AAA FUD: Winter Driving Range

[djplong]

I did a real world test a couple of weeks ago when New England was in the Deep Freeze.

Starter the morning at 300 miles of charge (started the range charge too late), drove 2+ miles to top off my tires with air to get the pressures right.

220 miles, round trip, of almost all highway driving. Took SOME measures to minimize the impact - didn't turn the heat up as much and turned it off occasionally on the way back, drafted trucks from time to time, didn't really push it over 70MPH.

Got back home with 30 miles of range.

So the cold "cost" me about 50 miles of range for the 220 that I actually drove - around 22%, NOT over 40%!

 

[adaptabl]

I did a real world test a couple of weeks ago when New England was in the Deep Freeze.

Starter the morning at 300 miles of charge (started the range charge too late), drove 2+ miles to top off my tires with air to get the pressures right.

220 miles, round trip, of almost all highway driving. Took SOME measures to minimize the impact - didn't turn the heat up as much and turned it off occasionally on the way back, drafted trucks from time to time, didn't really push it over 70MPH.

Got back home with 30 miles of range.

So the cold "cost" me about 50 miles of range for the 220 that I actually drove - around 22%, NOT over 40%!

That's a 220 mile round trip. Do the same in 30 mile trips and see how large your is. Over 40% is suspect

 

[SageBrush]

That's a 220 mile round trip. Do the same in 30 mile trips and see how large your is. Over 40% is suspect

Welcome to the point.

In other breaking news, people who sit in their operating but standing still cars have REALLY bad fuel economy (MPGe) during that time.

 

[Aellinsar]

- didn't turn the heat up as much and turned it off occasionally on the way back, drafted trucks from time to time, didn't really push it over 70MPH.

Got back home with 30 miles of range.

So the cold "cost" me about 50 miles of range for the 220 that I actually drove - around 22%, NOT over 40%!

Right - but those are all measures that the average person in a ICE does't take. I just did a 400-mile trip in my wife's ICE since we didn't have the time to stop at superchargers. I hae the heat set to 70°F and the cruise at 75 mph and didn't really think about it aside from that. It's very different than taking the Tesla on a long trip.

 

[SageBrush]

Right - but those are all measures that the average person in a ICE does't take

Probably true, but they do not get anywhere near EPA either in those conditions. They (and you) 'do not think about it' because they rely on en-route fueling, not because the ICE is immune from a cold weather efficiency drop.

I presume that @djplong drove that way as a test; it is certainly not required (or advisable.)

I find long distance driving to be very similar to ICE driving: I stop the car every two hours or so for a 10 minute break to stretch, move around, and give myself and any passengers an opportunity to use a bathroom. Sometimes I eat. In the Tesla the breaks are a few minutes longer <<shrug>>

 

[gnuarm]

Right - but those are all measures that the average person in a ICE does't take. I just did a 400-mile trip in my wife's ICE since we didn't have the time to stop at superchargers. I hae the heat set to 70°F and the cruise at 75 mph and didn't really think about it aside from that. It's very different than taking the Tesla on a long trip.

Yep.

 

[voip-ninja]

I did a real world test a couple of weeks ago when New England was in the Deep Freeze.

Starter the morning at 300 miles of charge (started the range charge too late), drove 2+ miles to top off my tires with air to get the pressures right.

220 miles, round trip, of almost all highway driving. Took SOME measures to minimize the impact - didn't turn the heat up as much and turned it off occasionally on the way back, drafted trucks from time to time, didn't really push it over 70MPH.

Got back home with 30 miles of range.

So the cold "cost" me about 50 miles of range for the 220 that I actually drove - around 22%, NOT over 40%!

IMO That's not even the issue for people that are experiencing the cold soak range hit of as much as 40% on their shorter drive commutes.

The issue is that they are getting nowhere near the economy that they are expecting to get with the car. Between the cold soak and the energy the car will use while plugged in at night to maintain the battery they could be seeing usage as much as 50% higher than they expected or that Tesla advertises... this is directly compared to the ~10% economy hit seen in gas cars in similar temps.

If they are in an area with lower gas prices and higher electricity prices then they might find that their Tesla is close to a wash in the winter months compared to a fuel efficient sedan of a similar size.

The biggest drain on the battery from what I have been able to gather is cabin heat and Tesla could have improved the performance quite a bit if they had used a heat pump and a coolant loop to help heat the cabin rather than using an electric resistive heater that sucks down a ton of juice but which was a cheap and easy choice for Tesla.

 

[adaptabl]

IMO That's not even the issue for people that are experiencing the cold soak range hit of as much as 40% on their shorter drive commutes.

The issue is that they are getting nowhere near the economy that they are expecting to get with the car. Between the cold soak and the energy the car will use while plugged in at night to maintain the battery they could be seeing usage as much as 50% higher than they expected or that Tesla advertises... this is directly compared to the ~10% economy hit seen in gas cars in similar temps.

