3.2m per kW is 2.34p a mile for a long trip

A 10 mile trip costs you 34p, 9 of them is £3.06

A 90 mile trip in one go is £2.10

If you are doing short trips each day you will never run out of range so don’t bother with eco or worry about heating car using electric. It is so much cheaper than an ice car just enjoy it!

The only time I worry about eco driving is if I will need to recharge away from to get back again as that is around 10 times the cost or more unless you pay a monthly subscription to get it cheaper.

[comment23]

Maybe I’m missing something but 98 miles with a SoC falling from 98% to 58% is 98miles for 40% battery. At that rate a full battery would get you around 245 miles, not the 164m miles calculated in the OP. With around 77kWh usable capacity, that’s 3.2 mi/kWh. Not amazing efficiency but sounds pretty standard to me.

Either way, after a few months of being electric, I found my mindset changed from the old ICE way of thinking and I no longer work on ‘full tanks’ and instead have developed the habit of little and often. Possibly similar to how you might use your phone.

[spinna1969]

If you are charging at home ideally off peak and doing lots of short trips don’t worry about it.
The costs if you are say on 7.5p a kWh-
At 2.2m per kW is 3.4p a mile for your short trips
At 3.2m per kW is 2.34p a mile for a long trip

A 10 mile trip costs you 34p, 9 of them is £3.06

A 90 mile trip in one go is £2.10

If you are doing short trips each day you will never run out of range so don’t bother with eco or worry about heating car using electric. It is so much cheaper than an ice car just enjoy it!

The only time I worry about eco driving is if I will need to recharge away from to get back again as that is around 10 times the cost or more unless you pay a monthly subscription to get it cheaper.

Like the summary, useful thanks.
I’ve been thinking when analysing kw charged versus kw used to charge and so I’m concluding we should be adding circa 10% to the price per mile figures to compensate for the losses while AC charging. I do believe it takes about 33kw of charge to increase SOC by 30kw. AC charging has losses on the conversion to DC, while I assume rapid DC doesn’t have as large losses.
Happy to be corrected.