Real world range on Premium ER/AWD

[dbsb3233]

geeze, I guess gone are the days of just get in and drive . . . I'm old enough to remember when you had to warm up the car a bit before taking off. Seems like we are right back there again.

Sort of, but I think it's more nuanced than that. For daily use around home (unless one's commute is 100+ miles), it's a non-issue. There's plenty of range for that, so whether we pull electricity from the car battery or the wall socket to initially heat up the car doesn't really matter much. There's plenty of range to make it home without recharging on the road.

Where it matters is long road trips. We'll definitely want to precondition the cabin before those to preserve kWhs in the battery for range.

But the far bigger issue to me is what consumption will be AFTER the car is up to temp. Burning an extra 2-3 kWh in the first 15 minutes to get the cabin up to temp is one thing. But if it takes an extra 2-3 kWh every 15 minutes throughout the trip, that's a whole different matter.

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[mr_raider]

"managing fine" is subjective though. And frankly, I think the average consumer expects more from a $50k+ car that "managing". I know it can be done in most cases. What I'm more interested is quantifying the degree of range degradation to expect on long trips using the heater.

I know some people will manage with just using heated seats and steering while, while managing a cold nose, lips, ears, and feet. But I know most won't settle for that. Thus why the amount of loss matters.

I usually use the heated wheel, seat heaters at medium setting, and set the climate control to around 16C (60F). This way I can drive with hat off, no gloves and unzipped coat.

In Colorado, my guess is you will see 20-40% range loss depending on conditions. Your climate is fortunately less prone to cold snaps and more snowy than Eastern Canada. The best thing you can do is keep your car plugged in to an L2 if possible when parked outdoors overnight. During an 8 hour daytime workday, sitting in the lot should not cool the battery that much. That's why I chose a dark color for mine. Furthermore, if you will routinely be stretching the max range, you may want to opt for the bigger battery. The good news is that it seems the MME has excellent insulation in the panels, so it may retain heat well.

Personally, I have major range to spare. During the March lockdown I had no issues sitting in my car by myself at the Tim's parking lot with heater full blast drinking coffee. COmfort comes befoe conservation.

Again, this is an issue with ALL EVs. I don't see how the MAch-E will do worse or better than a Kona or Tesla M3 in this regard.

 

[DBC]

Would the MME AWD ER keep pace with the e-tron if limited to the same amount of time charging?

No. The Audi can maintain a higher charge rate for longer.

 

[dbsb3233]

I usually use the heated wheel, seat heaters at medium setting, and set the climate control to around 16C (60F). This way I can drive with hat off, no gloves and unzipped coat.

In Colorado, my guess is you will see 20-40% range loss depending on conditions. Your climate is fortunately less prone to cold snaps and more snowy than Eastern Canada. The best thing you can do is keep your car plugged in to an L2 if possible when parked outdoors overnight. During an 8 hour daytime workday, sitting in the lot should not cool the battery that much. That's why I chose a dark color for mine. Furthermore, if you will routinely be stretching the max range, you may want to opt for the bigger battery. The good news is that it seems the MME has excellent insulation in the panels, so it may retain heat well.

Personally, I have major range to spare. During the March lockdown I had no issues sitting in my car by myself at the Tim's parking lot with heater full blast drinking coffee. COmfort comes befoe conservation.

Again, this is an issue with ALL EVs. I don't see how the MAch-E will do worse or better than a Kona or Tesla M3 in this regard.

Actually for daily use around home, this is a non-issue. It's just long road trips where range matters. It's the days we'll spend 8-10 hours in the car driving through the mountains and beyond where it'll count.

We have heated seats in our Escape and they're nice, but we rarely use them. Usually just in the first 5 minutes of a cold day until the cabin warms up, then we turn them off. Kind of uncomfortable to leave them on, TBH, although that's in part because the Escape seat heaters are just too damn hot, even set on "1" (they go up to "5"). I'm hoping "1" in the MME is just slightly warm.

