Jager
Well-known member
- First Name
- Jeff
- Joined
- May 25, 2020
- Threads
- 7
- Messages
- 95
- Reaction score
- 361
- Location
- Virginia
- Vehicles
- 2022 Model 3 LR AWD, Several Motorcycles
- Thread starter
- #1
On reveal night, four years ago, it was the 500 mile range of the Tri-Motor trim that stuck in my mind more than anything else.
We don’t know what we don’t know, though. And sometimes something that seems imminently clear… turns out anything but.
Fast forward those four years. Cybertrucks are now finally rolling out of Austin. And here is my stake-in-the-ground: Lots of people are going to be complaining about the range they experience.
Not because they’re towing things. Not because they’re hauling stuff. And not because the truck Tesla finally shipped ended up rated at 300 miles and change instead of the 500 miles that was originally expected.
Even had Tesla hit that bogey, people would be unhappy. Because most people – even longtime EV owners – continue to look at EV range through the prism of their lifelong ICE experience.
There are a hat trick of things going on. First, drivers don’t usually appreciate the vast difference in fuel stores between ICE cars and their EV counterparts.
One gallon of gas is approximately 121,000,000 joules; and is equivalent to around 33.6 kWh.
Here’s a quick chart of the fuel capacities of several sample ICE trims, and what would be the equivalent energy in an EV.
Note the extraordinary kWh capacities necessary to match up with what we think of as run-of-the-mill, common-as-can-be vehicles. It underlines how grossly inefficient ICE cars are. The Raptor is just nuts.
It’s even more revealing when you turn it around and look at it from the EV perspective.
Imagine if your ICE family sedan had a 2.5 gallon gas tank. When I go out later this morning and climb into my Model 3, that’s essentially what I’m doing. It underlines how little fuel a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y carries onboard, compared to a similar ICE vehicle. It emphasizes how much more efficient an EV is.
There’s a “But,” though.
All vehicles - ICE or EV - are affected by things like temperature, altitude, and speed. And yet the EV world is inundated with complaints of range falling off as the calendar rolls into winter. Or when a drive involves a long slog on the interstate at speed. Or when a trip sends one up into the mountains.
While ICE drivers rarely give a thought to any of those things.
Lithium EV chemistries certainly have some issues that need to be managed in cold weather. I’m not saying they don’t.
But much of the effect of those kinds of things in the ICE world is hidden within the cavernous supply of fuel that they carry.
Lose ten percent efficiency in an ICE car because you’ve entered a slight uphill grade and it’s lost in the noise. Lose ten percent in an EV, with its tiny fuel supply and parsimonious allocation of energy, and it’s immediately obvious.
I’m reminded of the scene from Apollo 13 when Ken Mattingly, down on the ground, struggles to find a way to power up the Command Module of the ailing spacecraft with the tiny amount of power available in the Lunar Module’s batteries.
How we use our batteries is sometimes a very big deal.
The second thing, the next reason many people will be unhappy with the range they see in their new Cybertruck, is because full in the ICE world is a little bit different than full in the EV world.
Both worlds require some buffer on the low end, in order to find that next gas station or DC fast charger.
But whereas the ICE world habitually fills their tank all the way when they stop, that’s rarely the case in the EV world. Lithium batteries don’t like full charge because it accelerates pack degradation. So those of us who care about such things tend to back away from full charge some amount – 80% or 70% or, for some of us, even more – unless we’re on a road trip or some other situation that absolutely demands 100% SOC.
That promised 320 miles of range can quickly turn into 250 or 270 before we’ve driven the first mile. And that’s with a brand new pack, before any degradation has occurred.
The last reason for range frustration is because of something most people never give a thought to – themselves.
A lot of people look at rated range, fail to ever hit it, and then just squint hard at their vehicle, shaking their head. Muttering something about Elon once again promising something he never delivered.
Well, no.
Most drivers have pretty close to zero appreciation for how much energy it costs pulling away from a traffic light. Or how much is thrown away every time they tap the brakes.
They have not once, during their entire driving life, ever given a thought to momentum or what the benefit of conserving it might be.
They drive their EV exactly like they’ve always driven their ICE car. They press on the throttle to make it go. They press on the brake to make it stop.
And because that ICE car always had such a glorious extravagance of energy carried onboard, they never learned not to waste it.
Even in a car – such as a Tesla – that has the real-time telemetry for such things, they’ve never once contemplated the actual kilowatts of power their rear motor is putting out. Or where the threshold is for when the motor on their front axle engages.
They see the green line on their screen stretch out like a rubber band when they come off the throttle and their car begins regen braking. But they have no idea how much energy got sent back into the pack.
I won’t belabor this. Discussing how to optimize EV driving efficiency is a story for another time. For now, I’ll just say that an EV driver complaining because the “real world” range of their vehicle never approaches its rated range… is probably not seeing the whole picture.
Speaking of that rated range thing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an objective, unbiased third-party from whom we could get “real world” numbers?
Turns out we do. It’s called the EPA. They designed the test suite from which rated range emerges. Not Tesla.
