EVs Fall Short of EPA Estimates by a Much Larger Margin Than ICE in Real-World Highway Testing

No surprises here, but useful data and insights as to why:

• On Car and Driver's 75-mph highway test, more than 350 internal-combustion vehicles averaged 4.0 percent better fuel economy than what was stated on their labels. But the average range for an EV was 12.5 percent worse than the price sticker numbers.
• While separate city and highway range figures are computed behind closed doors, only a combined number is presented to consumers. The combined rating is weighted 55 percent in favor of the city figure, where EVs typically perform better. This inflates the range estimates, making it harder to match in real-world highway driving. The paper proposes publishing both city and highway range figures—as with fuel-economy estimates for gas-powered vehicles—to give shoppers a more holistic sense of a vehicle's abilities.

EVs Fall Short of EPA Estimates by a Much Larger Margin Than Gas Cars in Our Real-World Highway Testing

Gas-powered cars often match or exceed EPA highway fuel economy numbers. A new paper using data from C/D's highway tests shows EVs are far less likely to do so.

www.caranddriver.com

Comparison of On-Road Highway Fuel Economy and All-Electric Range to Label Values: Are the Current Label Procedures Appropriate for Battery Electric Vehicles?

As consumers transition from internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered vehicles to battery electric vehicles (BEV), they will expect the same fuel economy label-to-on-road correlation. Current labeling procedures for BEVs allow a 0.7 or higher multiplier to be applied to the unadjusted fuel economy a

www.sae.org

"Chevy Bolt EV sulla rampa di lancio!" by automobileitalia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Admin note: Image added for Blog Feed thumbnail

 

[KenC]

Highway range doesn't really bother me, as long as 3 things are met: one, highway range is longer than my bladder can hold out, ie about 2hrs; two, Superchargers are well spaced so that there's no inconvenience to stopping; and three, supercharging is fast enough that my total trip times are barely inconvenienced.

So, the average person needs or should stop every couple hours on the highway, and that usually means anywhere from 120 to 150miles of driving. The car has enough range to meet that requirement. Supercharger spacing on the East Coast where I live seems to be good, where I have a plethora of convenient chargers to choose from, that area all close to the highway. And, half of the chargers are now 250kW, and the other half seem to be 150kW, so charging is pretty quick, about 15mins, which is enough time to add enough juice to get to my next stop, while giving me enough time to use the toilet, get another coffee and maybe a sandwich, etc.

As far as I can tell, there's been almost no difference to me in travel times compared to ICE driving for all of my regular trips around the East Coast. I used to drive my Saab to college 600 miles away, 40+yrs ago, and it took me about 10hrs, with 4 stops, or about 120miles between stops. I did it this past Fall in the Tesla to attend an event, and it was the same, with literally the same stops at the same rest stops, with each stop requiring 14 to 20mins of charging. Same 10hrs. In other words, range is a non-factor, and if I run the data thru ABRP for 32F, it's still 10hrs, with an additional 6mins of charging.

 

[STS-134]

So, the average person needs or should stop every couple hours on the highway, and that usually means anywhere from 120 to 150miles of driving.

Not really: How long can you hold in your pee: Timing and dangers
"When a person is awake, they should urinate about every 3–4 hours"

Of course, convenience dictates when and how often people pee. If you're a healthy adult, you should be able to go as long as 9-10 hours: How Long Can You Go Without Peeing? Risks, Complications, Concerns
"A healthy bladder can hold about 2 cups of urine before it’s considered full. It takes your body 9 to 10 hours to produce 2 cups of urine. That’s about as long as you can wait and still be in the safe zone without the possibility of damaging your organs."

It is extremely uncomfortable to stretch it all the way to 9-10 hours but 4-6 hours is very do-able particularly if you know you're getting close to your destination and/or it's just not convenient or necessary to stop. I can easily outlast the range on my vehicle which is about 260 miles at 75-80 mph and only takes about 3.3 hours to travel. And that's the range from 100%. After that first stop, you end up only charging to 50-60% (unless you are having a meal) and getting only about 130-156 miles per charge. That's less than or equal to 2 hours which is way too many stops.

 

[blackT3$!@]

use of permanent magnet motors with too much back EMF will be exposed,

Hyundai has a disconnecting transmission for their from permanent magnet motor. Is The Physical Motor Disconnector The Future Of AWD Electric Cars? "The reason behind disconnecting the front motor is to eliminate the losses of an idle (not powered) electric motor with a permanent magnet rotor"

 

[blackT3$!@]

highway range is longer than my bladder can hold out

How to Urinate when on an Automobile Trip​

3 Ways to Urinate when on an Automobile Trip - wikiHow

 

[Sklith]

If you're not putting on a catheter for your road trips, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Watts_Up]

How about kWh/100 miles?

For EVs, consumption such as kWh/miles or kWh/km is certainly the most practical.

The often reported number reported by manufacturers is the range,
which is a useful information for a buyer, but the battery capacity is rarely mentionned,
so the buyer has no idea of the real consumption.

Since electrical motors are very efficient, not like internal combustion engines, any effect sush as
speed, wind, road surface, elevation, use of HVAC, tires types, load... affect directly the energy consumption.

