So Charging A 296, Let's Discuss

My technician told me to plug in the car whenever it is possible. I have it charged all the time when it sits in the garage. I have done 7000 km during the past 5,5 months and not encoutered any issue so far.

 

Too make this easy. If you drive every day or even every 3-4 days you do not need to plug it in as it will recharge when you drive. If you plan on letting your car sit for say 5 or more days definately plug it in to a 110 outlet or you may find your car does not start

 

I am new to hybrid/ev so it has been an interesting experience. I got to this thread mainly because I am not seeing battery being charged much while driving and wondered what's the expected behavior. I read it that one should use qualify mode so battery is topped off often. Otherwise my experience has been no charge in performance mode and drains battery completely in hybrid mode, lol! I'll play with qualifying mode for sure. I suppose as soon as battery is drained in eDrive mode it will turn to other mode where engine will kick in.

 

In performance mode you should recharge up to 7/8miles...
If it doesn't do it. You have an issue.

 

Thanks!! So safe to say that in performance mode it would charge to about 50%. No charging if already above. I'll be paying some attention on charging behavior at different level of battery charges then. Things are surely a bit complicated in this new era of UI.

 

If you take the car fully charged (15 miles) and you drive on perf mode... It will go down to 8miles after some time.

 

my 296 always charges back up to 100%

 

Ok interesting... Not mine on performance mode. Anyway.. I drive usually on Qualif

 

FWIW, this what the power draw looks like when plugged in:

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So to follow up on my own, indeed the observations matched what everyone says. It you want to fully charge battery, drive in qualifying mode. The performance mode keeps battery charged about 60% or so. In Hybrid mode it’s charged only when needed and will use up all battery power.

So basically we want to drive in Qualifying mode unless when I am sneaking in/out of neighborhood early in the morning or late at night


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It seems like performance mode is useless. EV, hybrid, qualy. That’s all that’s necessary.

 

Will Qualifying mode allow access to the full 810 HP when called upon? I don't have my 296 yet, but I was under the impression from my demo drive that to get the full power, you need to be in performance mode. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Qualifying mode is full beans.

 

This is what I do having had a 100% depletion of the hybrid battery which leaves the car unusable.

Drive the last 'n' miles home in qualifying mode to get the hybrid battery charged to 100%. Use the App to monitor hybrid charge and drive the car or place on charge when it drops below a % you feel is right for you, in my case around 20%.

If you live in a house/area where there are power cuts or brown outs only use the cable based charging for the minimum amount of time to get to 100% whilst you are present and disconnect the cable ASAP if either occur. This is what happened to me, a power cut, and the car was trying very hard to give all the hybrid power back to the house and died.

I am told this is either an issue with the charger or car – many modern EVs are designed to be part of a home battery storage array and this behaviour is "desirable" if known about and configured appropriately. I was given no information to if this behaviour could be switched off or if the charger could be changed, etc.

Be interested to know if anybody else has experienced the same or been told the same by their dealer.

 

What do you owners do if you want to go on a vacation in your 296 and end up staying in hotels with no readily accessible power supply? Do you have to start it up and run it in Qualifying every coupe of day just to keep it alive? Sounds like a very compromised system for real world use.

 

I should have added to my earlier post, I find the hybrid stays charged for 3-5 weeks, eg I am at 51% after 18 days of not driving. YMMV depending on ambient temperature.

 

As explained previously from experience the car will retain charge in the hybrid HV battery for up to 3 weeks when unplugged losing a few % max per day. Even with minimal charge it can be started with the petrol engine and driven to charge the battery or plugged in at that point. The manual says it can be charged from public chargers if necessary but you will need to buy the correct cable

 

How to store for winter?

All the time plugged-in (wall socket so no fast charger)?

 

Unfortunately yes plugged in afaik. Do not let it drain all the way as we all know that significantly affect battery health and do that enough times you are voiding warranty. I recall there’s a letter about taking points if not plugged in for some time when not driven.


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Just thought I'd chime in here because there are some odd comments that were pretty confusing for me when I'd just bought the car and wanted to know about chargng, the modes and so on.

My car at least defaults to Hybrid when I set off and I reverse and maneuvre in full electric from the get go (I don't get the warning shown in the SF90 video at all - or at least I haven't yet anyway). However I have found that using it like this is o...k but with the engine being off it is stone cold. When I start it on the move the experience isn't great, gear changes are lumpy and the engine is too cold to run freely. I guess it would be OK to get up to a constant speed and start it at that point though. However, I strongly recommend running the car immediately in performance or qualify and letting it warm up to the point where the idle drops to about 1k before setting off.

Performance mode charges and discharges the battery more gently. I'm pretty sure the manual recommends this mode for normal driving but I double checked and I can't find the reference now. Even if you have a fully charged battery the mode will dump battery until it hits around 60%. Performance mode provides "limited" electical power and a dealer told me it was a reduction of about 30hp.

Qualify mode gives you maximum electrical power, maximum battery charge, maximum recuperation and maximum discharge rates. Pretty sure the manual does not recommend this mode to be used all the time but I can't find where I read that. If you use qualify you will always arrive at the destination with 100% battery.

Overall - even though I can't put my hands on where I read about using performance mode normally there would be no point in it at all if it didn't reduce the stress on the electrical system and improve life.

Charging: My experience so far has been that the car can be left for a few days off charge without any problems. I tend to load the app up to make sure it's ok. 12v battery usually reads about 11.8v. Because I tend to use performance mode generally my battery is usually at around 60%. It is interesting that charging externally always ends up with the car at 100%. This goes against using performance mode and, having owned EVs, you tend not to charge them to 100% because the batteries don't like it.

If the roads are clear and I want the performance I switch into qualify mode. My one annoyance with this is the touch controls which make it so much harder than it should be. Would have made more sense to switch the manettinos around or just have proper buttons!

 

If you park the car in long term parking mode it typically keeps the battery in "maintaining" mode @ 75% for me. Otherwise I see the same, ie it gets to 100%

 

awesome post. looks like ill be in qualify most of the time. lol

 

Clearly I need to read the manual more. How does one perform that feat of wizardry?

 

The car just started doing it, ie I saw the "long term parking" message come up on the dash and then confirmed in the app.

I must read the manual end to end at some stage, but such a PITA there is no PDF version!

 

I find that performance mode drains the battery. I start with 15 miles, run in performance mode and it goes down to 10 or 11 fairly fast. It only seems to charge when coasting or braking. However in Qualifying mode, it charges right up. It charges when driving at normal city speeds. I'm not sure why the manual says performance mode charges the battery when in my experience only qualifying mode does.