Best practice for en route use in vehicles that do not support live data

[Lance Pickup]

Avid ABRP fan here.  I use it religiously with my Tesla Model 3 on road trips and feel confident in its use with my Tesla.

However, we took my wife's new ID.4 on a recent trip and it left me wondering about best practices in vehicles that do not support live data feeds (specifically SOC) while en route.  I have gotten used to monitoring the original predicted vs. current predicted arrival SOC.  The ID.4 does not appear to support live data feeds (via Tronity), at least in the US, at this time. 

I found that while in the app, the live en route display shows Planned SOC and Current SOC, and has up/down arrows around the Current SOC to adjust the current SOC manually.  In my head, this provides the desired functionality I have with my Tesla, albeit manually entered.  But there are a few problems.

First, adjusting the Current SOC one percent at a time is very cumbersome.  For a variety of reasons, the Current SOC is usually way off--either due to a bug or non-ideal functionality of the app with respect to the Planned SOC (sometimes the Planned SOC just makes no sense--i.e. sometimes it uses the live SOC from my Tesla for example, even though I have the car set to ID.4) meaning I have to hit the up/down arrow many, many times to get the correct SOC entered (I wish I could just click on the number and enter the SOC using my keypad).

Second though, adjusting the Current SOC doesn't seem to have the expected effect of re-calculating the arrival SOC.  I see the current SOC number going up to what I am setting it to in the elevation/trip graph (although it doesn't rescale the display, so the number just disappears off the top of the graph), but the arrival SOC doesn't change--and that's ultimately what I'm looking to see.  And as soon as I hit the Replan button, it goes back to the original Planned SOC value.  

I've found the only reliable way to do this is to go back to the settings, manually enter the Current SOC into the Starting SOC, and replan a new route from the Current Position to the original destination.  This works, but is fairly workload heavy, and I have to believe that the intent is that there is an easier way to do this.  Ideally, it would work a lot like how it does in my Tesla with a live data feed.  That is, during the trip, as my Current SOC drifts from the Planned SOC, the graph shows a second line with the updated estimate and estimated arrival SOC.

Am I not using the app as intended in this situation?  Is there a better way?

[Jason-ABRP]

This is exactly why we are not so enthusiastic about API support for non-Teslas.  For whatever reason, most car manufacturers have decided to leave any useful information out of their APIs.  At best you get very slowly-updated position and SoC, and at worst you get completely stale data while driving, which is precisely when you need updated information.

Using the on-screen adjustment buttons is the "right" way to do it, but it's cumbersome and takes your attention away from driving.  I would actually recommend using an OBD dongle like the OBDLink LX and EVNotify or some other app.  You'll get a much more Tesla-like experience without having to interact with the car screen. For what it's worth, I've used EVNotify with my ID.4, and it works well enough if you turn on the "run in the background" secret option (and disable the auto-termination of apps in the background).  This should be improved in future versions of the app.

Our eventual hope is that Android Auto opens up the same hooks to us that Android Automotive has (like you see in our Polestar 2 implementation), and the detailed driving data is immediately available when you plug your phone into the car / hook up to wireless.  Apple and CarPlay unfortunately haven't given any indications that this will be available in the future, but we can hope there too!

[Lance Pickup]

On my app, I use the MODE button to put it into Detailed mode, and then the top row of the detailed display shows Planned SOC and Current SOC.  There are DOWN and UP arrows to the left and right of the Current SOC that you can use to adjust the current SOC manually.  You do have to be in trip mode though, and not just looking at a proposed plan.

[Terje Oegema]

I also tried the UP and DOWN arrow in Detailed Mode during Trip.

Without pressing replan (or anything else) I also experience that after a little while after pressing the arrows the Current SOC seems to just jump back to Planned Soc. 

And never does the Arrive estimation change.

[Bill N]

As far as I’m aware, you are using it as intended but these are bugs, which I have also noticed occasionally. 
 

You’ve described them well, so hopefully @Jason-ABRP @Katya-ABRP @Samuel-ABRP and co can look into this ASAP and address it.

[Bill N]

9 hours ago, Jason-ABRP said:

Using the on-screen adjustment buttons is the "right" way to do it, but it's cumbersome and takes your attention away from driving.

I agree it can be cumbersome and potentially distracting. Maybe there are some refinements that could be made to the UI to make it easier to adjust the actual SoC on the move. Better still if it could be possible to also have the adjustment buttons on CapPlay / Android Auto.

My concern with the OBD route is that I just don’t see it ever becoming a mainstream thing that masses of people are going to do. Plus, it also isn’t always an option if people are hiring a car, using a work vehicle etc.

