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I live in Seattle. Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. Going to the grocery store a mile away involves more elevation changes than people living in Florida go thr

I live in Seattle. Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. Going to the grocery store a mile away involves more elevation changes than people living in Florida go through in a year. Seriously, tons of hills in every direction. Driving around the city, my current compact ICE, 1.6L turbo, tiny hatchback, gets around 22 miles to the gallon. My other car, ICE, subcompact, 2L engine, 140 horse power, barely hits 20 MPG. For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense.

jjav 4y ago
> Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. > For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense. I thought your conclusion would be the opposite. Hills kill EV range. I've had a few Fiat 500e EVs, with a flatland range of about 90 miles. But commuting here involves some good hills (~2000ft elevation change) so the true range was more like 40 miles. Which was just about barely enough to get to work. Good thing there was free charging at the office.
- foobazgt 4y ago
  > Hills kill EV range. It sounds like your source is your personal experience? EVs are far better than ICEs at navigating hills, because the moment you can no longer coast and must apply friction braking (either through your brake pedal or engine gearing) you lose 100% of the energy going to friction. In comparison, EVs typically recover the majority of the breaking energy (mine recovers 70-80%). This is the same reason that both EVs and hybrids substantially outperform ICEs in city driving - lots of application of friction brakes. In addition, EVs tend to have a better coefficient of drag, so if you were tempted to go higher speeds down a hill, you'll find EVs get substantially better efficiency than ICEs there too. I'm struggling to think of a hill-traversing scenario that doesn't overwhelmingly favor EVs for efficiency both in theory and practice. Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency? In which case, I would offer that a 90m range EV is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel. That kind of range is fairly niche nowadays, and I expect will eventually be largely phased out.
  - jjav 4y ago
    Maybe the Fiat 500e was particularly bad at regenerating, not sure. I haven't driven newer models on these hills. With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side. > is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel This is local travel, it's just that the area is hilly so going anywhere is going to inevitably involve hills. > Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency? To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range.
    - foobazgt 4y ago
      > With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side. Yeah, if you aren't riding the brakes, I agree with you that it sounds related to the Fiat. 35mi of range for 20mi of hills seems off. > To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range Sure, but efficiency is a factor in range. What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range (much less so than an ICE). I don't know a lot about the Fiat, so perhaps something strange is going on with its regen breaking. For example, with its smaller battery capacity, it's likely to have a lower max regen limit. Perhaps you're driving in cold weather and it poorly regens under those conditions. It looks like the Fiat does blended braking, so perhaps your using more of the friction brakes than you expect. Etc.
      - jjav 4y ago
        > What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range While I have not driven some of the most recent EVs and have no doubt they are better, the above statement surely contradicts physical reality. It takes more energy to go up a hill than to drive on flat ground, so it is inevitable that a trip uphill will drain available range far faster than driving on flat ground.

jjav 4y ago

> Lots of hills. Hills everywhere. > For my city's topography, EVs make a ton of sense. I thought your conclusion would be the opposite. Hills kill EV range. I've had a few Fiat 500e EVs, with a flatland range of about 90 miles. But commuting here involves some good hills (~2000ft elevation change) so the true range was more like 40 miles. Which was just about barely enough to get to work. Good thing there was free charging at the office.

foobazgt 4y ago
> Hills kill EV range. It sounds like your source is your personal experience? EVs are far better than ICEs at navigating hills, because the moment you can no longer coast and must apply friction braking (either through your brake pedal or engine gearing) you lose 100% of the energy going to friction. In comparison, EVs typically recover the majority of the breaking energy (mine recovers 70-80%). This is the same reason that both EVs and hybrids substantially outperform ICEs in city driving - lots of application of friction brakes. In addition, EVs tend to have a better coefficient of drag, so if you were tempted to go higher speeds down a hill, you'll find EVs get substantially better efficiency than ICEs there too. I'm struggling to think of a hill-traversing scenario that doesn't overwhelmingly favor EVs for efficiency both in theory and practice. Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency? In which case, I would offer that a 90m range EV is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel. That kind of range is fairly niche nowadays, and I expect will eventually be largely phased out.
- jjav 4y ago
  Maybe the Fiat 500e was particularly bad at regenerating, not sure. I haven't driven newer models on these hills. With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side. > is a local transportation vehicle not designed for that kind of travel This is local travel, it's just that the area is hilly so going anywhere is going to inevitably involve hills. > Perhaps I misunderstood your complaint, and your concern is just the range and not the efficiency? To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range.
  - foobazgt 4y ago
    > With the Fiat, it would use up about 30-40 miles of indicated range to go uphill less than 10 miles. But it would only recover 2-3 miles on the downhill side. Yeah, if you aren't riding the brakes, I agree with you that it sounds related to the Fiat. 35mi of range for 20mi of hills seems off. > To be fair, that's precisely what I said: Hills kill EV range Sure, but efficiency is a factor in range. What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range (much less so than an ICE). I don't know a lot about the Fiat, so perhaps something strange is going on with its regen breaking. For example, with its smaller battery capacity, it's likely to have a lower max regen limit. Perhaps you're driving in cold weather and it poorly regens under those conditions. It looks like the Fiat does blended braking, so perhaps your using more of the friction brakes than you expect. Etc.
    - jjav 4y ago
      > What I'm saying is that, unless your EV range is so small that it can't get up the hill in the first place, hills shouldn't have a substantive impact on its range While I have not driven some of the most recent EVs and have no doubt they are better, the above statement surely contradicts physical reality. It takes more energy to go up a hill than to drive on flat ground, so it is inevitable that a trip uphill will drain available range far faster than driving on flat ground.