Ford Range Increase Coming?

[MailGuy]

Absolutely. I routinely drive my car to the grocery store and have a little more range when I return from shopping relative to when I left the car in the parking lot. Sometimes I even use no net range on the trip (I live close by). Your range prediction is also heavily dependent on immediate driving style and topography. If you listen to the web series, Darren explains they’re trying to smooth that out and make it a phenomenon of the past with the MachE learning how you use the car.

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[TheLight75]

Yes, but you’re more likely to see that if the outside temp goes up while you drive.

 

[DBC]

There is going to be a noticeable difference in reported ranges with early deliveries, between the colder winter states and warmer ones.

Of course but I didn't ask why the range was less in cold weather, I asked why his Tesla reported a huge drop after he parked it. It's not like it's 80F when you park and -20F when you get up. The vehicle should be better able to predict.

 

[DBC]

I can tell you that it is. JamieGeek has described how it works other BEVs. He describes it this way:

Just saying that A) neither the Focus Electric's nor the Bolt's guess-o-meters would read different at the end of a cold day sitting in the lot not plugged in from when turned off in the morning.

The question isn't why the range is decreasing. The question is why your Tesla couldn't predict it. A 90% miss in range is insanity. This was BTW the experience of The NY Times reporter who Musk slammed as being anti-EV and a Tesla hater. I didn't think that but assumed Tesla had cleaned up the problem. You're saying they haven't which is quite disappointing.

The second question was: What is up with the massive miss between projected range and the range in these entertaining "real world" tests? It's a complete outlier which seems rather impossible. Just trying to understand why it happens.

 

[MattG]

Which brings up an interesting question. When I look at the results from the various "real world" tests, the Teslas seem to deviate considerably more than other BEVs. We have the Car and Driver test which compared the Tesla S to the Taycan and the CARWOW entertainment ride where all the other vehicles exceeded what you'd expect from the EPA number but Tesla fell below it. Do you have a theory why this is true?

Seems very weird to me.

I imagine it has something to do with how they “adjustment factor” to (legally) provide higher EPA numbers.

https://www.caranddriver.com/featur...-factor-tesla-uses-for-big-epa-range-numbers/

 

[ClaudeMach-E]

Doesn't Tesla kind of a preheat the battery if you have a charge stop schedule on your nav system, and does EV in general have a heating system for the battery when the car sits in the cold for long period of time to protect it?

 

[dbsb3233]

it isn’t so much that it can’t, but rather that it currently doesn’t. And this holds for both EVs and ICE vehicles.

That's true. It's not that the EPA couldn't do a decent high speed range test, they just don't. They're still using the ICE model where range is almost entirely irrelevant. But on BEVs, range is extremely relevant (particularly high speed highway range).

The EPA really has a different mission than helping people understand how far they can drive BEVs. Their purpose is mainly on environmental impact, not usability. As such, they kind of do a disservice to many newbies that might be interested in buying a BEV regarding practical range. They see "300 miles" and they think, "Oh great, I can drive from Chicago to NYC (789 miles) with just 2 recharges!". Um, no, not even close. Frankly, I'd almost rather the EPA not publish a range number for BEVs at all, because by listing a single range number that's highly misleading for interstate speeds (where range matters most), they probably cause more harm and confusion than good.

 

[DBC]

I imagine it has something to do with how they “adjustment factor” to (legally) provide higher EPA numbers.

That's an interesting article. Thanks for the cite. However, the article identifies a 5%-10% difference but their test shows the Taycan having a range more than the combined range and the Tesla having a range of 100 miles less than the combined range. That's a huge difference. A small difference is expected since Tesla is very slightly more efficient on the City Range and the Taycan is slightly more efficient on the Highway Range. But the actual divergence between the EPA Highway Ranges and the actual ranges are staggering.

You don't really see the same thing with the Model 3. All BEVs can be expected to have Highway Ranges lower than Combined Range because their City Ranges are higher. Not a big deal. Nor is it a big deal that the other vehicles in the CARWOW test had ranges exceeding predicted by between 2% and 21% while the Model 3 missed the projected range by 3%. Somebody has to be at the bottom and the result is reasonably consistent with the other vehicles. But coming in 32% lower than projected is crazy.

Seems like such an anomalous result.

 

[DBC]

That's true. It's not that the EPA couldn't do a decent high speed range test, they just don't.
...
The EPA really has a different mission than helping people understand how far they can drive BEVs.

You've got it. Just note the EPA is doing what Congress told it to. So we know where complaints should be directed.

That said, I think the EPA numbers work fine if you know what you're doing. Just derive the highway range and use that. But that's likely beyond what most people can or would do since they're accustomed to just being able to take the MPG number -- for City or Highway. If they NEED to find the range, which isn't a big deal when you can refuel at at 250 miles/minute, they can just take the highway mpg and multiply it by the number of gallons the tank will hold.

The one thing the EPA could do is publish separate numbers for the highway and city ranges. Yes you can derive these numbers from the sticker but many (most?) people would struggle with this. I don't know why it hasn't done this.

The manufacturers don't want to touch the range issue. There is no answer to the question of: "How much range will I get?" so any answer they give will almost certainly be wrong.

 

[dbsb3233]

The one thing the EPA could do is publish separate numbers for the highway and city ranges.

Exactly. Except a true high speed highway number, not the "parkway"-like avg speed they purport as highway. They basically give slow and medium speed MPGe numbers. And a slow-ish combined "range". They leave high speed to be extrapolated on the open end, where it's far more variable and thus far less accurate (as the C&D variability shows). Different cars have different drag ratios that degrade exponentially toward the high (open) end, which isn't captured well on the slow-ish end.

But if they paired the existing city number with an actual high speed number(and both translated to actual range numbers), that would allow people to have a far better idea of what to expect. The 300 combined MME could be represented as maybe 330/230 (city/highway), for example. Still wouldn't be perfect due to temps and other factors, but it would sure be a helluva lot closer, and do a far better service for potential buyers.

 

[MailGuy]

Doesn't Tesla kind of a preheat the battery if you have a charge stop schedule on your nav system, and does EV in general have a heating system for the battery when the car sits in the cold for long period of time to protect it?

The thermal management system on EV's can both warm and cool the battery as needed. In fact Bolt documentation warns you that the A/C can turn on even with the car off if the battery thinks it needs cooling. But realize that warming and cooling the battery uses range as well because you're using the battery unless it's plugged in. So it is generally kept to a minimum in my experience, but my EV's are garage kept. I can't say what an EV sitting on the street in Quebec in January would do as I have no experience with that.

 

[Shayne]

note: rolling resistance is not constant, it is set relative to the aerodynamics of the specific vehicle.

So it is a constant for each vehicle? Thanks good point.

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