In my view, it would be good for the UI in the app to be improved so that manual and occasional updating of the SoC is easier. For example, perhaps the app could occasionally prompt the user to check and confirm or adjust the SoC, and then clearly indicate what the result of any adjustment was.

 

[Lance Pickup]

On 6/21/2021 at 5:52 PM, Jason-ABRP said:

I would actually recommend using an OBD dongle like the OBDLink LX and EVNotify or some other app.  You'll get a much more Tesla-like experience without having to interact with the car screen. For what it's worth, I've used EVNotify with my ID.4, and it works well enough if you turn on the "run in the background" secret option (and disable the auto-termination of apps in the background).  This should be improved in future versions of the app.

Whoa!  I hadn't even considered using an OBD2 link (too used to not needing it in the Tesla).  I called up my sister and got my OBD2 dongle out of the LEAF that I sold her (she didn't even know it was there, even though I told her what it was for at the time!), plugged it into the ID.4, and after some relatively simple setup and linking EVNotify and ABRP, it seems to work GREAT!  Even though we haven't actually headed out on our trip yet (we leave in a few hours), the live data in ABRP is working great (we were charging the car at the time, and this is clearly shown in ABRP).  Mind is blown.  Very nice job on this integration.  Looking forward to seeing how this all works on the trip, but no doubt this is a game changer compared to the previous trip we took.

This trip will be quite an adventure...over 1800 miles and going through a few areas that frankly are quite underserved in terms of charging stations.

[Lance Pickup]

As a followup, we successfully returned from our trip, and yes, having the OBD2 dongle and EVNotify made it SO much easier!  It did take me awhile to realize that I had to use the "secret" setting of EVNotify to keep it running in the background, but once I did that, it was more or less smooth.  I did occasionally have to restart EVNotify or ABRP to get them to communicate, but most of the time it just worked.  We did have a few glitches with charging stations along the way, but having live data and ABRP let us travel with confidence that we would at least make it to the charging stations.  This definitely is a must-have tool for EV drivers.

[Sam55]

On 6/21/2021 at 3:30 PM, Lance Pickup said:

Avid ABRP fan here.  I use it religiously with my Tesla Model 3 on road trips and feel confident in its use with my Tesla.

However, we took my wife's new ID.4 on a recent trip and it left me wondering about best practices in vehicles that do not support live data feeds (specifically SOC) while en route.  I have gotten used to monitoring the original predicted vs. current predicted arrival SOC.  The ID.4 does not appear to support live data feeds (via Tronity), at least in the US, at this time. 

I found that while in the app, the live en route display shows Planned SOC and Current SOC, and has up/down arrows around the Current SOC to adjust the current SOC manually.  In my head, this provides the desired functionality I have with my Tesla, albeit manually entered.  But there are a few problems.

First, adjusting the Current SOC one percent at a time is very cumbersome.  For a variety of reasons, the Current SOC is usually way off--either due to a bug or non-ideal functionality of the app with respect to the Planned SOC (sometimes the Planned SOC just makes no sense--i.e. sometimes it uses the live SOC from my Tesla for example, even though I have the car set to ID.4) meaning I have to hit the up/down arrow many, many times to get the correct SOC entered (I wish I could just click on the number and enter the SOC using my keypad).

Second though, adjusting the Current SOC doesn't seem to have the expected effect of re-calculating the arrival SOC.  I see the current SOC number going up to what I am setting it to in the elevation/trip graph (although it doesn't rescale the display, so the number just disappears off the top of the graph), but the arrival SOC doesn't change--and that's ultimately what I'm looking to see.  And as soon as I hit the Replan button, it goes back to the original Planned SOC value.  

I've found the only reliable way to do this is to go back to the settings, manually enter the Current SOC into the Starting SOC, and replan a new route from the Current Position to the original destination.  This works, but is fairly workload heavy, and I have to believe that the intent is that there is an easier way to do this.  Ideally, it would work a lot like how it does in my Tesla with a live data feed.  That is, during the trip, as my Current SOC drifts from the Planned SOC, the graph shows a second line with the updated estimate and estimated arrival SOC.

Am I not using the app as intended in this situation?  Is there a better way?

I'm using ABRP on my Kia Niro EV. I've tried the OBD 2 dongle but since I have an iPhone, I could not find any reader app that connects to ABRP so that I can get live SOC. I've been using the second method so far, i.e. updating the current SOC in the planner and replanning. I'm curious about this feature that lets you update the SOC on the screen. Is this a new feature? Can be done in CarPlay? I've tried tapping on the SOC in Carplay and I don't get any buttons to adjust it. What am I missing?