Some friends were having a conversion this afternoon about the range of electric cars (for instance, the Tesla model S has a range of 265 miles). The distance from Denver to Grand Junction is 243 miles so theoretically, that car could make it; if it was flat ground.
However, there are lots of mountains between those two points, many hills with 7% grades.
I have to assume that these grades have to have an effect on the performance of the batteries, so, in this situation, what is the range of the Tesla S? Would it get even halfway?
Based on this site it would take 2.46 times more energy on a 6% grade at 65 mph. So a 265 mile range would be reduced to 186 miles assuming half of it was uphill. That’s assuming the 265 mile range is based on 65 mph. You can get an 80% charge in 30 minutes at a supercharger station (which is a normal stop for lunch) so I think that’s another 148 miles.
And it appears there are a couple of charging stations along this route.
How much of the total energy available would be used for headlights if driving overnight, or AC is driving on a hot day? How much would those factors reduce the range?
Just anecdotally when driving my electric: if it says my expected range is currently 80 miles and I turn on the headlights, the range doesn’t drop. Headlights take very little power compared to driving.
If I turn on the A/C, I get maybe a 10% drop in range. But the heater is what really kills it - I’ll see the range drop 25-35%. Heat in a combustion engine is essentially free as a waste product, but it takes a lot of juice to heat an electric car - much more than A/C.
I thought about this exact thing a while back. I was driving through Goldfield, Nevada, and saw a SmartCar parked at a house there. I thought, “How the hell did it get here, and where the hell is it going?”. (I was thinking they had a range of 50 miles or so. Turns out it’s higher) I guessed it either came on a trailer, or it took a few days.
Sure, it would be okay for around town (there is NOTHING in Goldfield), and you might make a round trip to Tonopah for grocery shopping (26 miles one way) and probably one way to Beatty (what would be the point of that? Eddie World ain’t all that great!), but I think Vegas would be a two day trip!
I can’t understand the idea of totally electric cars without some great advance in battery technology (or other means of supplying electricity aside from ICE). The range of the Tesla is often questioned under real world conditions. Even if you have an additional engine on the small side that couldn’t even get you to highway speeds it would let you recharge your batteries so you aren’t stranded in the middle of nowhere. I know there are plenty of people who could use a battery only vehicle for short distance travel, but the idea that the majority of cars will become all electric like that doesn’t make sense. The cars those would replace aren’t using the majority of fossil fuels now (and I’m not clear if we’re getting any reduced fossil fuel consumption from cars that need to be charged from fossil fuel supplied electricity). Hybrids make plenty of sense, they’re growing in number, I just don’t understand the focus on all electric.
It’s perfect for a two car family like mine. I get only “Green Power” from my utility, so that’s non fossil fuel. I never have to drive more than 200 miles in a day, so Tesla’s range is not a problem. If I ever did, I’d trade cars for the day with my wife. The chances that both of us had to go different places more than 200 miles away on the same day is zero.
I agree, electric cars will not work for all people. I would guess that a sizable percentage of the population could adapt to using one. 25-40% perhaps.
Coincidentally, I just got back from a vacation in my Sonata PHEV that included a bunch of mountainous zones. This isn’t a pure electric; it’s similar to the Volt in that it drives as an electric vehicle when it has charge, but can roll over to gas when the charge gets low (and unlike the Volt, the gas engine connects directly to the drive train, so it can use gas to assist wth things like backing up, accelerating, and steep hills/mountains.
Because it was a long trip with no chargers available (they don’t have many in “red” states, particularly oil-producing ones), this trip was effectively entirely on gas in charge-sustaining mode. In that mode, regenerative coasting, breaking, and “overgeneration” (i.e. extra energy that would otherwise be wasted when the engine is running) is diverted the battery, and the car is then driven electrically for a short time until the battery charge is returned to some minimum level that switches it back to gas. This long explanation means that in this vehicle, gas mileage can be used as a crude proxy for “electric friendliness.”
Overall gas mileage on a 2500 mile trip was 40.6 MPG. Flat freeway mileage was about 36 MPG, but the interesting takeaway is that mountains were closer to 45-49 MPG. Even more interesting is that coming down long steep grades would substantially recharge the battery: The steep grade into Jackson Hole, for example, put over five (flat) miles worth of pure electric charge onto the battery for that descent alone. Even the mild passes that Interstates use over small ranges would add several miles worth of charge on the downhills. (Note that none of this really says how the car would do uphill on electric, since my vehicle brings the gas engine online for steep grades.)
As far as fuel efficiency goes, I think these plug-in hybrids are the perfect combination. My total gas mileage on this vehicle is near 150 MPG over it’s lifetime. When not on vacation, I often fill its (small, 12 gallon) less than once every month; I once went 50 days between fills. (It does add $40-$50/month to my electric bills for the plug-in, though). Their big penalty is cost: they’re now below the point where the lifetime savings on gas exceeds the price penalty of the car, but that’s achieved only through huge subsidies and lifetime guarantees on the battery pack, both of which are fairly artificial means of lowering the price (and the subsidy will go away as the cars become more popular). But I’m willing to pay a little more for a vehicle that keeps me from having to run to the gas station every 5-6 days, and whose total consumption of fossil fuels is near zero for commuting, but can still be used for distance travel when necessary.
Some of the math on that site is not even close to being correct, she comes up with 76 hp to maintain 65 mph for a large sedan. Heck, my old VW microbus had to have a similar frontal area and only had 40 hp to begin with.
I’ve noticed this with my (non-pluggable) Prius: near the Adirondacks, with small towns on the bottoms interspersed with mountains, it seemed to be getting 50+ MPG, as opposed to 40-something on the freeway. I think it is because the speed limit was so low on the bottoms since it was going through towns (where I could also run on electric since it had been recharged on the downhill), and I was going so slow up the hills, that there was less loss to friction than would have happened on the highway.
https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-7/?id=9gv4rl3o
On a nice 72 degree day, a Tesla Model S 60 would likely need a small top-up to make the trip because the energy usage would be slightly greater than the battery capacity under idea scenarios.
The urbanization of the world means that large numbers of people don’t routinely travel significant distances. While this means that there will still be many, many people who do travel long distances, there is a large market for cars that have a range of less than 200 miles. For instance, my daily commute is less than 50 miles. I still make trips out to the mountains or to visit friends, so I’d need access to a vehicle that could accomplish that, but I could have a cheap gas car or rent on those trips. The daily money saved in gas would make such an arrangement cash neutral.
And with all the demand in place for those cars, advances made in their manufacture will trickle down to vehicles with longer ranges, making them more fuel efficient.
Thanks, all, for the information. I had originally conceived of a non-stop trip to Grand Junction, without lights, heater or A/C but I see that that is not possible.
I wonder how the all-electric semi-trucks will make out? They do have more room for batteries but are far heavier than an automobile too. It wouldn’t be very profitable to have to stop and recharge every 250 miles.
Uh, not sure where you got that. I posted a link that showed that a Model S 60 is on the ragged edge of being able to make it under ideal circumstances, like nice weather. If you tinker with the link, you’ll see that a Model S 85 or 90 shouldn’t have any problems, unless the weather gets extremely cold or you drive really fast.
But then, I’m a retro petrolhead.