Reading the article now, I am shocked that EPA just divides by 0.7, instead of calculating the aero drag & acceleration mass. No wonder big, heavy Teslas do worse than their specs, & my small, light BEV does better. Aptera being so much lighter & more aero should make it even better at exceeding EPA specs.
The article says Car&Driver & InsideEVs test only highway range, which someone else claimed is really all that matters, since nobody is going to drive even 150 miles non-stop in city traffic for 8 hours. That seems reasonable, except for those without home or work charging, where more city range can mean more days between charges.
I've heard this theory rumored before, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong, at least for my own BEV: "Over the years, that same software will make more of the total energy capacity available to users..."...:
Every report I've seen from 500e users shows it charges to 4.1 volts per cell, regardless of age or mileage. There are fewer reports of the low-end cutoff but every one I've seen says 3.1 V/cell, also regardless of age/miles. Also, a couple users did precise usable-capacity tests & measured just under 2.3% loss per 10k miles, which would have shown as zero loss if software was reducing the buffers.
I haven't read the article yet, but my friend who leased a Fiat 500e BEV (after falling in love while borrowing mine) & then bought a Tesla 3, recently attended a wedding a few hundred miles away, intentionally doing absolutely no planning at all. She ended up discouraged by the fact that she failed to Google a charger that would have got her home with a 9 minute stop. Instead, her husband chose to gamble 3 hours while they L2 charged at a casino on the route.
That was all a bit surprising to me, after she had become so accustomed to her 83-mile Fiat that a few times she coasted into her driveway as it hit ZERO%.
Personally, with an ancient "83-mile" 500e as my only vehicle for the last 5.5 years, its real-world 250% of my required US-average 40-mile city drive is significantly more than I need. For long trips I could use a small portion of my gas savings to rent a gas car, or just go with a friend in their car, or just drive to the airport.
There is no gas station between where I live and where I work. So, when I still had a gas car, once a month, I had to drive 10 minutes to go to the gas station, wait in line 10 minutes to be able to fill, drive 10 minutes to go back on the road back home. So half an hour lost, once a month. Now with my EV (C-zero, aka I-miev), I just plug to charge over-night.
For my wife, she has a gas station on the commuting road. But she had to fill her Prius at least once a week (long commute) and she was loosing a lot of time on average every month. Now, she is happy with her EV (Ioniq) as she only has to loose time on fast chargers once in a while during long distance trip but not anymore every week as she is plugging during the night and plug at work during the winter months.
Also while filling gas at the gas station, she was complaining about cold hand during winter and about bad smell of fuel all year long.
Today, for her, when she has to drive an ICE (and even worse a manual transmission diesel) it is like "torture" (her own words).
Thanks Ioswa. This article seems to be addressed to those who have never owned an electric vehicle. I can assure you that range anxiety decreases the longer one owns his vehicle. Just like owning a gas car, one gets into a pattern of conveniently filling the tank whenever one can. An advantage of the EV is that your main fuel station will be right at your own home. The tips on this article are valid...don't expect your 1000 mile range if you are also in the habit of using your 0-60 mph times of 3 seconds, chilling your car to 68 degrees in the summer (which I do), and driving too fast on the freeways. One of my EV's, the BMW i3 has never demonstrated range anxiety at all since it has its own built in generator. (which I have only used a few times). The generator can operate while one is driving the car, or when parked. The Tesla has an excellent charging network in California so if I go past the 300 mile range, there is always someplace to charge. One tip is not to wait until you "really need a charge" and the car will tell you when you are passing some high speed DC charging stations. If all else fails, one can call an emergency charge company or have AAA tow you to the nearest charger. One learns how to live with an EV....not hard at all, in fact life is even easier than having to drive to gas stations. Just my 2 cents.
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Reading the article now, I am shocked that EPA just divides by 0.7, instead of calculating the aero drag & acceleration mass. No wonder big, heavy Teslas do worse than their specs, & my small, light BEV does better. Aptera being so much lighter & more aero should make it even better at exceeding EPA specs.
The article says Car&Driver & InsideEVs test only highway range, which someone else claimed is really all that matters, since nobody is going to drive even 150 miles non-stop in city traffic for 8 hours. That seems reasonable, except for those without home or work charging, where more city range can mean more days between charges.
I've heard this theory rumored before, but I'm pretty sure it's wrong, at least for my own BEV: "Over the years, that same software will make more of the total energy capacity available to users..."...:
Every report I've seen from 500e users shows it charges to 4.1 volts per cell, regardless of age or mileage. There are fewer reports of the low-end cutoff but every one I've seen says 3.1 V/cell, also regardless of age/miles. Also, a couple users did precise usable-capacity tests & measured just under 2.3% loss per 10k miles, which would have shown as zero loss if software was reducing the buffers.
I haven't read the article yet, but my friend who leased a Fiat 500e BEV (after falling in love while borrowing mine) & then bought a Tesla 3, recently attended a wedding a few hundred miles away, intentionally doing absolutely no planning at all. She ended up discouraged by the fact that she failed to Google a charger that would have got her home with a 9 minute stop. Instead, her husband chose to gamble 3 hours while they L2 charged at a casino on the route.
That was all a bit surprising to me, after she had become so accustomed to her 83-mile Fiat that a few times she coasted into her driveway as it hit ZERO%.
Personally, with an ancient "83-mile" 500e as my only vehicle for the last 5.5 years, its real-world 250% of my required US-average 40-mile city drive is significantly more than I need. For long trips I could use a small portion of my gas savings to rent a gas car, or just go with a friend in their car, or just drive to the airport.
There is no gas station between where I live and where I work. So, when I still had a gas car, once a month, I had to drive 10 minutes to go to the gas station, wait in line 10 minutes to be able to fill, drive 10 minutes to go back on the road back home. So half an hour lost, once a month. Now with my EV (C-zero, aka I-miev), I just plug to charge over-night.
For my wife, she has a gas station on the commuting road. But she had to fill her Prius at least once a week (long commute) and she was loosing a lot of time on average every month. Now, she is happy with her EV (Ioniq) as she only has to loose time on fast chargers once in a while during long distance trip but not anymore every week as she is plugging during the night and plug at work during the winter months.
Also while filling gas at the gas station, she was complaining about cold hand during winter and about bad smell of fuel all year long.
Today, for her, when she has to drive an ICE (and even worse a manual transmission diesel) it is like "torture" (her own words).
Thanks Ioswa. This article seems to be addressed to those who have never owned an electric vehicle. I can assure you that range anxiety decreases the longer one owns his vehicle. Just like owning a gas car, one gets into a pattern of conveniently filling the tank whenever one can. An advantage of the EV is that your main fuel station will be right at your own home. The tips on this article are valid...don't expect your 1000 mile range if you are also in the habit of using your 0-60 mph times of 3 seconds, chilling your car to 68 degrees in the summer (which I do), and driving too fast on the freeways. One of my EV's, the BMW i3 has never demonstrated range anxiety at all since it has its own built in generator. (which I have only used a few times). The generator can operate while one is driving the car, or when parked. The Tesla has an excellent charging network in California so if I go past the 300 mile range, there is always someplace to charge. One tip is not to wait until you "really need a charge" and the car will tell you when you are passing some high speed DC charging stations. If all else fails, one can call an emergency charge company or have AAA tow you to the nearest charger. One learns how to live with an EV....not hard at all, in fact life is even easier than having to drive to gas stations. Just my 2 cents.