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Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

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Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not uncommon for people in Belgium to commute that far, especially in software.

Sure, there will be groups of people who are doing that. But to commute 200km a day? That will be something like 0.0001% of all workers, I cannot imagine it's any more than that.

You'd be surprised. Belgium is weird. Lots of companies in Brussels, which is central in Belgium. And lots of people commute in. Every day, going and coming back.

The freeways are clogged every morning going towards Brussels and every evening leaving Brussels.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#182

For occasional commutes, 115km one way is ok (not for me, but it's not unthinkable). But 115km each way (230km round trip) 5 days per week is a problem. We should not be doing this, at least not in individual cars. That electric car is still creating a lot of particulate pollution from the tires on the road, not to mention its contribution to general traffic. The focus should be on how to reduce the commute distance…

> So much of our intellectual and financial energy seems to be directed toward overclocking the horse and buggy I don't personally think it's realistic to expect everybody/all people (who mainly work for a living/work hard) to ask them to give up the luxury of spending their hard earned money on being able to transport themselves (to and from their job) in something other than the comfort of their own car. I think yo…

> I don't personally think it's realistic to expect everybody/all people (who mainly work for a living/work hard) to ask them to give up the luxury of spending their hard earned money on being able to transport themselves (to and from their job) in something other than the comfort of their own car

Societies don't need to ask citizens to choose a given mean of transport; they can route their choices them by making some means more convenient and other ones less.

Increasing car costs and reducing lanes/streets/parkings, while making the public transport more frequent/extensive/comfortable, will make citizens choose public transport (or more sustainable means) themselves.

On the other hand, when cities are developed (in certain cultures or at least areas) with private transport in mind, and it can be hard or impossible to redesign for public transport.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#183
post #158
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are driving an hour both ways every day in a cold climate, yeah, EV probably isn't the right fit for another couple of years. It's also an extreme end of usage. I imagine that a large portion of those people in a rural community don't drive more than 60 miles a day. It is also why the average commute per a person is not 125 miles but substantially less in the US. For reference, 125 miles is about Louisville, K…

125 miles is nothing in the US. It's not about commuting, it's about road trips to the next city, the next state. Sure most people are not doing that every day but they are doing that a few times a year to visit friends, family, and for business. And then what? Meticulouly planning your charges and timing your breaks? or taking a bus or a plane? If you've just spent $50,000 on an EV I would imagine you want to drive…

It's the range between charging stops, not the range until you abandon the car and walk.

With the current 800V battery tech you need to spend 20-30 minutes charging per 2-3 hours of driving. It's not as fast as a pee-in-the-bottle cannonball run, but only about 10% slower than a normal ICE car trip time.

Check out actual times with https://abetterrouteplanner.com with a fast-charging car like a recent Tesla model or Kia EV6/Ioniq 5/GV60.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#184
post #7

Author first assumes that only 60% of the available battery capacity is used (80% > 20%) and then arrives at the conclusion that the range is lower than expected. Well, no shit. I personally do charge my Ioniq BEV to 100%, and I often drive it to, say, 6%. In summer, I get a range of 220km, and in winter 160-180km, depending on temperature and number of cold starts (cold starts seem to trigger a battery warm-up). SOH…

What do you do when you arrive at the charger with 6% battery left and the charger doesn’t work? Or if there’s a significant queue?

What do you do if your gas gauge is on E and the only gas station in the small town you're in is closed?

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to have the one pedal driving enabled to reap the benefits. In all EVs and PHEVs you brake with the electric motors first even when using the actual pedal - normal brakes are engaged only past a certain threshold. Also to give a personal anecdote, in my Volvo XC60 PHEV, I've just had the inspection done and after 24k miles the brake pads are 5% worn. That's insane for a 2.2 tonne SUV with 400bhp. If it…

> you brake with the electric motors first This is not true. At least for Teslas, the brake pedal only controls the friction brakes (they are hydraulically coupled). Same with a Chevy bolt. Unsure on other EVs

Yes, Tesla is an outlier in the EV business. They only have one-pedal driving with regen or fully friction braking with the brake pedal. That is not true of the Chevy Bolt.

Almost every other EV (and hybrid) on the market does blended regen with the brake pedal. Regen is applied when you first press on the brake pedal. As long as the pressure is mild to moderate, regen is used. If you press hard (as in emergency braking) the friction brakes are engaged. When you get below about 10mph the friction brakes are also applied as regen is minimal at that speed. The result is that these cars will do regen whether you are using one pedal driving or not and their brakes will wear much less often.

