Now tell us how much a Tesla costs - to get the same sort of range as pretty well the cheapest petrol or diesel on the market?
OT EV car range
Apr 04, 2022
Last reply: 4 years ago
137 Replies
Do you actually ever drive 600 miles without a break, though?
I could live with a 250 miles range if it would re-charge in an hour.
I think about 500 miles is the maximum I have done in one day and not without a break, but I prefer not to have to use motorway service areas to fill up. Still beyond what most EVs can do though.
180 miles to South Wales is my limit for a day.
I never said they were cheap. It?s not just about range though. Tesla have a good network (in many, but not all areas) of very high speed chargers that make long journeys much simpler.
Tim
You need a big heavy thing. Turn the engine off and coast downhill for miles at infinity mpg (as long as you don't need to steer or brake you'll survive).
Bill
If that's what he wants to do, it's his right.
Bill
Yes, have done a number of times.
And even a stop for a piss by the side of the road takes less than a minute.
F*ck that.
Mine is about eight hours driving, with a couple of breaks in addition.
Or this, which would give any range you want, with the occasional short stop to refill it:
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One of my longest have been Manchester to Holyhead, Dublin to Sligo, a short drive from church to graveyard, then graveyard to hotel for a meal, then Sligo to Belfast, Stranraer to Manchester. Necessitated by a death and the funeral being the next morning. The hotel would have been the only chance to charge and we wouldn't have been there long enough at the rate of a hotel charger - plus we only found out about the funeral when we got in from work in the evening, so would not have had a full charge to start with.
The other was Manchester to Nottingham to Dover, Calais to Stuttgart (stops only for toilets and driver swaps), camping for the night and then on to Salzburg. Return journey a week later.
I regularly used to drive 125 miles each way for work - and for most affordable EVs, that is not achievable during the winter months without charging.
Anther site with an interactive tool to show the change in range with temperature
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Their general conclusions is that it is using the heater or AC that has greatest impact on cold or hot days. The tool suggests around 30% drop off in range if you use the cabin heater at 0C ambient. They suggest heating the person rather than the car with heated seats and steering wheel. I'm not sure how this works the other way around with the drop off in range because of the use of AC on days hotter than 22C - but possibly not too much of a problem for too many days in the UK ;)
No mention in that link about the differences between heat pump equipped cars and those with purely resistive heating. Most of the better EVs use heat pumps now.
Tim
No. But I needed to drive >600 miles without being able to refuel when they screwed up the petrol and diesel supply last year. My car will do over 800 miles on a full tank of diesel on motorways at just under 70 mph. My wife can get 850 on a single tank on a long run driving at 55.
You also need to be certain that the charger that you go to will be working when you get there and not be stuck in a long queue to use it.
We looked at an EV this time around and concluded that my wife would be in a state of near permanent range anxiety with an EV 200 mile range.
About half of all our journeys by car are 100+ miles round trip with no easy way to charge at the far end. Public charging facilities up north are a joke! eg.
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It might or more likely might not open in April 2022 (latest of a long series of deadlines) it has slipped from July last year with no obvious signs of progress. If they go ahead as originally planned they will be selling electricity to motorists for less than they have to pay for it!
A charging station with no electricity supply isn't much use to anybody!
Are there *any* EVs with purely resistive heating?
At the base price of an EV I'd expect aircon as standard.
Sadly 6 months delay isn?t uncommon. It?s usually down stalemates with landowners arguing over wayleaves.
Tim
Yes, quite a lot and the cheaper end of the market. The newer version of my car (Kia Soul) no longer has a heat pump (down to trying to keep the price within government grant levels).
I suspect most have air-con (although no direct experience) but apparently the air-con and heating heat pumps are usually separate units.
Tim
They have a selection for the make/model and year of the car. If one of their selection has a known heat pump for cabin climate then it may be worth seeing what the range reduction is. I just took a few cars at random and changed the ambient temperature to see the range reduction. I only selected temperatures between 0 and 30C which is possibly a realistic worst case for the UK.
Bit of a nonsense a make needing its own charger. Can't think of any petrol or diesel that had its own pump.
Total madness. Unless driving across a desert. Where of course you couldn't do 600 miles in one go.
Just what's needed. All and sundry using the roadside as a toilet. Remind me never to visit your country.
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