There’s a tweet that is currently going somewhat viral, all about a long road trip taken in a Tesla Model Y. It’s a 3,605 mile road trip, which is absolutely no joke by any standards of a road trip. What’s notable about this trip is that the taker of this trip, Alex Gayer, kept some nicely meticulous records and did some math to figure out how much time was spent charging, how much money was spent, and what the equivalent would be in miles per gallon. One gets the sense that this was all done to brag about his Tesla, which is fine since we don’t kink-shame here, but interestingly, I think the end result of this is not an aggrandizement of Tesla, but actually a pretty solid argument in favor of plug-in hybrids!
As I think we’ve made pretty clear, we’re very pro hybrids, especially plug-in hybrids. They may not be the absolute platonic ideal of perfect efficiency, but they make a lot of sense for the flawed, messy reality we all actually live in. There’s a pragmatic beauty to hybrids. Yes, you’re dragging around two entire types of drivetrains, but the capabilities of those drivetrains dovetail so well with each other, with each one’s strengths filling in the weaknesses of the other – electric motors’ instant torque helping the combustion engine, the reclamation of normally lost kinetic energy from braking, the energy density of gasoline, all of these traits combine to make a system that’s more than the sum of its parts.
Let’s take a look at this proud Tesla owner’s math and see what we think of all this. First, let’s look at the overall trip:
Just took Model Y on a 3,605 mi road trip. Wanted to see what the worst case might look like for charging costs. 5 passengers total, fully loaded frunk and trunk, we drove as fast as conditions allowed and hit several rain storms, used heavy A/C, kids playing video games from the pic.twitter.com/amcO0lhpbc
— Alex Gayer (@alex_gayer) June 18, 2024
Damn, that’s a long trip! Based on that map, it looks like it took, what, 24 recharging stops? Alex breaks down some of the math for us, helpfully:
Here are my statistics:
Trip Miles: 3,605
Total kWh: 1310.58
Wh/mi: 363.55
Total spent charging: $421.84
Avg. Cost per mile: $0.12
Avg. Cost per kWh: $0.32
Total Time Spent Supercharging: 10 hours 58 minutes (did not include destination charges)— Alex Gayer (@alex_gayer) June 18, 2024
So, we have 3,605 miles, with an average cost per mile of 12 cents, and just under 11 hours of charging time for the trip. Oh, and that doesn’t count “destination charges” which is charging done once they reached their destination for that leg of the journey. The total spent on electrons to feed into those big lithium batteries came to $421.84. Okay, all that seems in order. But it was this next tweet that I really think got everyone wondering:
The average price of gas at the time was about $3.516 per gallon. The money spent charging could have purchased 119.98 gallons of gas. This means that to have made the same trip in a gas-powered car for the same cost, I would have had to achieve an average of 30.0 MPG.
— Alex Gayer (@alex_gayer) June 18, 2024
Okay, so I suspect everyone here is thinking the same thing: 30 mpg? That’s, um, normal? Like, almost anything can hit 30 mpg on the highway now, right? And the way this is phrased – “I would have had to achieve an average of 30.0 MPG” – makes it sound like this is some incredible feat? Big-ass modern SUVs can pull off about 30 MPG now. I just had a press V8 Mustang that was hitting about 30 mpg on the highway recently, too. This isn’t nuclear fusion here.
Okay, so using Alex’ numbers here, let’s figure out what an equivalent trip in a combustion car that gets 30 mpg highway would be like. Let’s say we’re taking an Acura Integra, why not, which gets a combined 30-33 mpg (city 30/highway 37, if you’re curious) and that car has a 12.4 gallon gas tank.
So, the range of that car at a conservative 30 mpg would be 372 miles, so if we divide 3,605 miles by 372 that means we’d have to stop for gas 9.69 times, which we’ll round up to 10 because we probably want more Nutter Butters and Munchos and pee breaks, anyway.
Each tank of 12.4 gallons at $3.516 is $43.60 to fill the tank (completely, which is unlikely, but whatever so that comes to $436.00 for all the gas, a bit more than the electricity, but effectively the same, since it’s unlikely you’ll be draining that tank to bone-dry each time.
Now let’s think about time. Let’s err on the side of slowness and say each fill-up takes 15 minutes, so we have 10 stops, which means 150 minutes, or two and a half hours total. That’s a hell of a lot less than 11 hours. It’s eight and a half hours less, in fact.
And, keep in mind, 30 mpg is just a baseline here – it’s not hard to find all sorts of cars, like Toyota Priuses or Honda Civics or Volkswagen Jettas or Toyota RAV4s or any number of other cars that get well over 30 mpg, 35 and up, even 40 mpg for highway mileage is not uncommon. So the reality is likely to be less fuel needed and less fill-ups than we calculated here.
