Range is picking up... Messing around and finding out.

[SpaceEVDriver]

Because I'm a data nerd and love to understand the inner workings of things, I decided that we were going to go from 100% SOCD to <10%, maybe 5% or less during normal every-day driving.

We took the car off our slow L2 charger (~3 kW) when it reached 100% on Tuesday and commenced driving but not plugging in.

So far, we've driven 236.4 miles and have about 36% battery remaining (which would suggest a range of ~370 miles and efficiency of ~4 miles/kWh).

We have decidedly not been trying to get extended range during this "experiment," we've just been, mostly, driving the way we always do.

I have to go on a moderate road trip (about 700 miles round trip) next week, so for the last two days, we've been driving more aggressively and have brought up the HVAC to max (heat in the early mornings and AC when it's warmer). Today I played at being 25 again and so at launch from every stop I would put the pedal on the metal (well, carpet these days) while running errands.

Despite the last two days trying to bring the SOC down more aggressively, we still have more than a third of the battery left over. Like I said, we're looking at around 370 miles range. I guess tomorrow we'll take it on a fast drive with more than one person in it.


This is not a controlled or scientific experiment. This is just a guy and his partner screwing around and finding out.

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[Shayne]

It can yield different results on your trip than what it guesses or you are seeing driving stop and go slowly around town. You should monitor it on your trip to know the exact range your car will get. I think if you drive a constant 70 mph on that trip you will not see 370 miles of range. That is what you may get for slow around town travels. I drove highway 100 to 19% in a calm 70F and averaged 2.7 mi/kwh or 240 miles range. That is closer to what you may see. I suggest you do not set your charging stops depending on 370 miles of range. I would use 240 miles x 0.7 (80 to 10%) or 170 miles max and not 370 miles if warm, not much head wind or elevation change.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

It can yield different results on your trip than what it guesses or you are seeing driving stop and go slowly around town. You should monitor it on your trip to know the exact range your car will get. I think if you drive a constant 70 mph on that trip you will not see 370 miles of range. That is what you may get for slow around town travels. I drove highway 100 to 19% in a calm 70F and averaged 2.7 mi/kwh or 240 miles range. That is closer to what you may see. I suggest you do not set your charging stops depending on 370 miles of range. I would use 240 miles x 0.7 (80 to 10%) or 170 miles max and not 370 miles if warm, not much head wind or elevation change.

We have put 18,000 miles on our Mustang, most of it long-distance (>500 mile) road trips.

We average 3.1 miles/kWh highway and >4 miles/kWh around town.

The 370 mile range I estimated above has nothing to do with the range estimate display in the vehicle; I never use that. That 370 mile range I gave is estimated based on my average efficiency for this particular, around-town, charge cycle, which is about 4.2 miles/kWh. Around town range is only a curiosity, not something I need to worry about since I can charge at home whenever I like.

When. we do road trips, we've been getting about 320 miles, real-world 100% to 0% range, or 270-280 miles for the first leg (about 80% discharge) and about 200 miles for subsequent legs (60% discharge).

 

[IgorKl]

We have put 18,000 miles on our Mustang, most of it long-distance (>500 mile) road trips.

We average 3.1 miles/kWh highway and >4 miles/kWh around town.

The 370 mile range I estimated above has nothing to do with the range estimate display in the vehicle; I never use that. That 370 mile range I gave is estimated based on my average efficiency for this particular, around-town, charge cycle, which is about 4.2 miles/kWh. Around town range is only a curiosity, not something I need to worry about since I can charge at home whenever I like.

When. we do road trips, we've been getting about 320 miles, real-world 100% to 0% range, or 270-280 miles for the first leg (about 80% discharge) and about 200 miles for subsequent legs (60% discharge).

your numbers are great - it looks like you freeway speed about 65mph and you are driving flat roads. My freeway numbers like yours, even higher if i use specific route to work, but if I go on road trip when my speed above 70 mph than my efficiency goes down to low 2 (2.1-2.4) miles per kW

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

your numbers are great - it looks like you freeway speed about 65mph and you are driving flat roads. My freeway numbers like yours, even higher if i use specific route to work, but if I go on road trip when my speed above 70 mph than my efficiency goes down to low 2 (2.1-2.4) miles per kW

For this particular driving, most of our driving was around town (55 mph and below, a couple of 75 mph bursts, but only for a total of about 10-20 miles, not counting the last trip described below). This driving included only a few hundred feet of elevation change for any particular short trip (we live in the "foothills" to a mountain).

We did drive down off the mountain for our final big trip of the charge. That was highway driving from 7,000 feet elevation to 4350 feet and then back up the mountain. That was a total of ~80 miles, with an average efficiency of about 3.5 miles/kWh. We left with 36% charge and returned with about 19% charge.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Final numbers:
Total miles driven: 340 miles
Final SOC displayed: 8%
Final SOC real: 10%
Remaining energy: 10.15 kWh
Total energy used: 91.7 kWh - 10.15 kWh = 81.55 kWh
Average miles/kWh: 340 / 81.55 kWh = 4.17 miles/kWh
Total remaining range (based on average efficiency and remaining kWh): ~42 miles

Total estimated range for mostly around-town or low-speed driving (note that this is not hypermiling--we never drove at a dangerously-low speed): 380-395 miles. If we tried harder by hypermiling, we could probably push this into the 400-420 mile range, but that's not of interest to me.

Our average efficiency for freeway-speed driving (73 mph) is about 3.1-3.3 miles/kWh, depending on several factors. We've seen as low as 2.2 miles/kWh and as high as about 7 miles/kWh. Note that these are not flat roads. We live at 7,000 feet and the return trip is always more energy-intensive than the trip off the mountain would suggest (i.e., we don't gain free energy from going down off the mountain unless we were never to return).

The latter is a repeatable anomaly where everything is in our favor for about 100 miles, but I pretty much throw away those data (it's when we descend off the mountain on a particular road at 75 mph and basically don't have any head-wind or other traffic so we can mostly just regenerate the battery...it works best when we start at around 80-85% and end that section of the road at 100%). We've only driven this part a few times and I consider it hypermiling and not realistic data to include in my analyses.

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