Needsdecaf
Active Member
Awesome. Be sure to post some pictures with all the relevant details showing these results. I'm still a bit curious about the real-world range of the Porsche. I assume you mean you made it 200 miles without stopping to charge, not 400 miles. How many hours was the drive? Average speed & full speed profile vs. time? Average efficiency? How much range did you start with and how much did you end with? How many kWh did you consume? Very curious about all these details, for sure.
It does seem really great, there are a lot of reports of more than rated range from the Porsche, which I find interesting.
Reports like this. I am very curious about more detailed information of such achievements. It's not surprising to me at all that the Porsche makes the rated range while the Tesla doesn't, but the results far in excess of the rated range are intriguing, and I'm curious about where the differences come from, and what is the actual Wh/mi achieved on such journeys (so we can directly compare efficiencies).
I think it's great that the Porsche is producing good real-world results.
Why am I surprised by the exceeding of the EPA results? Because I'd generally expect any EV to do a bit worse than the EPA results, and it's not obvious to me where Porsche is sand-bagging...did they go pessimistic on their dyno coefficients during the tests? Or what... It certainly is possible to pick some really high drag coefficients and end up with a much lower range result on EPA testing. Maybe this is what they did? Or maybe it is it the two-speed transmission giving better high-speed efficiency?
I think the best place to start, though, is to look at real-world realized Wh/mi (including all the details on the specific trip segment) on the Porsche. Very curious how it compares for a specific drive at a specific speed (that way it can be plugged into ABRP to get a decent estimate of how a Tesla would do on the same journey...I suppose this could be done in ABRP directly without any real-world data, comparing a Porsche and a Tesla, of course...but I guess I am looking for ground-truthed Porsche data here as point one of the comparison).
For road trips, in the end it's the Wh/mi that matters, and the rate and availability of charging.
Alan:
Understand your skepticism. Not sure if you've read up, but there are two ways to do the EPA test. Jason Fenske explains it well.
Basically, Porsche does the two mode test and then de-rates that range by 30%.
Here is a post by a friend of mine detailing a road trip in his Taycan Turbo. He states he doesn't recall his exact Wh/mile (which is honestly surprising for him, lol) however he said he was sure it was below 333 and above 300. He did 221 miles on 84% SOC. and 239 miles using 89% SOC on the return trip. Lots of otherwise good data for you here:
Trip Report: La Selva Beach, CA to Willows, CA - Thunderhill raceway - Taycan beats EPA (no surprise)
this is becoming a "theme" and there is really nothing to report here - but I thought I'd note it - once again the Taycan Turbo shows it's self to be a solid 260-270 mile range vehicle…based on real world driving. Drove 223 miles one way this week in 2020 Taycan Turbo - La Selva Beach, CA to...
www.taycanforum.com
Here's another trip with data, somewhat "hypermiling" it in range mode. Yield of 202 miles using 79% SOC, car estimating range of 78 remaining miles. It's worth reading the full post to get the data on the second "spirited" leg of the trip as well as his charging curve - maintaining 150 kW up to 70%!!!
Trip Report - Aptos, CA to Los Alamos, CA to Aptos, CA - w/Data
Fellow Taycan owners, I just thought I would share another successful trip report with the Taycan! One my wife's and I"d favorite food places is Bob's Well Bread in Los Alamos, CA: I've been itching for another long "test trip" with the Taycan so Saturday morning wife and I packed up the...
www.taycanforum.com
For background, Dave has owned 5 Teslas, plus he currently owns a Bolt and also owned a Focus EV, I believe. You can tell he likes data too. In short, here is a "real" person who has no hatred of Tesla posting real world results that corroborate dozens of videos on YouTube / Edmunds results, etc.
I have a theory of why Tesla struggles on a long road trip, and why the Taycan (and some others) don't. It could be nothing, but here it is.
This whole situation of the Porsche massively out-performing the EPA range has bugged the crap out of me since it because well known / accepted. So I sought to understand the real detail. I got a hold of the EPA's testing protocol and read it. I actually at one point had a copy of the SAE J1634 acceleration curves but can't seem to find the document (you can download from SAE but it's $85). So here's my theory. My theory is that Tesla has very, very, VERY little mechanical drag. I mean, I've put the car in Neutral and watched it coast on relatively flat roads in Texas and quite frankly, it's astonishing how far the thing goes. We all know (and appreciate) the lengths Tesla has gone in order to reduce mechanical drag / drivetrain loss to an absolute minimum.
The EPA test, like all other EPA tests, is done on a dyno. It's done with a fixed set of speeds and the top speed is not all that high, even on the highway portion of the test. Here is a link to the EPA's test and the standards they use.
Given the fact that the test is run on a dyno, the EPA test cannot accurately predict aero load. Instead the speed / time curve as defined in the SAE J1634 Standard gives an acceleration / deceleration run that attempts to approximate how the vehicle will act in the real world. And therein lies the problem. This SAE J1634 standard is the same standard used for ICE cars. It is not meant to deal with a car with hyper-low mechanical losses as compared to aero losses. As is known, aero drag increases at the square of speed. So on the highway, a car like the Tesla that has very, very low mechanical losses is going to see a significant portion of it's energy used to overcome wind resistance. Whereas something like a Taycan will be a bit more balanced. The low speed consumption will be higher than Tesla, but as a percentage of energy used, the high speed drag consumption is lower.
Quite simply, the SAE J1634 standard used is not a suitable test for a Tesla. When someone does a "range test" on an EV, they drive it at highways speeds for long, continual distances. No one does a "range test" by simulating in-town driving. It would take too long and would be annoying. But that's where the Tesla shines, and it can meet it's EPA "rated range".
One other thing to consider, is that the Taycan has a range mode. That range mode is not the default mode for the vehicle. Therefore the Taycan is ineligible to be tested using range mode.
Combine those two things, and to me, it's pretty clear to see why the Taycan can smoke it's range on the highway in range mode, whereas the Tesla falls down.
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