Of course, people on eX-Twitter pointed out these facts, Alex pointed out that in non-highway use, his Tesla gets well over 30 mpg, often up to an EV equivalent of 90 mpg. And that’s true! But it’s also true that plug-in hybrids can get similar equivalent mpg numbers when running on battery power in-town, and can also take advantage of having a combustion engine that quickly refuels when being used on a long road trip.
If we look at the electric-only ranges of PHEVs, we can see that most of them can cover the average American daily commute distance of 12 miles just on battery power:
- Jeep Wrangler 4xe: 22 miles
- Ford Escape plug-in: 37 miles
- Chrysler Pacifica PHEV: 32 miles
- Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe: 26 miles
- Hyundai Tucson PHEV: 33 miles
- Mazda CX-90 PHEV: 26 miles
- BMW X5 xDrive50e: 38 miles
- BMW 330e: 23 miles
- Toyota Prius Prime: 44 miles
- Toyota RAV4 Prime: 42 miles
- Lexus RX450h+: 37 miles
Hell, even the worst of these can pull off almost the whole back-and-forth commute without needing to start the combustion motor at all:
I know Alex Gayer didn’t really intend it to be this way, but I think his carefully-tracked road trip tweets will actually do a lot of good, just not in the everyone-should-get-a-Tesla sense. I think it’ll do good in the we-should-all-seriously-consider-plug-in-hybrids sense. Sure, they’re conceptually a clunky compromise, but in reality, in actual practice, they really do seem to offer the best of both worlds.
Had Alex and his four companions and all their luggage been in a plug-in hybrid, they could have spent the same amount of money and finished their trip an entire eight and a half hours earlier, which perhaps could have spared them seven or so hours of listening to Alex talk about how awesome his Tesla is.
I kid, Alex, I kid! I’m delighted you love your car! We should all be so lucky! But if we’re talking hard numbers, I think this whole thing has been a win for the plug-in hybrids.
I hope you had a fun trip, though!
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I think the story here is that the energy in gasoline is priced much cheaper than the equivalent electrical form. Generally, an electric car is about 3x more efficient at converting energy to motion than an ICE car, yet somehow Alex paid what he would have if he was driving a 30mpg car (hybrid or not). Poor Alex has paid for a vehicle (in price, depreciation. refueling time, etc) that is 3x more efficient but has no payback which, instead, is being pocketed by those running the recharging infrastructure.
I call “Shanagans!“. It seems like recharging is not priced so much by the energy content, but by what the market will bear which is roughly equivalent to the cost of operating a 30mpg ICE car.
Wtf are shanagans
I swear to God I’m going to pistol whip the next guy who says “shenanigans.”
Hey what was that bar called again
Shanagans
That is helpful.
Shenanigans.
Seconded. Shenanigans.
I’ll believe that when me shit turns purple and smells of rainbow sherbert.
Not really? Torch’s EV-to-ICE range cost comparison has three massive flaws in it:
1) EV’s are at their least efficient while highway driving, ICE cars are at the most efficient
2) The A/C was used heavily, which reduces range more on EV’s
3) The EV was fully loaded with passengers and cargo, while Torch’s EPA numbers don’t take that much extra weight into account
He’s comparing a best-case ICE scenario to a worst-case EV scenario.
Kindly refer to Brian Stieh’s comment below.
And I’d argue there’s one absolutely enormous flaw with your post: None of your points are valid. Road trips are a common use for cars. It’s a perfectly appropriate metric to use to compare the two.
“An EV might be a little less efficient the 1-2 times per year you go on a massive road trip cruising on 75MPH interstates, so let’s declare victory for the hybrid without discussing the other 99% of the scenarios in which you’ll be using the car”
How fucking often do you really imagine the average American household goes on multi-day, thousand-mile road trips?
And Torch used an Acura Integra for the comparison. which isn’t nearly as spacious as a Model Y. Something like a RAV4 or CRV would have been more comparable, and with five people and the equivalent of “a fully loaded trunk and frunk” and speeds “as fast as conditions allow”, it’s unlikely that a full ICE RAV4 would manage a cost-equivalent 30 MPG, so figure in a few more refueling stops. And while the cost of even a comparably equipped RAV4 Hybrid would be a little less than a Model Y Long Range without the tax credit, street price of a RAV4 Prime XSE most likely wouldn’t have been. So, yeah, some time would. have been saved, and more so with a hybrid whether or not it was a plug-in, but it’s hardly the big “Gotcha!” an anti-EV zealot will doubtless portray Torch’s post to be somewhere.