There should be some standard measurements easy to compare and to reproduce allowing to
compare different cars in various conditions.

Some influencers, such as Bjørn Nyland, created their own standard,
such as 90 and 120 km/h consumption in real conditions
to represent average city and roadway driving.
This is a very usefull way to compare EVs IMO.

 

[Watts_Up]

I always try to arrive at DCFC locations at 5% or less since that's where you'll be charging the fastest.

But pre-conditionning cannot be activated below 20%, so I prefer using a 25% arrival SoC,
especially in areas with low superchargers density in case of a detour, heavy wind, or bad traffic conditions.

 

[Cosmacelf]

The irony of all this is that I've been stranded a few times in my ICE (when I had one) with an empty gas tank. I've driven EVs now for 10 years and have yet to be stranded in one. I do pay more attention to my charge state than I did to my tank fill level, but the fact that I charge most nights at home also helps a lot.

 

[rzn89]

Why couldn’t the EPA create a whole new metric, just for EV’s? Something like kWH per mile for city/highway. Mpge is useless to me.

I’m getting 109 miles per 28 kWh in my 23 Y performance. Pretty sure its spec is 28 kWh per 100 miles.

 

[tivoboy]

I’m my LR RWD M3 I average about 4.35 miles per kWh overall (those are tracked seasonal rates, spring/summer, fall/winter), with highway driving closer to 3.85 miles per kWh overall. I tend to land at 95% efficiency on highway drives, passing 95% of drivers and doing usually 10-12 mph above posted speeds. Here in CA that’s with quite a bit of up and down but I know I’m better than most at regen braking use.

I’m pretty happy with that overall.

 

[woolymammoth17]

Oh Lord! What are all of the "EVs and ICE cars both lose range when driving in the cold, at highway speeds, with the A/C on, with passengers, etc. and it's user error, misunderstanding and poor planning if you say any different!" crowd going to do now!?

 

[gtae07]

Actual range is going to be the figure of merit for most buyers (over consumption), especially until fast chargers are as ubiquitous as gas stations.

What would be useful would be a tool that let you pick a handful of vehicles and play with (for example) temperature, HVAC, and speed, and it could show a bar graph with estimated range for each of them. Or, some range vs. speed graphs with different curves for temperature.

I've been researching this hard over the last month since wife is in the market for a new vehicle and I'm trying to steer her to a Y over a Prius. We'll see how the test drives go this weekend. Our usual "road trip" is 225mi Savannah to metro Atlanta to visit our parents, which is 90% interstate and about 3:25 driving time. Usually we make at least one bathroom stop along the way; on the rare occasion we don't, it's right at the limit of how long I can sit without going nuts. The trip itself is doable with a standard range Y but we need to arrive with some usable charge to get around town; there are no fast chargers nearby and we will likely be limited to L1 charging while there.

 

[sightman]

Actual range is going to be the figure of merit for most buyers (over consumption), especially until fast chargers are as ubiquitous as gas stations.

What would be useful would be a tool that let you pick a handful of vehicles and play with (for example) temperature, HVAC, and speed, and it could show a bar graph with estimated range for each of them. Or, some range vs. speed graphs with different curves for temperature.

I've been researching this hard over the last month since wife is in the market for a new vehicle and I'm trying to steer her to a Y over a Prius. We'll see how the test drives go this weekend. Our usual "road trip" is 225mi Savannah to metro Atlanta to visit our parents, which is 90% interstate and about 3:25 driving time. Usually we make at least one bathroom stop along the way; on the rare occasion we don't, it's right at the limit of how long I can sit without going nuts. The trip itself is doable with a standard range Y but we need to arrive with some usable charge to get around town; there are no fast chargers nearby and we will likely be limited to L1 charging while there.

I agree, get a Y over the Prius. For a trip of 225 miles the SR Y cannot make this trip without stopping. You will need a LR Y, and even then you will cut it very very close.

 

[BeeBee]

I always try to arrive at DCFC locations at 5% or less since that's where you'll be charging the fastest.

Wow. You’re brave. I get nervous when the s.o.c. gets below 15% for fear of running out of charge. The lowest I ever allowed it to get was 11% because I thought it is recommended to not go below 10%. This is because you could get the “Electrical System Power Reduced - Vehicle May Shut Down” warning and then the dreaded “Unable to Drive - Pull Over Safely” message.

 

[tivoboy]

Wow. You’re brave. I get nervous when the s.o.c. gets below 15% for fear of running out of charge. The lowest I ever allowed it to get was 11% because I thought it is recommended to not go below 10%. This is because you could get the “Electrical System Power Reduced - Vehicle May Shut Down” warning and then the dreaded “Unable to Drive - Pull Over Safely” message.

Not intentionally, but I’ve driven for 20 miles at 0% during the 2019 Snowpocalypse where I had to make it from the Atascadero SC (which at the time had a 3 hour wait line due to the I 5 being closed for 48 hours) and the Kettleman City SC (The OG) and had only 7% when at Atascadero. I thought the car might die on the slight uphill from the 41 to get to the SC, but we rolled in no problem and charged no problem. Not to be repeated, probably took more years off my copilot at the time, but she learned a LOT about drafting, regen braking, hypermiling, rolling and coasting.

