70 MPH seems to be the sweet spot. At 70 (per YouTube) our Lyriq will easily outdo its EPA 307 mile range. At 80 it’s dramatically reduced–like to 260 miles.
So we’re travelling 700 miles, @70mph that takes 10 hours + 2 charges @45 mins = 11.5 hours
@80 that takes 8.75 + 2 charges @45min = 10.25
Even if you correct the 45mins for the 70 mph times to 0% at arrival; 80 mph will be faster.
(my intuition disagrees, but the back of the envelope is merciless – what is my mistake?)
Air resistance. It takes more MPG/MPE(lectron) to go faster so you can’t go as far for the same amount of fuel.
In @tride’s example above your post a 280 mile ride at 80 MPH will require a refueling enroute while doing that same distance at 70 MPH will get him there on a single ‘tank’.
Polestar 2? My cousin-in-law has one and rather likes it. Competes with the Tesla 3 on price but feels more like a normal car. Backed by a more mainstream carmaker than Tesla. Less range than the Model 3 or Mach E, which might be a deal killer.
EVs have more mass, less grippy low rolling resistance tires, and ridiculous amounts of torque, all of which are bad for driving in the snow. On the plus side, they have less rotating mass in their powertrains and those powertrains are super responsive to computer inputs so the traction control in EVs works much better than the traction control in ICE cars. EVs also have very low centers of gravity, and good weight distribution (as you note). I’m not sure how all those factors balance out for EV snow performance. Swapping in snow tires would almost certainly make EV snow performance a non-issue but I gather you don’t want to do that. We don’t get a lot of snow where I live anymore and I don’t really ever drive in the snow so I have no current impressions of the relative prevalence of cars are getting stuck.
In the real world where there are other cars and if you are a driver who doesn’t swerve from lane to lane and onto to the shoulders of the roads to maintain one perfectly steady speed at all costs, upping your cruising speed by 1/7 doesn’t save 1/8 of your time.
One empirical result: my wife and I recently traveled home from the same place. I was following her home at a normal pace of roughly 70 mph on the highway but, when we were about 8 miles from home, I realized I wanted to get into the driveway before her so she could get out in the morning before me without moving my car from our tandem spots. I punched it up to 85 and passed her. I figured I’d committed, so I just keep up the pace as best I could through moderate traffic and see by how much I beat her home. After a 7 more miles of highway driving and one mile of city driving with two stoplights to our home, I backed into the driveway. I started my stopwatch. She arrived exactly 20 seconds later. Over this fairly short distance of mixed highway and city driving, Increasing my max cruising speed 20% shaved about 3% off the trip time. On a longer highway journey, I would have saved closer to the theoretical maximum amount of the time but not by that much.
Assuming you have fast DC charging en route and charging at your destination, it would go like this in the caddy: leave with a full charge, drive 4:15 (300 miles), have lunch and charge for 45 minutes, drive 4 hours (280m), pee and charge for 20-25 minutes, drive 1.6 hours to your destination. 11 hours.
At 80, drive 3 hours (240), charge for 45m, drive 3 hours, charge for 45, drive 3 more hours. 10.5 hours, but will be a little more white-knuckle because you’ll be pushing the range.
The Caddy gets 330-340 miles at 70 in real-world testing. Throw a headwind in and all bets are off, though.
As others have mentioned, it doesn’t quite work out that way. In most cases how far between charging stops is determined by charger location, so you’re driving 180 miles until the next charge, whether it takes 3 hours or 2.25 hours. Yes, averaging 80 uses more charge than averaging 60, but adding that extra energy at a DC fast charger may only take 2-3 minutes, not the 45 saved.
These are the edge cases I can think of where going slower will make a difference:
- You go too fast and run out of energy before reaching the charger. Major delay and expense getting towed.
- There are two alternate routes. The shorter route is 280 miles, but only has a charger at the start and end. The longer route is 350 miles, but has another charger in the middle. The only way to make the full 280 mile distance is to keep your speed at 65, so 4.3 hours. The longer route you can go as fast as you want, so 4.4 hours at 80, plus an extra 20 minute charging stop in the middle.
Because the speed of charging the battery is non-linear, the quickest way to cover distance in an EV is often to stop and charge more frequently, but never over 60%. So as soon as the charging speed starts to slow down, get back on the road. This method requires a dense charging network, but Tesla superchargers along interstate highways often meet that requirement.
One other big (I think) factor is air conditioning. Using the AC will cut your range.
Other than Montana, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a speed limit over 70 mph. I can’t imagine driving 80 on the interstate.
I get all that.
I’m just wondering if it’s true that in general faster is faster.
Even if my gut tells me there should be some optimum at a lower speed.
On my most recent roadtrip I plugged an ever higher “top speed” in ABRP and got there faster and faster (there was a significant portion through Germany, with portions without speed limit)
I ended up driving 130 km/h (less demanding for my concentration) on paper 160 km/h was faster.
My gut tells me there should besome optimum around 110, but all calculators tell me different.
This is what the extreme Tesla nerds claim with lots of data to back it up.
We currently own a Kia Niro EV (two years old) and a Kia EV9 EV (almost brand new). The latter is in the shop thanks to a friend’s bike rack backing up “skills”. I’m driving a VW Atlas 4 cylinder ICE rental right now, and it is really making me miss my EV9: the drive is so much more smooth, satisfying and powerful than the ICE.
My wife likes the Niro but the EV9 is a much more premium car and is really nicely equipped. They were also going for substantially lower than MSRP when I bought it (something like $12-15k off if I recall correctly). It’s one of the most comfortable cars I’ve been in, and I really like it a lot.