My 11 year old ICE RAV4 averages about 25-28 mpg highway. Closer to 25 mpg going quickly.
Yeah but the Tesla side has one big flaw in it and that is that they mention that there was destination charging done but don’t put it in the total. It also doesn’t say how much destination charging was done, once or twice, every night and what state of charge it arrived and left with.
I’m sure the thought is that it was “free” so no need to include that. But was it really free, how much was the hotel with the destination charger vs a similar one that didn’t offer “free” charging. Did they have to go out of their intended path to stay at hotels with destination chargers?
Even if the hotels were on the path and as cheap as others in the area, not every road trip will have convenient free destination charging.
That of course was the point about this article, road trips. Now he could have picked a better vehicle to compare it to, an actual PHEV like the RAV-4 Prime or Escape PHEV.
Using the math shown (which isn’t complete, granted), I took “did not include destination charges” as specifying no destination charging occurred. This may be a generous read, but I think the person tweeting was trying to test out the road trip on entirely supercharger energy.
If able to get some cheap or free destination charging, the cost per kwh seems really high, given that a Tesla should get the best price at Superchargers.
Their “destination charging not included” had nothing to do with the cost of charging, it was to exclude charging done while they would not have otherwise been driving, and thus wouldn’t contribute to the overall lengthening of the duration of the trip.
From the x-eets:
(emphasis mine)
Also neglected to factor in maintenance. Depending on your service interval, a 4k mile trip you’re basically racking up ~1/2 an oil change worth of miles, not to mention any other service intervals you just got 4k miles closer to.
I don’t know enough about how electric rates are set, though I don’t doubt there’s plenty of profit baked in (as well as deferred maintenance), but it’s closer to say that the true cost of gasoline is much higher than what purchasers pay. Besides environmental costs, there’s also a lot of foreign intervention and military size invested in protecting oil interests (resources and global stability) in countries we otherwise wouldn’t care about (then there’s the cost of many of those countries that would be nothing without their oil in terms of compromises and allowances we give them in regards to human rights plus their greater capability to cause problems with that money and influence).
The kicker for the US is, the US is the world’s largest petroleum producer, by quite a bit, and is basically self-sufficient (there is some import because chemical differences). The problem is, if oil prices go up elsewhere, US oil companies will sell our oil elsewhere because they make more money that way. They don’t have to pay for the foreign intervention stuff, not their problem. Ain’t capitalism grand?
His cost per mile is 1 cent cheaper than what I average in my BRZ with premium fuel.
And how expensive are your emissions ?
My GR86 does better than 30 even at around 80. Here’s one I have the stats on: 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon, FWD 5MT with somewhere around 160k miles at the time (summer of 2000). 3501 recorded miles from LA to town on the north Boston coast total time including every stop, sleep, driving around Vegas for about an hour, and a redirect in PA to NJ due to cops and low speed limits: 49.5 hours, averaging 25 mpg, and stops every 250 miles. That said, I didn’t do that trip with friggin’ kids, so with that massive handicap, he handily wins.
My GR86 does better than 30 even at around 80. Here’s one I have the stats on: 1990 Subaru Legacy wagon, FWD 5MT with somewhere around 160k miles at the time (summer of 2000). 3501 recorded miles from LA to town on the north Boston coast total time including every stop, sleep, driving around Vegas for about an hour, and a redirect in PA to NJ due to cops and low speed limits: 49.5 hours, averaging 25 mpg, and stops every 250 miles. That said, I didn’t do that trip with friggin’ kids, so with that massive handicap, he handily wins.
Earlier this year I did a trip from the Poconos to Indianapolis to see my sister. The vehicle we used was a 2022 Toyota Sienna Hybrid. Going cross country we averaged 35.2 MPG with 5 people, car seats and luggage.
Thank you for the great comparison! That’s awesome mileage.
My A6 Allroad has a mild hybrid setup and it gets about 34MPG if I drive sensibly on highways.
Toyota Hybrid technology is unmatched.
Pretty amazing for such a people & stuff hauler.
Earlier this year I did a trip from the Poconos to Indianapolis to see my sister. The vehicle we used was a 2022 Toyota Sienna Hybrid. Going cross country we averaged 35.2 MPG with 5 people, car seats and luggage.
Thank you for the great comparison! That’s awesome mileage.
My A6 Allroad has a mild hybrid setup and it gets about 34MPG if I drive sensibly on highways.
Toyota Hybrid technology is unmatched.