If they are in an area with lower gas prices and higher electricity prices then they might find that their Tesla is close to a wash in the winter months compared to a fuel efficient sedan of a similar size.

The biggest drain on the battery from what I have been able to gather is cabin heat and Tesla could have improved the performance quite a bit if they had used a heat pump and a coolant loop to help heat the cabin rather than using an electric resistive heater that sucks down a ton of juice but which was a cheap and easy choice for Tesla.

That's all the more reason to stop the misleading advertised prices including fuel savings. Advertise the price that the customer pays.

 

[voip-ninja]

That's all the more reason to stop the misleading advertised prices including fuel savings. Advertise the price that the customer pays.

Wrong. No other manufacturer advertises their winter efficiency so Tesla should not voluntarily put themselves at a disadvantage compared to others.... as much as you would relish that.

If Tesla is going to put a disclaimer that the economy is impacted by cold weather to a greater degree than is seen in comparable ICE vehicles than every other manufacturer should similarly disclaim it.

 

[NYCR160]

Another data point here. I drove home last night in a snow storm. I used 49 miles of range to go the 26 mile trip. Temperatures were in the 20's and the roads were all snow and sleet covered. LR RWD 18" aero wheels with snow tires. Climate control set at 68 and the seat heater was set at the lowest level... If it cold and there is snow on the road 50% is real.

 

[voip-ninja]

Another data point here. I drove home last night in a snow storm. I used 49 miles of range to go the 26 mile trip. Temperatures were in the 20's and the roads were all snow and sleet covered. LR RWD 18" aero wheels with snow tires. Climate control set at 68 and the seat heater was set at the lowest level... If it cold and there is snow on the road 50% is real.

LOL @ the disagrees. Some people really have their head in the wrong place.

 

[gnuarm]

If they are in an area with lower gas prices and higher electricity prices then they might find that their Tesla is close to a wash in the winter months compared to a fuel efficient sedan of a similar size.

The biggest drain on the battery from what I have been able to gather is cabin heat and Tesla could have improved the performance quite a bit if they had used a heat pump and a coolant loop to help heat the cabin rather than using an electric resistive heater that sucks down a ton of juice but which was a cheap and easy choice for Tesla.

I'm surprised when people talk about saving money on fueling the car. I guess that just wasn't even a consideration for me. But if that is important to some, you shouldn't exaggerate the impact. It's not all winter, it's just the particularly cold days that the savings dry up to nothing, just like my heat pump.

Oh yeah, if they were to include a heat pump, it would need to be sized for the worse case day and that would be a lot bigger than the cooling unit they are using for A/C. So a larger, heavier heat pump would need to be added to the car to save on power but would make the car larger and heavier resulting in more power use... AND an electric coil would need to be included for when the heat pump isn't up to snuff... not sure it's worth it and there would still be days in North Dakota when the resistive heating is needed.

The guys at Tesla aren't dumb. If a heat pump had been the right choice, I am sure the Tesla cars would have them.

 

[gnuarm]

[QUOTE="voip-ninja, post: 3397314, member: 9361"The biggest drain on the battery from what I have been able to gather is cabin heat[/QUOTE]

Oh, just wanted to point out that the single biggest drain on the battery is powering those large, electric motors. Just wanted to mention that. We could ask Tesla to take those out and replace them with sails that are raised and lowered electrically instead.

 

[voip-ninja]

I'm surprised when people talk about saving money on fueling the car. I guess that just wasn't even a consideration for me. But if that is important to some, you shouldn't exaggerate the impact. It's not all winter, it's just the particularly cold days that the savings dry up to nothing, just like my heat pump.

Oh yeah, if they were to include a heat pump, it would need to be sized for the worse case day and that would be a lot bigger than the cooling unit they are using for A/C. So a larger, heavier heat pump would need to be added to the car to save on power but would make the car larger and heavier resulting in more power use... AND an electric coil would need to be included for when the heat pump isn't up to snuff... not sure it's worth it and there would still be days in North Dakota when the resistive heating is needed.

The guys at Tesla aren't dumb. If a heat pump had been the right choice, I am sure the Tesla cars would have them.

Are the guys at Nissan and BMW "dumb"? Because my understanding is that the 2nd Gen Leaf and the BMW i3 both made use of a heat pump to improve winter efficiency.

I believe I also read that Volvo is using a heat pump in the PoleStar that's coming out next year. Guess they are dumb also.

Tesla has brilliant engineers, but that doesn't mean they always come up with the best solution to every problem... or they might view something like lots of winter time usage not much of an issue since they live in California where "cold" is not really that cold. Maybe engineers in Germany, Japan, Sweden have different thoughts on this subject.

It could also be that the solution Tesla came up with costs $50 and a better solution cost $200 and they didn't want to spend the $$.

