SteelBird
Colonel
My D9'SOC is also set at 70% Auto but it does not perform the way your D9 does. At city's stop and go speed, it allows battery to be used to as low as 18% then ICE kicks in. If I go at higher speed, like 60 to 100 km/h, the ICE will charge the battery at least up 30%.My D9 DMi doesn't go below 25% battery by default, the engine will kick in when it reaches 25% whether I'm in the 智能保电 (Auto) or 强制保电 (SAVE) modes. Unless I'm going over 120 km/h, the engine usually won't kick in as long as the battery is above 25% in 智能保电 mode.
The easy way to ensure you run the engine once in a while (like one tank per month) is to set 强制保电 (SAVE mode) at 70% battery once in a while. So the engine will run to keep it charged at 70%.
The engine will also run if it detects high gas vapor pressure in the gas tank per a 2024 OTA update.
Lol. Just do it! It has an engine so like an ICE vehicle, you need to run it periodically till the important first scheduled service so that oils and filters get changed. I got my D9 to 2500 km in HEV(engine) in the first six months.
Maybe you should consider trading it in for the EV version in your case. DMi is perfect for our use case of 500 km a week highway + 200 km city.
BTW, the latest OTA for D9 finally implements the Sentry mode that Denza had been promising for two years.
I know we should let gas engine run. However, I think that the vehicle can take care of the ICE automatically, it would be much better.