Pretty amazing for such a people & stuff hauler.
One thing not considered that is hard to put in numbers is that those 30mpg equivalent were cleaner or emissions at least controlled to specific areas. I just came back from Nicaragua and the smell of diesel from trucks and noise from motorcycles in a lot of stop and go traffic was insane. EVs may not make sense right now in the US to everyone but in other countries , cities are smaller and congested, the benefits will be astronomical.
Most of the last-mile and smaller commercial trucks like garbage trucks in Oslo are electric. You don’t realize how noisy and smelly the diesels are until you see a truck not rumbling and not spewing black smoke.
I eagerly await the Monday morning that I will not be awakened by the scream of a CNG Peterbilt being absolutely floored from house to house.
One thing not considered that is hard to put in numbers is that those 30mpg equivalent were cleaner or emissions at least controlled to specific areas. I just came back from Nicaragua and the smell of diesel from trucks and noise from motorcycles in a lot of stop and go traffic was insane. EVs may not make sense right now in the US to everyone but in other countries , cities are smaller and congested, the benefits will be astronomical.
Most of the last-mile and smaller commercial trucks like garbage trucks in Oslo are electric. You don’t realize how noisy and smelly the diesels are until you see a truck not rumbling and not spewing black smoke.
I eagerly await the Monday morning that I will not be awakened by the scream of a CNG Peterbilt being absolutely floored from house to house.
Understated in this review is the fact that he has the car fully loaded and used AC heavily. Which an Integra can’t do, and I would argue the Wrangler can’t either.
Understated in this review is the fact that he has the car fully loaded and used AC heavily. Which an Integra can’t do, and I would argue the Wrangler can’t either.
I’m reminded of the ‘weird flex’ meme of fast fill up times. Gas cars are no longer the quickest or fastest or most comfortable, but they can fill up quickly!
Cut to a bunch of dude bros in Lambos being beaten to the gas station by a Plaid but then gassing up in 10 minutes and high fiving and chest bumping each other then speeding away while the Plaid owner is stuck sitting in the Sheets slowly eating his chili dog while the charger ticks away.
Also, for this trip, curious on how many overnight stops they made, and how many charge stops included like lunch or dinner, as that would even up the charge time discrepancies with ‘fill up times’ as they’d be stopping for a half our or so anyways, especially with kids.
If they covered 600 miles a day, which should be about normal unless doing a cannonball run. And had overnight charging, then that could be 2 superchargers per day with overnight charging, but of course they’d have gone for 6 days so only about an hour per charging stop or less for 2 stops per day, and again if planned around food/family pit stops, maybe about 1/2 hour wasted compared to a stopping in a gas car as again, kids. So I’m not seeing that it’s a giant gap here in actual charging time.
As far as the 30mpg thing, yeah he’s a dingus, could’ve rented a Taos for the week, saved on wear and tear on their Tesla, stopped wherever they wanted, taken whatever side road they wanted and probably had a more chill time, if such is possible on a 3600 trip with kids.
I’m reminded of the ‘weird flex’ meme of fast fill up times. Gas cars are no longer the quickest or fastest or most comfortable, but they can fill up quickly!
Cut to a bunch of dude bros in Lambos being beaten to the gas station by a Plaid but then gassing up in 10 minutes and high fiving and chest bumping each other then speeding away while the Plaid owner is stuck sitting in the Sheets slowly eating his chili dog while the charger ticks away.
Also, for this trip, curious on how many overnight stops they made, and how many charge stops included like lunch or dinner, as that would even up the charge time discrepancies with ‘fill up times’ as they’d be stopping for a half our or so anyways, especially with kids.
If they covered 600 miles a day, which should be about normal unless doing a cannonball run. And had overnight charging, then that could be 2 superchargers per day with overnight charging, but of course they’d have gone for 6 days so only about an hour per charging stop or less for 2 stops per day, and again if planned around food/family pit stops, maybe about 1/2 hour wasted compared to a stopping in a gas car as again, kids. So I’m not seeing that it’s a giant gap here in actual charging time.
As far as the 30mpg thing, yeah he’s a dingus, could’ve rented a Taos for the week, saved on wear and tear on their Tesla, stopped wherever they wanted, taken whatever side road they wanted and probably had a more chill time, if such is possible on a 3600 trip with kids.
This is a great analysis, but I’ll also point out that the fact that nobody even questioning the Tesla going on a road trip of this length is a testament in itself to the advancement in EV and charging technology. Not long ago this trip wouldn’t be possible, and I still see plenty of comments from crusty old smooth brains who still think EVs in are some kind of golf cart that can’t go anywhere. So the mere act of hand waving the premise of making this trip in a Tesla itself and instead solely focusing on cost and time represents great progress.
