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Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

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Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#171

Post by seanmcdirmid »

bluecalm wrote: post #167
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t you rather want to compare manually operating a bicycle to an electric bicycle? They’ve basically taken over China for more than a decade now, so it’s not like they are uncommon.

E-bikes are fine. My point was that bikes are not very efficient because of shitty aerodynamics. A light, low and narrow electric vehicle would be more efficient and more palatable to a lot of people than bikes.

Bikes aren’t typically going at speeds where aerodynamics is very relevant. Even E-bikes, maybe e-motorcycles have that problem?

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#172

Post by therealdrag0 »

landemva wrote: post #131
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EVs do much better in stop and go traffic. I wouldn’t be surprised if some even exceeds EPA range estimates in those cases.

USA traffic engineers love stop lights which force idling. Fortunately some European tech to stop/start the engine is arriving in USA. In isolated cases, some USA intersections are being converted to traffic circles. Installation of new stop lights should require a giant pollution fine paid by government.

My 2018 Ford escape has auto-stop/start when stopped. But it almost never works. No idea why. It worked for the first year maybe, then disappeared.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#173

Post by jtc331 »

fwungy wrote: post #115
esturk wrote: post #69

"Cold weather has an influence on the battery capacity too." I take this to mean that the author acknowledges GAS cars are also affected by cold weather. There's just no escaping thermodynamics. It's also like pointing out GAS cars' MPG is reduced by 20%+ in cold weather. While it's true, it's like pointing out a gotcha edge case for all cars. So the conclusion can also apply the same way to GAS cars. 'Next time you…

I can fill up the gas car quickly almost anywhere if I'm running low on fuel. Also, survival time in a stuck ICE in Winter is much higher.

Actually the “stuck in winter” problem for EVs is a myth: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a38883045/electric-cars-sn...

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#174

Post by falcolas »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #172
landemva wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USA traffic engineers love stop lights which force idling. Fortunately some European tech to stop/start the engine is arriving in USA. In isolated cases, some USA intersections are being converted to traffic circles. Installation of new stop lights should require a giant pollution fine paid by government.

My 2018 Ford escape has auto-stop/start when stopped. But it almost never works. No idea why. It worked for the first year maybe, then disappeared.

It can be turned off, and there's very little visual indication that this has happened. The feature bugs some drivers, so if you have a second driver, they could have easily done it.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#175

Post by esturk »

cbsmith wrote: post #116
esturk wrote: post #69

"Cold weather has an influence on the battery capacity too." I take this to mean that the author acknowledges GAS cars are also affected by cold weather. There's just no escaping thermodynamics. It's also like pointing out GAS cars' MPG is reduced by 20%+ in cold weather. While it's true, it's like pointing out a gotcha edge case for all cars. So the conclusion can also apply the same way to GAS cars. 'Next time you…

That article seems a bit misleading. I have to think the impact of cold weather on an ICE vehicle is highly variable on other factors. It certainly wasn't quite so bad when I was growing up in Canada, and most of the variance was attributable to differences in winter vs. summer fuel mixes. Most of the effects it describes are only in effect while the car is warming up, and given that say, engine oil typically warms u…

No where did the energy.gov article nor parent article mention interior heating. The discussion was always about battery performance vs ICE performance degradation under cold weather.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#176

Post by WirelessGigabit »

gambiting wrote: post #2

So you deliberately don't charge the battery to 100% then conclude the realistic range is shorter than advertised? I get you don't charge to 100% every day, but if you know you're going to drive further then....you do. Or just do what I do and charge to max each time, the battery is warrantied for 8 years, it's going to be fine. >>Imagine your daily commute is 115 km (e.g. Roeselare-Brussel That would be an extremely…

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

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#177

Post by Mountain_Skies »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #80
darth_avocado wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you do 100%, with just 1 year of used, my Tesla battery on 100% charge shows 320 miles, which is a far cry from 358 advertised. Plus the other estimates are correct. The range drops if it’s too cold, or if it is too hot, or if you use any of the features that the car advertises, or if you’re driving on a freeway, or if it is a stop and go traffic, or if you gain elevation, or basically if you use your car as…

EVs do much better in stop and go traffic. I wouldn’t be surprised if some even exceeds EPA range estimates in those cases.

I used a Nissan Leaf as my thrice weekly commuter vehicle for several months. It couldn't quite make the full round trip on a 100% charge and there was nowhere to plugin at work. For a while, I'd go to Ikea at lunch and charge there during my lunch break. That was enough extra charge to make it all the way home but going to Ikea each day for lunch got old fast. Instead, I started stopping at charge point near a Fry's on the way home but even Fry's got boring after a few days. Then I discovered if I got off the freeway about fifteen miles earlier than my usual exit and used surface streets, I could make it home even though it was a bit longer distance and plenty of stop lights, stop signs, and traffic slower than the highway. I suspect the lower wind resistance at the slower speed is what provided the extra bit so I could get home with about nine miles of range showing on the dash. Probably wasn't good for the battery but it was the last few months of a lease and never ended up losing any bars of range. The anxiety sure was real.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#178

Post by jaggederest »

jvanderbot wrote: post #169
jvanderbot wrote: post #119

Model Y in cold climate here. While the sticker estimates of range are probably advertising, and the % battery to range meter you get in the app / dashboard is junk, the drive estimates are spot on . When you enter a destination, it will tell you very precisely how much energy it will take, accounting for every current condition, including temp. This must surely be data driven because it is alarmingly good. So your d…

For example, when driving a long distance (150m+), it told me that I could have saved X miles if my tires were inflated another 5psi, and saved Y miles if I had used less cabin heating.

That's impressive. I can see accounting for the state of the world, weather, and the elevation change and cornering between A and B, but being able to generate counterfactuals "if X were true or Y were true" is strong stuff.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#179

Post by gambiting »

WirelessGigabit wrote: post #176
gambiting wrote: post #2

So you deliberately don't charge the battery to 100% then conclude the realistic range is shorter than advertised? I get you don't charge to 100% every day, but if you know you're going to drive further then....you do. Or just do what I do and charge to max each time, the battery is warrantied for 8 years, it's going to be fine. >>Imagine your daily commute is 115 km (e.g. Roeselare-Brussel That would be an extremely…

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.

Re: Realistic daily range of an electric vehicle

#180

Post by pornel »

gcheong wrote: post #9

“In my case, I typically charge the car to 80%” My understanding is that the preservation of the battery is built into the charge controller and you shouldn’t have to worry about it. In other words when your car says it’s fully charged it’s only “really” charged to 80% or some other cutoff as determined by the charge controller. I don’t drive a Tesla so my only point of reference is my Fiat 500e which doesn’t have as…

Charging above 80% is also a complete waste of time, unless you're charging overnight.

The fuller the battery is, the slower it charges. 10%-80% charge often takes same or less time than the final 80%-100%, so when road tripping it makes much more sense to make a few short top-ups than wait forever for last percent to trickle-charge.

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