The second chart above has the watt-hours/mile needed to hit the vehicle’s rated range, written in red. For the Cybertruck, we’ll be wanting to hit right around 384 in order to make that 320-mile bogey.
Some of us expect to.
We don’t know what we don’t know, though. And sometimes something that seems imminently clear… turns out anything but.
Fast forward those four years. Cybertrucks are now finally rolling out of Austin. And here is my stake-in-the-ground: Lots of people are going to be complaining about the range they experience.
Not because they’re towing things. Not because they’re hauling stuff. And not because the truck Tesla finally shipped ended up rated at 300 miles and change instead of the 500 miles that was originally expected.
Even had Tesla hit that bogey, people would be unhappy. Because most people – even longtime EV owners – continue to look at EV range through the prism of their lifelong ICE experience.
There are a hat trick of things going on. First, drivers don’t usually appreciate the vast difference in fuel stores between ICE cars and their EV counterparts.
One gallon of gas is approximately 121,000,000 joules; and is equivalent to around 33.6 kWh.
Here’s a quick chart of the fuel capacities of several sample ICE trims, and what would be the equivalent energy in an EV.
Note the extraordinary kWh capacities necessary to match up with what we think of as run-of-the-mill, common-as-can-be vehicles. It underlines how grossly inefficient ICE cars are. The Raptor is just nuts.
It’s even more revealing when you turn it around and look at it from the EV perspective.
Imagine if your ICE family sedan had a 2.5 gallon gas tank. When I go out later this morning and climb into my Model 3, that’s essentially what I’m doing. It underlines how little fuel a Tesla Model 3 or Model Y carries onboard, compared to a similar ICE vehicle. It emphasizes how much more efficient an EV is.
There’s a “But,” though.
All vehicles - ICE or EV - are affected by things like temperature, altitude, and speed. And yet the EV world is inundated with complaints of range falling off as the calendar rolls into winter. Or when a drive involves a long slog on the interstate at speed. Or when a trip sends one up into the mountains.
While ICE drivers rarely give a thought to any of those things.
Lithium EV chemistries certainly have some issues that need to be managed in cold weather. I’m not saying they don’t.
But much of the effect of those kinds of things in the ICE world is hidden within the cavernous supply of fuel that they carry.
Lose ten percent efficiency in an ICE car because you’ve entered a slight uphill grade and it’s lost in the noise. Lose ten percent in an EV, with its tiny fuel supply and parsimonious allocation of energy, and it’s immediately obvious.
I’m reminded of the scene from Apollo 13 when Ken Mattingly, down on the ground, struggles to find a way to power up the Command Module of the ailing spacecraft with the tiny amount of power available in the Lunar Module’s batteries.
How we use our batteries is sometimes a very big deal.
The second thing, the next reason many people will be unhappy with the range they see in their new Cybertruck, is because full in the ICE world is a little bit different than full in the EV world.
Both worlds require some buffer on the low end, in order to find that next gas station or DC fast charger.
But whereas the ICE world habitually fills their tank all the way when they stop, that’s rarely the case in the EV world. Lithium batteries don’t like full charge because it accelerates pack degradation. So those of us who care about such things tend to back away from full charge some amount – 80% or 70% or, for some of us, even more – unless we’re on a road trip or some other situation that absolutely demands 100% SOC.
That promised 320 miles of range can quickly turn into 250 or 270 before we’ve driven the first mile. And that’s with a brand new pack, before any degradation has occurred.
The last reason for range frustration is because of something most people never give a thought to – themselves.
A lot of people look at rated range, fail to ever hit it, and then just squint hard at their vehicle, shaking their head. Muttering something about Elon once again promising something he never delivered.
Well, no.
Most drivers have pretty close to zero appreciation for how much energy it costs pulling away from a traffic light. Or how much is thrown away every time they tap the brakes.
They have not once, during their entire driving life, ever given a thought to momentum or what the benefit of conserving it might be.
They drive their EV exactly like they’ve always driven their ICE car. They press on the throttle to make it go. They press on the brake to make it stop.
And because that ICE car always had such a glorious extravagance of energy carried onboard, they never learned not to waste it.
Even in a car – such as a Tesla – that has the real-time telemetry for such things, they’ve never once contemplated the actual kilowatts of power their rear motor is putting out. Or where the threshold is for when the motor on their front axle engages.
They see the green line on their screen stretch out like a rubber band when they come off the throttle and their car begins regen braking. But they have no idea how much energy got sent back into the pack.
I won’t belabor this. Discussing how to optimize EV driving efficiency is a story for another time. For now, I’ll just say that an EV driver complaining because the “real world” range of their vehicle never approaches its rated range… is probably not seeing the whole picture.
Speaking of that rated range thing. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had an objective, unbiased third-party from whom we could get “real world” numbers?
Turns out we do. It’s called the EPA. They designed the test suite from which rated range emerges. Not Tesla.
The second chart above has the watt-hours/mile needed to hit the vehicle’s rated range, written in red. For the Cybertruck, we’ll be wanting to hit right around 384 in order to make that 320-mile bogey.
Some of us expect to.
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