 

[BeeBee]

Not intentionally, but I’ve driven for 20 miles at 0% during the 2019 Snowpocalypse where I had to make it from the Atascadero SC (which at the time had a 3 hour wait line due to the I 5 being closed for 48 hours) and the Kettleman City SC (The OG) and had only 7% when at Atascadero. I thought the car might die on the slight uphill from the 41 to get to the SC, but we rolled in no problem and charged no problem. Not to be repeated, probably took more years off my copilot at the time, but she learned a LOT about drafting, regen braking, hypermiling, rolling and coasting.

I’ll tell you what “took more years off my copilot at the time”… hydroplaning at 70MPH in a rain/sleet storm. It gave me some gray hairs too! Fortunately I was able to straighten out and then drove at 25 MPH the rest of the way home

 

[gtae07]

I agree, get a Y over the Prius. For a trip of 225 miles the SR Y cannot make this trip without stopping. You will need a LR Y, and even then you will cut it very very close.

We're fine with a couple short stops; the superchargers are mostly at the places we tend to stop anyway (Metter, Dublin, Macon, etc.) to deal with biological matters so it won't add to the actual real-world trip time even with the standard range. The trick will just be the charging after arrival with nothing but scattered public L2 chargers and 120 outlets. I just discovered a new supercharger a few miles from my parents' house. That helps a lot...

The issue is more that my wife has a near-fangirlish love for Toyota based solely on her experience with a 2009 Matrix S that we traded away years ago, and in her line of work she doesn't want to appear "showy" or be driving a "fancy car" or be "making political statements"--though I'd argue none of those apply to Tesla, at least now. She has yet to actually drive a Tesla so maybe that'll swing her opinion. I've tried convincing her with spreadsheets (this is the woman who decided whether to get married using a spreadsheet) but that hasn't fully convinced her.

 

[tivoboy]

I’ll tell you what “took more years off my copilot at the time”… hydroplaning at 70MPH in a rain/sleet storm. It gave me some gray hairs too! Fortunately I was able to straighten out and then drove at 25 MPH the rest of the way home

Been there before, thats worse for sure. Especially IF on a downhill slope, that’s basically my recurring nightmare.

One time in the early 90’s I had an Audi coupe Quattro… coming down from the high mountains near Verbier, CH/SU I decided to PASS a tractor that was crawling along at 02:00 on the downslope. Stupid, stupid teen. Lost grip and any traction due to the fact that nobody had come UP the upslope in about three hours and it was ICED over from the temp..long before cars indicated outside temp as a warning.

Quattro is amazing and changed an industry, but tires is tires. I slid about 25 meter and at one point only having ANY traction with one tire/wheel and ramming into a giant snow wall to the right side of the road (from snow blowers blowing up a burm). Having been such an avid auto enthusiast throughout my childhood, THIS is the auto rag story and caption that I recalled and always associate with that moment. (I did NOT go off the road BTW, well, not completely)

Good tires, Bob mused, casually lighting a cigarette..." - MX-5 Miata Forum

Good tires, Bob mused, casually lighting a cigarette..." Car Talk

forum.miata.net

 

[BeeBee]

Been there before, thats worse for sure. Especially IF on a downhill slope, that’s basically my recurring nightmare.

One time in the early 90’s I had an Audi coupe Quattro… coming down from the high mountains near Verbier, CH/SU I decided to PASS a tractor that was crawling along at 02:00 on the downslope. Stupid, stupid teen. Lost grip and any traction due to the fact that nobody had come UP the upslope in about three hours and it was ICED over from the temp..long before cars indicated outside temp as a warning.

Quattro is amazing and changed an industry, but tires is tires. I slid about 25 meter and at one point only having ANY traction with one tire/wheel and ramming into a giant snow wall to the right side of the road (from snow blowers blowing up a burm). Having been such an avid auto enthusiast throughout my childhood, THIS is the auto rag story and caption that I recalled and always associate with that moment. (I did NOT go off the road BTW, well, not completely)

Good tires, Bob mused, casually lighting a cigarette..." - MX-5 Miata Forum

Good tires, Bob mused, casually lighting a cigarette..." Car Talk

forum.miata.net

I had no business driving in that weather at that speed on nearly bald OEM Goodyear F1 Eagles with 30K miles on them. The car turned sideways 3 times and came within inches of hitting the concrete barrier in the median each time before straightening out.

 

[STS-134]

Wow. You’re brave. I get nervous when the s.o.c. gets below 15% for fear of running out of charge. The lowest I ever allowed it to get was 11% because I thought it is recommended to not go below 10%. This is because you could get the “Electrical System Power Reduced - Vehicle May Shut Down” warning and then the dreaded “Unable to Drive - Pull Over Safely” message.

That's not going to happen until you get below 0%. I've gone all the way down to 0% a couple of times and I wasn't nervous because there's a > 4% buffer below 0% that doesn't show on the gauge. But I do get nervous once it actually shows 0% because you really don't know if it's 4% or 2% or 0.1%.