I experimented with qualifying vs performance mode today doing multiple pulls. I like to drive in race mode manual. In low speed lower rev acceleration, I can't feel any difference between qualify and performance. At highway speeds, I think quality feels slightly faster as the engine revs to the top. Not entirely sure, could be placebo effect. My question is is there any downside in always drive in qualify mode? I don't really get the point of performance mode and I don't like the fact that it runs down half my battery. If my battery is full after a drive, then I'm pretty comfortable with not plugging the car in if I know I will drove it every 2-3 days at the least. I can't really find a scenario where performance mode offers noticeably more performance. So why not qualify all the time?
A According to the manual, the qualifying mode actually offers the best performance but uses more of the HV battery, resulting in this HV battery discharging more than it charges.
In practice, it's the exact opposite. Qualifying mode is by far the fastest way to charge up the battery. Seems even faster than hybrid "charge" mode. My sales guy didn't know that but most owners here seem to use qualifying to charge up their battery before going home. One thing I can think of is if qualifying pushes the battery harder, it could be more taxing on the battery? Rapid discharge/charge cycle might shorten lifespan? Isn't lithium life measured in number of charge/discharge cycles?
I drive mainly in performance, because I don’t need qualifying levels of power, don’t want the battery to be full all the time (which isn’t good for it) and if there’s a long downhill I can switch it to ev mode to let it regenerate brake down but works only if battery isn’t full. if there’s a way to limit it to 50% battery charge in qualifying then i probably wont use performance.
You maybe right that it's not good for the battery to be always full. But dealers tell everyone to keep the car plugged in in fear of people draining their batteries and get locked out. My car literally died at the dealership before I bought it and they lost the emergency key. Plugging in the car keeps battery always full, surely that can't be that bad?
The car has a inbuilt system that cycles the battery whilst on charge , that is why you need to have it plugged in
Do you live your life one quarter mile at a time? ... yes, im just messing with you. With the 296s tiny gas tank, I actually try to take advantage of the hybrid / eDrive to save a little gas and engine wear on the way home...for what its worth.
Agree with much of the above. 95% of my driving is qualifying/CT off. But then to save gas I'll sometimes put it in EV. It's also good to put a load on your battery before plugging it back in to charge every now and again. The hybrid and performance modes don't seem to fit any real need. I don't know about you guys but in hybrid mine just uses the battery until it hits the minimum charges up a bit then does it again with it always running it out of ev range. I would have thought that it would have balanced the battery use to maximize range with the engine and braking but mine certainly doesn't. As far as the suspension goes with the AF package, I've searched a bunch and asked the techs, no one seems to think the multimatic shocks offer any valve adjustments at all including changing mannetino settings. Mine seem fixed in all settings.
My observations are very much in line with all of you. I find performance gives you more electric boost at the beginning of throttle travel, whereas qualifying gives it more from around the ~40% of throttle travel point and then it really gives it. So in use, performance ends up depleting the battery fairly quickly, maybe after 5-7 miles, down to about 50% off the battery. Then what happens is the system has to maintain its state of charge, so it’s constantly reallocating power to keep the battery topped up. I dont like how this feels. It’s not as consistent as qualifying. At lower to medium revs, qualifying appears use some engine power to keep the battery always at 100%. This means the car feels like I need to rev it more, and it feels more natural (more like an ICE car, not an EV) when I do rev it. The electric boost comes on where Id want it to come on, a bit later, makes the revs more thrilling. And to be sure, there is some torque fill happening with the e motor at lower rpm, it’s just not as pronounced as with the performance mode. My guess is on a race track where you can keep the throttle pressed down for longer periods of time, you could deplete the battery in qualifying mode. But on the street, because the minute you come off the throttle, it’s slightly, nearly imperceptibly, charging up the battery, you never get it below its 100% state of charge. Its all very clever.