But the bigger point is we don't plan to compromise comfort in our fancy new $60k car (I think most buyers will feel the same). We're gonna heat the cabin like normal to keep it comfortable. If we can't do that, we'll drive the Escape on road trips instead. Knowing how much power it's gonna take to keep the cabin air at 70-72F will be helpful to find out.

 

[agoldman]

Mys son's tesla 3 seems to be always on, always conditioning and running climate regardless of what you are doing. I always thought that was such a waste of battery, but maybe that is just the way it handles things. I do like that the ME has an on off button. Always bothered me that the Tesla doesn't. Basically it's never actually off.

 

[dbsb3233]

Mys son's tesla 3 seems to be always on, always conditioning and running climate regardless of what you are doing. I always thought that was such a waste of battery, but maybe that is just the way it handles things. I do like that the ME has an on off button. Always bothered me that the Tesla doesn't. Basically it's never actually off.

Does it also have fan speed control, that can go to zero? If so, maybe that turns off the actual heating or cooling process too.

Or is it just fully automatic all the time with no ability to manually control fan speed?

 

[mr_raider]

Mys son's tesla 3 seems to be always on, always conditioning and running climate regardless of what you are doing. I always thought that was such a waste of battery, but maybe that is just the way it handles things. I do like that the ME has an on off button. Always bothered me that the Tesla doesn't. Basically it's never actually off.

That's a good sign. It's means there is a robust algorithm to manage battery temp. Ask any Leaf owner what they think about that.

 

[guyofthesky]

Except comparing water vapor and molecular oxygen and nitrogen are not equivalent in the atmosphere. Water vapor does not exist in the atmosphere in molecular form except at the lowest possible levels of absolute humidity. It exists as microparticulates in suspension (not solution) with condensation bringing together water molecules into larger particles. It does not displace atmospheric gases (N2, O2, CO2, and trace gases) but adds to the mass of air. Humid air is much heavier than dry air. Condensed water vapor in clouds is much heavier than air outside clouds.

Liquid water in the form of rain is much heavier and adds surface tension, increasing rolling resistance of tires (https://hpwizard.com/rolling-resistance-vs-road-wetness.pdf).

Hmm. I think that humid air is less dense than dry air. That is why clouds don't fall out of the sky.
Here's a link:
WHY IS MOIST AIR LESS DENSE THAN DRY AIR AT SAME TEMPERATURE (theweatherprediction.com)

 

[ChasingCoral]

Hmm. I think that humid air is less dense than dry air. That is why clouds don't fall out of the sky.
Here's a link:
WHY IS MOIST AIR LESS DENSE THAN DRY AIR AT SAME TEMPERATURE (theweatherprediction.com)

My mistake. Thanks.

 

[tormodg]

From this Norwegian review that was posted in the review article thread (google translated):

Norwegian speed limits are mostly 50 mph outside of cities aside from some motorways with speed limits up to 68 mph.

Norway has its own mile apparently equivalent to 6.2 international miles but I assume the kwt figure is in international miles because it wouldn't make sense otherwise. The 38.2 mile cited range might be Norwegian miles? Not sure.

The second article is even more in depth:

Just to clear this up - the Norwegian term «mil» is 10 kilometers. So they managed 382 km (237 miles) in approx 0C (32F) with the AWD LR MME.

 

[SteveUk]

Preconditioning means warm your car up when plugged in before your journey?

 

[mr_raider]

Preconditioning means warm your car up when plugged in before your journey?

Yes. Or cool it down in the heat. It's for people who park outside. If you have a closed heated garage it's not an issue.

 

[Marcel]

My mistake. Thanks.

No way you win this discussion with "guy of the sky"

 

[ChasingCoral]

No way you win this discussion with "guy of the sky"

What can I say, I'm an oceanographer, not a meteorologist. Different fluids!

 

[Kamuelaflyer]

What can I say, I'm an oceanographer, not a meteorologist. Different fluids!

Should’ve asked a pilot Mark. We know everything. Just ask us ... ?

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