19 ms·
I'm not sure but to speculate: 1. I drove fast on the Autobahn. I'm usually cruising at 160kph+, and did the same with the Tesla. Doing some homework, this kil
by Gareth321 5y ago
I'm not sure but to speculate:
1. I drove fast on the Autobahn. I'm usually cruising at 160kph+, and did the same with the Tesla. Doing some homework, this kills efficiency fast. I imagine your brother was driving slower. Probably more within the high efficiency band.
2. Temperature delta. It was -5C + wind chill for most of our trip, and much colder up the mountain.
3. I kept a healthy battery reserve when seeking chargers (10%+) Tesla owners seem to encourage letting the battery drop below even 5% as this means an even faster charge to 60%. I am told there is an optimal cadence to charging which I suppose one perfects over time.
4. I did not conserve heating, as I'm told many EV owners do on longer trips. My wife likes our car to be subtropical.
5. Our Tesla might have been abused, though I recall it having <20,000km.
6. 1,000km is 17% shorter than my trip, further compounding (reducing) these differences.
7. Maybe my regenerative braking was set to low. I didn't think or know to check.
8. My route took me to at least a few regular chargers instead of superchargers. Maybe if I had been smarter and spent more time planning I could have used only super chargers.
9. Perhaps you stopped for a lot of breaks, reducing the relative advantage you might have had in your car.
10. Perhaps he left more than an hour earlier than you.
11. Perhaps my charging lines were longer than his.
I'm sure there are many other factors I'm not considering.
- breytex 5y agoYou should checkout https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ for your next trip :)
- Gareth321 5y agoThanks, that's a cool site.
- r00fus 5y agoYou said motorway speeds, but then state you were on the Autobahn doing 100mph+. Most other jurisdictions/autoways this speed is illegal. I definitely see my battery going down massively at 80mph/130kph speeds+ on my non-Tesla EV. In fact, going such speeds is probably massively inefficient for ICE cars as well, just that they're already incredibly inefficient already that you don't see much of a loss.
- maxwell86 5y agoIn Germany, the autobahn is the motorway. I typically drive at 180-190kph, that’s my “relaxed driving” speed. 160kph is “falling asleep” kind of speed unless you have a super loud car.
- jhoechtl 5y agoYou are aware that on the German Autobahn, outside designated speed limits, there is no speed limit? Believe it or not ... On Austrian highways its nominally 130km.
- withinboredom 5y agoI dated an vehicle design engineer once. She told me that cars create drag at a logarithmic rate at basically for every mph over 80, most people design them to use nearly double the fuel consumption to maintain. You can get some aerodynamic cars that are designed for 90mph, but it’s pretty rare in the consumer space. This was also nearly 10 years ago and I could be remembering it wrong.
- r00fus 5y agoDrag is the square of velocity, so not sure how your former date got logarithmic for that, sounds quadratic. Equation [1]: F(d) = 1/2v^2CdA Lowering the Cd (drag coefficient) and area can significantly reduce your drag. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_(physics)
- withinboredom 5y agoI think she was talking about fuel consumption and drag, not just drag. But like I said, it was a really long time ago.
- Teknoman117 5y agoThe US interstate speed limits are at most 120 kph (75 mph) and are 105 kph on average (65 mph), and can be as low as 90 kph (55 mph), so that's almost certainly what Tesla bases their "highway" estimates off of. 160 kph+ (100 mph+) is way past the efficiency sweet spot :) US interstate speed limits have their roots in fuel conservation for WW2 (or noise control in wealthier spots), safety was just a side effect at least at first.
- SECProto 5y ago> The US interstate speed limits are at most 120 kph (75 mph) Minor nitpick: there are 80 and 85mph interstates/sections.
- Teknoman117 5y agoReally?? Where? I've lived in a few different states across the US and I've yet to happen across one. (I am an American, yes we all learn metric in school, you can blame Reagan canning the attempt to switch in the 80s) Edit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/US_Speed_Limits.svg/1920px-US_Speed_Limits.svg.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/US... I've not spent much time in any of the dark-green ones (or the blue bit), so that's why.
- vondur 5y agoI've seen them in Utah in more rural sections of I-15.
- jliptzin 5y agoWow, 160 kph! That's why. That extra drag really kills the battery. In the US I have never driven above about 130kph, anything higher is pretty much illegal everywhere.
- TremendousJudge 5y agoIt's a normal speed in Germany. And yes, driving that fast also drains a gas tank very quickly. Not sure why GP is surprised -- an ICE car will also perform much worse than advertised at those speeds.
- Sharlin 5y agoBut it's also pretty much only normal in Germany, and only on Autobahns. Almost everywhere in Europe the highway speed limit is 110 to 130 km/h, similar to the US.
- seer 5y agoEastern Europe limit is usually about 140kph, and everybody frequently speeds a bit. With a waze app to check for cameras/policemen you can easily do 160kph in a dingy corolla. People with expensive german cars usually go 220kph up to 280kph if they are pushing it. Doing 300kph on safe straight sections is not unheard of, but hard to pull off due to traffic.
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago140kph in Poland.
- maxwell86 5y agoI drove a similar route as the GP, 1100km round trip for a ski trip to Austria, aiming at 190kph. I didn’t have to tank for the round trip, but I decided to tank on the way back cause in Austria tanking is much cheaper. My car isn’t particularly new, but the lowest I’ve seen it use is 4.5l/100km and at 180-190 it uses 6.5l/100km. In Germany most people don’t drive huge SUVs. Mine is a relatively sleek station wagon. Reducing the aerodynamic surface of cars significantly improved fuel economy.
- marcosdumay 5y agoOh, internal combustion vehicles also get their mileage very reduced at 160km/h. A 50% drop is completely normal. It's even on the small side.