That said, my past self would be surprised that I chose the EV9 because it’s much bigger than I would have thought I’d like. It’s a legit six seater, with a 3rd row that actually is comfortable for normal sized adults. But the power delivery and surprisingly tight handling and turning radius mitigated what I typically don’t like about large cars. So it ended up being the best practical choice.
Before discovering the EV9 I was in the market for one of the smaller crossovers, and had shortlisted it to the Mustang Mach-E, Kia EV6, or Cadillac Lyric. I’ve actually rented all three for multi-week family trips through Turo over the last year or so.
They’re all compelling: I found the tech a little more polished in the Kia, funny enough, but it felt a little cramped. I preferred the huge fixed pane of glass in the roof of the Lyric and Mach-E over the EV6 opening sunroof, which felt like it really ate into the space. But they’re all very pleasant to drive and throw into corners, etc.
I wasn’t at liberty to software upgrade the rental Lyric, so maybe this is fixed, but it had some very aggrevating software misses. CarPlay audio would cut out and require a muting and unmuting all the time. Not the CarPlay connection, it stayed up on the screen, just the audio. Eventually I had to drop it for old school bluetooth. And the “emergency” auto braking was a deal breaker if it hasn’t been fixed: it hallucinated all the time, and the braking is super violent, to the extend that it hurt my wife’s neck. The first time I got out of the car because it felt like I had actually hit something…
I’ve seen 80 in Texas, possibly 85. Those roads generally do not have a lot of traffic so it can be almost as safe going 70 as it would be doing close to the speed everyone else is going.
But I-15 between Las Vegas and St George is a different story. It’s also 80 if I recall correctly, but with a medium amount of traffic. If you went 70 then you could very well cause a traffic jam or be rear ended by someone going 100 for a differential of 30 mph rather than 20. The good thing though is that 80 is pretty close to the median: the average car seems to be going around 85, so you would pass a few people and passed by many but not an overwhelming amount. But it’s a free enough road that you’ll still get people whizzing by you at 100 or more.
Yes, and elevation change is another. A Tesla car is aware of elevation and makes adjustments for it when trip planning. It does not appear to account for temperature, except by dynamically noticing the current battery charge. The car will update your next battery stop as you’re driving; it’s quite clever.
I typically stop to charge whenever the battery charge goes below 40%. Then charge to 50% if no one needs a bio break, or charge to whatever if we need drinks, snacks, or the restroom. I know some people like to drive nonstop, but I find even a short break to stretch legs helps make a drive feel less tiring.
The other thing to consider is charging queues. For example, Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a Sunday afternoon will have you waiting in line for a charger. The car will avoid stopping if the line is too long, but you need enough charge to get to the next one.
Regarding DC fast charging, after renting a number of EVs the charging curve fell off my radar as a factor to take into account when buying.
In practice our long road trips are mostly on the other side of the country (i.e. in a rental anyway). But even locally charging stops correspond to breaks we’d take anyway, and by the time the kids have picked their snacks, used the restroom, etc., etc. in the Walmart that is inevitably next to the Electrify America the car is long done or past 80%: the humans are always the long tail.
Maybe that’s not the case with folks without kids, but it made that a far less important consideration. I value charger location (walk to coffee, a good restaurant, etc.) over speed almost always.
I drive up into the mountains for skiing in my Tesla Model 3 with AWD. It handles quite well on slippery roads. It instantly detects any wheel that’s slipping and corrects it faster than I can react. Of course, I don’t push the speed, especially since I don’t put on snow tires. Worst case, I carry chains to put on the rear wheels, but I haven’t needed to use them yet.
Its main limitation is its low clearance; the road needs to be plowed even if not cleared. I have seen another Tesla 3 bottom out its front in a pair of pot holes. Got to watch for the holes!
Yes. I was in my friend’s Tesla once. He likes to cut things way closer than I. We were heading to his house and it said to slow down if we wanted to make it. We arrived with 2%.
I expect more people will do stuff like that as they learn to trust the estimates. Definitely too close for me. When I drive fueled cars, I don’t let the tank get below half. It’s a step up in trust for me to let the charge go less than that.
We can legally do 70 but one won’t stand out in traffic at 80.
Unless the recharge is on an official rest area you’re going to need to take an exit ramp & some amount of local roads to get to a convenience store/charge station & then back to the road to charge. Depending upon how far out of the way it is that’s all wasted time.
This article on CNN’s website today talks about how there are lines at charging stations because people aren’t vacating them fast enough & how one company is going to cut you off at 85% & charge a 40¢/min idle fee if you’re just sitting there. Guess that charge while taking a meal break doesn’t work so well if you need to get up in the middle of the meal to go move your car; especially on a rainy day.
Just for the record, the article you cited mentions it as being put into effect for certain, heavily congested/crowded chargers, which may or may not apply to the chargers @Pleonast references.
So, yes, you should plan ahead and know the resources available where you’re going and on the way, but it shouldn’t be a major issue for most areas.
It will be an issue of course, for that company’s network IF it becomes universal, but otherwise you should be able to find out quickly.
Tesla charging stations tend to be right off the highway, similar to gas stations. If not on a freeway, typically it’s just a matter of pulling in, exactly like a gas station.
I’ve already seen added per-minute fees at certain high-demand stations. Still, no different than a gas station where you move the car after filling up and while the kids are using the bathroom and buying snacks. (I’m unfamiliar with this “rain” you speak of.)