 

[gnuarm]

Are the guys at Nissan and BMW "dumb"? Because my understanding is that the 2nd Gen Leaf and the BMW i3 both made use of a heat pump to improve winter efficiency.

I believe I also read that Volvo is using a heat pump in the PoleStar that's coming out next year. Guess they are dumb also.

I don't know why you are arguing about this. You have no data to show the heat pump would actually save a significant amount of energy. The heat pump in homes typically uses resistive backup heat at temperatures below something like 25 °F which is above the 20 °F used for the AAA test. So how might that have helped in this scenario???

Tesla has brilliant engineers, but that doesn't mean they always come up with the best solution to every problem... or they might view something like lots of winter time usage not much of an issue since they live in California where "cold" is not really that cold. Maybe engineers in Germany, Japan, Sweden have different thoughts on this subject.

It could also be that the solution Tesla came up with costs $50 and a better solution cost $200 and they didn't want to spend the $$.

There is an air conditioner in the car already. A heat pump is the same unit with a very few additional parts to allow it to switch between heating and cooling. So where is the large added expense?

I think your reasoning that California designers can't understand the concept of temperature to be humorous.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I don't know why you are arguing about this. You have no data to show the heat pump would actually save a significant amount of energy. The heat pump in homes typically uses resistive backup heat at temperatures below something like 25 °F which is above the 20 °F used for the AAA test. So how might that have helped in this scenario???

A home heat pump might use resistive back-up at 25 °F in SC, but it wouldn't in colder climates which have low-temperature heat pumps.

The Prime's heat pump operates down to 15F. Don't know its efficiency curve.

 

[voip-ninja]

I don't know why you are arguing about this. You have no data to show the heat pump would actually save a significant amount of energy. The heat pump in homes typically uses resistive backup heat at temperatures below something like 25 °F which is above the 20 °F used for the AAA test. So how might that have helped in this scenario???




There is an air conditioner in the car already. A heat pump is the same unit with a very few additional parts to allow it to switch between heating and cooling. So where is the large added expense?

I think your reasoning that California designers can't understand the concept of temperature to be humorous.

I think your scoffing rationalizations when owners are faced with the many cold weather problems this car has that extend even into things like frozen window seals, frozen unusable charging ports, etc., are quite humerous, especially when you live in SC which has a climate identified as subtropical and has a palm tree on your flag.

AAA pointed out a legitimate fact re: energy usage of this car when the weather is cold. Average commute distance for Americans is 16 miles. I have absolutely gotten 40% efficiency hit over those distances with a cold car. Then I get the same hit when I drive it back. If I have a day where I'm also running a couple of errands it's likely that all of my travel, which could be 80+ miles will have 40% efficiency hit.

Yes, if you charge the car at home every day before you leave then you should have plenty of range for most activities, but owners still need to be aware of these limitations when choosing their vehicle and they need to be aware that Tesla's efficiency numbers are nowhere near reality when they have to pay for the juice for their electric car when temps are cold.

Crying that AAA article is FUD is just sticking head in the ground about real world limitations.

Fun side fact... I charged my car at work yesterday and parked it at 11AM with 71% on the battery. When I left at 4pm the battery was at 70%. When I got home the battery was at 65% after driving 9 miles with outside temps of about 38F and the cabin heater set to 75F.

Got up this morning and the car showed 61% with no snowflake icon. Drove it to work, 9 miles and battery at 56%. I just woke the car up to look and the battery is at 55%.

My commute is 9 miles that is mostly free flowing at 40-50mph.

So I've used 15% of the battery approximately to drive the car about 30 miles which works out to about a 50% hit over optimal range.

 

[gnuarm]

So I've used 15% of the battery approximately to drive the car about 30 miles which works out to about a 50% hit over optimal range.

Ok, maybe you will understand if I ask this. Are you charging your EV tonight? If not, why not?

 

[GoSharks]

Ok, maybe you will understand if I ask this. Are you charging your EV tonight? If not, why not?

Why does it matter? Don't tell us he's holding the phone wrong.

 

[Jdee2wheels]

I’m sorry, but efficiency should also be a concern on short trips, which again, are what most people do day to day. Yes, you can still drive almost 300 miles even when it’s cold, but many people (especially those who would like an EV, but can’t quite justify the price just yet) are most certainly going to be concerned about the alarming amount of range that disappears if they can’t plug in every night. They will also be concerned about the subsequent increase in electric bills as efficiency decreases in the winter.

This issue, along with vampire drain, the slow charge rate in the cold, and the inconistent regen ( again during cold months) are issues that people need to know about when they are thinking of buying an EV. Besides these forums, most potential buyers don’t know about this stuff and Tesla certainly has no incentive to educate people on this. Better they find it out through an article from AAA than learn the hard way.