Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveinArizona
All the testing is done assuming that the vehicles are driven like Buicks. But who buys a BMW to drive it like a Buick? So I assume that any BEV I buy would have much lower range than officially asserted.
For this reason I like reviews where the cars are actually driven at speed on roads.
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The EPA range testing is actually done using the exact same City and Highway testing procedures as ICE vehicles. You can then either do a 5 cycle test and report those results, as Tesla does, or fewer tests and discount your range by 30% to account for environmental variables. I've looked all this up and studied it extensively to understand why the Taycan can trounce the EPA range while Tesla can never reach it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stein_325i
I honestly wish the EPA would make their range testing more accurate as well as offer both a city and hwy range similar to ICE vehicles, because I have no idea what the hell MPGe means and how to interpret it.
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Separate highway and city ranges would be useful. MPGe is really only useful to compare how one car relates to another, and is only really useful if you're worried about charging costs (and time to a certain extent).
Consider MPG is a consumption rate. It has nothing to do with overall range. Range of an ICE vehicle is calculated by multiplying your consumption (Miles / Gallon) by available fuel capacity (gallons) to get miles of range. So if you do 20MPG city, 30 MPG highway and have a 20 MPG tank, your range is 400 to 600 miles.
(assuming you do the actual MPG and assuming all 20 gallons are usable but that's another story).
Range on an EV is kind of backwards thinking compared to ICE, because just like you can increase range on an ICE by either decreasing consumption or increasing tank size, on an EV you can get more range with a bigger battery or lower consumption (Wh/ Mile). So while a Tesla Model 3 might have similar range to a Mustang MachE, the Tesla has a 72 kWh battery while the Mustang has a 92 kWh one. kWh is a measure of energy storage in that you can sustain a power delivery of 72 kW for one hour, or 1 kW for 72 hours, or anywhere in between. The Mustang has a bigger battery, or larger energy storage, and that's how it gets better range.
MPGe corrects for the battery size, and tells you how efficient (relating to more or less consumption, lower or higher Wh/mile) your EV is.
The e in MPG is a conversion used as 1 gallon of gas contains the same amount of energy as 33.4 kWH of electricity. So a Tesla Model 3 has barely over 2 gallons worth of gas on board, essentially. While a Mustang MachE has just under 3. It's a goofy conversion meant to try to give people something 'relatable'. What would be far more accurate, but ultimately harder to understand, would be to tell people what kind of consumption an EV has at City and Highway speeds. Consumption in the us being kWh / mile, or Wh/100 miles. But then people would ask "well how far does that mean I can go" and so the EPA doesn't use that info.
I know this wasn't well written, but I hope it does shed some light.