Postby ChrisB » Sun Oct 31, 2010 10:44 am
PART 2
Another report on the Citroen C1 EV'ie converted by ECC.
So its been a few months since my last report and the little C1 has been in use as a works pool car for the whole of the time, while it doesn’t get a huge amount of use it does get taken out I would say once a week from looking at the logs.
So after having the C1 for a whole weekend a week or so back I was able to enjoy its fruits a little more.
Firstly I found that the regen turns on the brake lights when you take your foot off the throttle which is a nice touch, although the regen is still way too feeble to actually make any difference to slowing you down, so its a bit pointless in it turning on the brake lights I feel and as in my last report means you end up having to use the brakes far too much.
I tracked down the funny rattling which again was in my first report, this I'm sure is the large sheet of carbon fibre under the bonnet which shields the battery pack, its only secured in a few places and thus I think its this that "twangs" when you go over bumps.
So having the chance to pretty much compare it directly with the Berlingo made for a very interesting comparison.
Initially I had thought the C1 was quicker off the mark and generally out performed the Berlingo quite easily, but this was not actually the case. I even got my wife to drive the Berlingo and on a short bit of private road and we did a side by side acceleration test and even with nearly 250kg of stuff in the rear of the van it still easily kept up with the C1 to 20mph and was just edging ahead, I suspect if the van was empty it would have very easily romped over the C1, although when you drive the C1 you feel its actually quicker. I’m thinking because the C1 is smaller than the van it gives you the impression its quicker and faster. Its hard to say if its quicker in the mid range or top end as the private road wasn’t long enough for those sort of tests, but I would love to have tried, also to have tested it with the Berlingo empty.
Range testing was another biggy on my list of things to do, as my first trip out in the C1 seemed fairly disappointing with a range of around 40 miles to 25%, but then that was with two people in the C1, one not being an EV driver and also we did a fair amount of high speed 50+mph travel. So Saturday was time to do some hyper mile’ing. The BMS has been looked at since my last drive and was now showing 100% after each charge so after a over night charge off I went. Sticking to just A and B roads and never exceeding 40mph and being careful not accelerate hard either, the miles rolled by, 10…..20….30….and the capacity meter dropped fairly normally as it had done before. It wasn’t long before I was approaching the 25% eco mode area and at 48miles I was in it and limited to 30mph. I had hoped that I was going to get more considering how ultra careful I was being, in fact it was painfully careful driving that had been carried out over the last couple of hours. Bearing in mind the “claimed” range is 60miles I had hoped for better given the fact I’d been so careful. Anyhow it was only at 25% and so I thought there’s a good chance of making the 60mile mark, I was close to home by then so continued pottering around the streets. At 16% I’d eeked out another 5miles making a grand total of 53miles and it was at this point I pulled into my drive and popped it on charge.
So, would it have made the claimed 60mile mark?? I had 16% energy left so may be if I had continued to 0% I might have just squeezed 60miles from it, but being they are Li-ion batteries and knowing how fragile they can be if you over discharge them I decided not to go further at this stage.
The whole range issue had surprised me, I had hoped for great things, being a regular EV driver and understanding how to drive an EV, I had hoped to report back that I had managed not only the 60miles but well exceeded them, even possibly making 70+ miles with careful driving. This was just not the case, I’d not even made the 60mile mark and it looked unlikely unless I ran it to 0% I would have.
Its odd as it seems it doesn’t matter how you drive it the energy gauge seems to drop almost at the same rate or there abouts, yet I know doing 50mph is using far more power than say 30-35mph. The missing instantaneous energy meter in the C1 bugs me a lot, you just have no idea how hard your working things, also the whole forward reverse gearshift that I previously wrote about is very clunky in use and just does not feel natural.
On the Sunday I took the little C1 to the “Green power races” at Goodwood along with my Berlingo which my wife drove which also contained my EVT4000E electric scooter and two folding bikes, the trip was about 20miles and upon arrival I checked both the vans and the C1’s energy meters, the van showed 67% and the C1 was already at 65%. Now bearing in mind the van had around 250kg of payload in the back and someone who doesn’t regularly drive EV’s I felt the van was doing wonders and looked like it would easily out perform the C1’s range if tested, my best to date range in the van has been 63.5miles but I regularly push 50+ from it.
The C1 attracted a fair amount of attention on the day although I have to say the Tesla it was parked next to was lovely, and to think that has the range of 200-250miles makes the poor little C1 very sad by comparison, although it is over 5 times cheaper.
This time sadly we were unable to take the vehicles on to the track, which was a shame, but we did have a means of charging thanks to Terry Harding working with the organisers and I felt this years display area was much better. Maybe one year we will be able to have both charging AND track time.
Driving home was uneventful and upon my arrival back I duly plugged the little C1 back into the mains as I was by now approaching the 25% mark and they make it very clear in the manual you MUST recharge the vehicle ASAP, the van on the other hand with its tough as old boots NiCads was parked to one side and from memory it didn’t see the mains until several days later. One of the nice things about the Berlingo and its NiCads is the fact they just don’t seem to be at all fussy as to when you charge them.
I drove the C1 back to work early Monday morning and carried out one last test, which was to drive the 17miles with the heater on full blast, it was also quite a cold morning, also the trip was with a 12mile stretch of dual carriage way, so I sat it at 50mph and with the heater on and watched the energy meter. 17miles later and it read 67% almost no difference to when I drove it very carefully or during the trip to Goodwood. I was expecting to chew the range up significantly with the heater blasting out hot air but this just didn’t seem to be the case. The percentage charge indicator is a mystery to me now, its like it has very little actual bearing on the battery capacity but is just a timed percentage indicator, I’m sure its not but that’s how I feel it reacts.
So in summery…….. is it still the great little car that I felt it was in my initial report, from a personal point of view sadly its not. I had hoped for great things range wise with its modern Li-ion batteries and AC drive, this just was not the case, in fact its got no better or even slightly worse range than my Berlingo which to me is crazy, here is a vehicle that is using better technology, better batteries yet it doesn’t appear to perform any better than one 12years its elder.
However I would still say it’s a very able little car and considering there’s still nothing else really on the market currently I think its ideally suited to someone new to EV’s as it really is just plug and play. It doesn’t matter how you really drive it, thus less for the average Joe in the street to worry about, the range of the vehicle is very similar. For a little over 12K (with Government subsidy) its not bad, but I do have to wonder how it will fair when things like the Nissan Leaf makes it to market, ECC will have to up their game or reduce their prices if they still want people to buy the little C1.
I’ll carry out another report in 6mths time or so.
I reject reality and substitute my own !!!!!!
so I suspect with me driving alone the range would easily make 50miles plus, but I cant be sure until I take it out next time.
although I'm unsure at this stage how much but rumors are it will be the full £5k I think 