I’m not sure why Tesla doesn’t do blended regen. Early one the manufacturers didn’t have the algorithms tuned and you could feel the transitions but that has not been the case for several year. It seems that Tesla just never bothered. They seem to expect you to only use one-pedal driving and some people do.

One think to watch for if you only use one-pedal driving, your friction brake pads can get rusty from disuse. Then when you do press on the brake pedal, the brakes may grab or may not decelerate as quickly as expected. Some people find that their brake pads are actually frozen from rust and don’t work at all. It is a good idea to once in a while use those friction brakes to scrub off the surface rust.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#186
post #42

For occasional commutes, 115km one way is ok (not for me, but it's not unthinkable). But 115km each way (230km round trip) 5 days per week is a problem. We should not be doing this, at least not in individual cars. That electric car is still creating a lot of particulate pollution from the tires on the road, not to mention its contribution to general traffic. The focus should be on how to reduce the commute distance…

> That electric car is still creating a lot of particulate pollution from the tires on the road And brake dust, which includes a lot of metal

Almost all EVs that are not Teslas, use blended regen with the brake pedal. When you press on the brakes, regen is used for light to moderate braking and the friction brakes only come into play on hard braking. Most EVs product little brake dust and their brakes last a long time due to this regen. Teslas are the anomaly here.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So much of our intellectual and financial energy seems to be directed toward overclocking the horse and buggy I don't personally think it's realistic to expect everybody/all people (who mainly work for a living/work hard) to ask them to give up the luxury of spending their hard earned money on being able to transport themselves (to and from their job) in something other than the comfort of their own car. I think yo…

> I don't personally think it's realistic to expect everybody/all people (who mainly work for a living/work hard) to ask them to give up the luxury of spending their hard earned money on being able to transport themselves (to and from their job) in something other than the comfort of their own car Societies don't need to ask citizens to choose a given mean of transport; they can route their choices them by making som…

> Societies don't need to ask citizens to choose a given mean of transport; they can route their choices them by making some means more convenient and other ones less.

I'm reading that as, "we don't need to ask, we can just make them do it." Which to me is pretty arrogant.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#188
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And their increased weight makes them much harsher on roads than normal cars. They wear down roads faster, and I suppose they also produces more particle pollution than normal car for this reason.

Threads like this read like EVs are double or more the weight of an ICE car. EVs are a couple hundred pounds heavier in average than an equivalent ICE car. In terms of road wear, it's still a rounding error compared to industrial trucks.

Yeah turns out an electric drive train is much lighter than a gasoline one which offsets the battery weight somewhat. Gasoline engines aren't light, nor are the transmissions. Currently I think the weigh penalty is about 15-20%.

My guesstimate is if they can increase the energy density of batteries by 30-50% the weight penalty will disappear. Some of the reduction is the weight reduction of the battery and some is due to cascading effects on the rest of the car.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, there will be groups of people who are doing that. But to commute 200km a day? That will be something like 0.0001% of all workers, I cannot imagine it's any more than that.

You'd be surprised. Belgium is weird. Lots of companies in Brussels, which is central in Belgium. And lots of people commute in. Every day, going and coming back. The freeways are clogged every morning going towards Brussels and every evening leaving Brussels.

I can believe the motorways are clogged, it's a capital city after all - but who lives 100km away from their workplace, and why? I knew someone who did this in Germany, but his argument has always been that actually, this is "only" 30-60 minutes away on the autobahn depending on conditions(which I still think was nuts), but from what you're saying people accept 2-3 hours per day(!!!!) In a car just to get to work? That's nuts, and again, I really doubt it's common in any way shape or form.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#190
post #49

My experience with EVs (Teslas): EVERYDAY CITY DRIVING - I drive whenever I need or want, without ever worrying about range. If I notice the expected range has dipped below ~60 miles, give or take, I plug it in at home at the end of my day. I'm delighted that I never have to go to a gas station, which reeks of all that smelly/poisonous/explosive stuff. LONG TRIPS - I charge to 100% the night before, get on the road,…

I'm not sure I agree that 325mi is a long trip. I used to live in FL and you can drive more than 600mi and stay in the state. I now live in Texas where that number jumps to about 900mi. I'm sure in California it's at least 500mi. EVs can be great if your commute is less than 30mi one way, but that doesn't make them good for road trips. At least in the US.

325 miles is a long trip to drive IMO. My threshold for when a road trip is "long" is 250 miles.

As for commuting, your 30 miles number is way low. Even if you accepted this article's ridiculously low 50% as true, most modern EVs (think 300 mile range) would still be fine for a commute that's 75 miles each way even with no charging at work. And that's way further than most people commute (to put it in perspective, living in Philadelphia and commuting to Manhattan would be 75 miles each way).

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