Range Dropped Since New
 

I took delivery of my RZ in July, and when I was fully charging with home charger the total range indicated I could drive 220 - 225 miles at full charge (without accessories on). Since then, I've noticed that when fully charged, the range indicator says I can go a total of 198 miles (without accessories on).

Any thoughts on why this dropped by about 10%? Would outside temps have anything do do with this? I'm in Seattle, and the temps in July were about 75F, and in winter we are seeing about 40-50F during daytimes.

I think that in the 75 degree period after your RZ delivery that the AC had to do very little work to keep you comfortable. Cooling to 72 degrees inside the cabin is only 3 degrees. Now in your 40 degree winter the battery has to raise inside temperature to 72. It uses more energy to raise the temperature by 32 degrees than to lower it by 3 degrees. The range program is adjusting to your winter driving need for more energy for cabin heat , leaving less battery energy available for propelling the RZ down the road, and a shorter estimated range.

The reality is that if you do any kind of highway/freeway driving, the algorithm that powers the guess-o-meter will dramatically drop your range. We live in Los Angeles and have a pretty even mix of both city/highway driving and have not seen any numbers above the low 160 range since the first month of ownership. Considering it was cited as the 196 miles being combined city/highway, this is quite unacceptable and had we have known, we probably wouldn’t have purchased this vehicle.

Don’t get me wrong, we absolutely love this car, but it was already on the low end of acceptable range for most people. Losing almost 40 miles, makes it harder and harder to justify this purchase.

Rumor is that the software update that they pushed out to the Toyota and Subaru owners, is heading to Lexus. That should help some by unlocking some of the reserve battery. Until then, get used to charging a lot.

Does the RZ have a heat pump? If not there will be a big hit in range in cold weather.

I've been doing more research on the milage drop since we took delivery. As I noted in my original post, I've been doing apples to apples comparison with the Lexus "guesstimate-o-meter" for milage. When we took delivery we could get around 220 miles on the meter (WITHOUT airconditioning or heating on). And, it was about 180 miles total range when we turned ON any of the cabin heating / cooling. During that time the average outside temps in Seattle were about 70 - 75 degrees. Now, in the winter, the outside temps average around 40-50 degrees and the "guess-o-meter" says we can only go about 190 miles (without any cabin heating / cooling on, and about 150 miles total range WITH the cabin heating / cooling on. Driving habits have remained stable, as well as the mix of highway and city driving.

I'm beginning to think the outside temps have much to do with the range estimate drops. I get the drop because of turning on the heat etc., but I compared all read outs in an apple to apple comparison, and it appears the batteries use more energy in the colder outside climate.

I'm not sure this is will pass a scientific review, but I'm interested if anyone else has found outside climate temps has impacted range (WITHOUT any cabin heating / cooling on).

This is well known from your description it looks like the RZ doesn't have a heat pump (causing a big drain when you heat the cabin).
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars...e-a4873569949/

Never trust the GoM. Only % matters and even then I still think it's heavily padded (top & bottom buffers).

The GoM never seems to take anything into account when the HVAC is on. It seems to be a fixed % hit regardless of how hard it has to work.

And, it looks like it does have a heat pump (UK article though):

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/lexus/rz/driving

After nearly 5-months of ownership … and driving mostly around town to run errands, and rarely exceeding 55moh … I decided to charge up to 100% to see what I’d get. And this is what I ended up with (fwiw I usually charge to not more than 80% based on recommendations to preserve battery life and end up with about 180/220/80%). And I always have the HVAC running.


https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.clu...0491f67d31.png

are you sure Lexus allows you to charge to 100%? I saw a video that said most manufacturers have the software set up to only expose 80% of battery capacity as if it were 100%.