That said, I’d probably still buy a PHEV.
Most animals have smooth brains. It’s an alternate architecture and their brains are ordered differently as a result, not necessarily a sign of lack of intelligence (as we myopically define it based on ourselves and our outlier lifestyle) unless it’s a defect in an animal that would otherwise have a folded brain architecture, like humans with Lissencephaly. Corvids have smooth brains and they rate high in intelligence even on the human scale.
Well I’ll be sure to let you know the next time I have a conversation about EVs with a crow so there’s no confusion.
my brain is smooth
And that’s fine since folded CVT pulleys would be even less reliable.
This is a great analysis, but I’ll also point out that the fact that nobody even questioning the Tesla going on a road trip of this length is a testament in itself to the advancement in EV and charging technology. Not long ago this trip wouldn’t be possible, and I still see plenty of comments from crusty old smooth brains who still think EVs in are some kind of golf cart that can’t go anywhere. So the mere act of hand waving the premise of making this trip in a Tesla itself and instead solely focusing on cost and time represents great progress.
That said, I’d probably still buy a PHEV.
Most animals have smooth brains. It’s an alternate architecture and their brains are ordered differently as a result, not necessarily a sign of lack of intelligence (as we myopically define it based on ourselves and our outlier lifestyle) unless it’s a defect in an animal that would otherwise have a folded brain architecture, like humans with Lissencephaly. Corvids have smooth brains and they rate high in intelligence even on the human scale.
Well I’ll be sure to let you know the next time I have a conversation about EVs with a crow so there’s no confusion.
my brain is smooth
And that’s fine since folded CVT pulleys would be even less reliable.
Sucks to be an early adopter sometimes. The only bias I have is the price at a supercharger is $0.32 kWh. That is over twice the $0.15 kWh I pay here in Green Country for home electric. So the cost is only really equal if you do not have home charging available. Don’t let Tesla fool you. There is reason they want a NA standard charger. It enables other brands to charge at their stations and Tesla make money from everyone. When you factor in that most of Tesla’s Superchargers will be powered by in house solar and Tesla batteries it lowers the $kWh even more. Almost to a cost of materials.
Sucks to be an early adopter sometimes. The only bias I have is the price at a supercharger is $0.32 kWh. That is over twice the $0.15 kWh I pay here in Green Country for home electric. So the cost is only really equal if you do not have home charging available. Don’t let Tesla fool you. There is reason they want a NA standard charger. It enables other brands to charge at their stations and Tesla make money from everyone. When you factor in that most of Tesla’s Superchargers will be powered by in house solar and Tesla batteries it lowers the $kWh even more. Almost to a cost of materials.
That’s 30 mpg average, which would take into account getting into to town and driving around too. Even when I had a cheating TDI VW I wasn’t averaging 40mpg. Maybe low 30’s, even though highway MPG was something like 42 mpg (I can’t remember what it was before they fixed it).
I couldn’t care less about the small difference in cost outlay, there is no getting around the time lost to sitting at chargers.Those 8 hours of my life are more important than a few bucks to me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t see amazing mpg with TDIs. My diesel Smart will easily get 70 mpg around town and will still get 60 mpg on the highway. My fixed cheating Jetta SportWagen TDI does 42 mpg on a good day on the highway and that’s being really careful. It usually hangs around 37 mpg.
6th Gen TDIs MPG got hit buy the pre-DEF emissions system and often 40 MPG is the best mine JSW would do. My Golf 4 couldn’t do worse than 40 MPG, even did 42 MPG towing a Buell on a trailer. My latest, a Golf 7, gets mid 40s unless towing into a headwind.
My Sportwagen can get up to 45mpg highway, but I swear the stars must have to align perfectly, because other trips on the same roads in the same conditions resulted in lower numbers. I usually get ~40 on the highway, and roughly 35 in town, so I usually average about 37mpg per tank. We took a trip from Louisville to Detroit last month, just for a few days. The average for the whole trip was about 43mpg, so pretty impressive honestly. Diesel was actually cheaper than gas during that trip as well, an added bonus. Because of that, outside hybrids and EVs, I was driving the car with one of the lowest cost/miles of anything else I shared the road with on that trip.
Part of the reason I get lower fuel economy than some is tires. I’m running TSW wheels with 235s, Continental DWS 06 Plus tires. They are definitely not the lower rolling resistance tires the car was originally fitted with. That, and I cannot simply drive the speed limit. I usually cruise at 75-85, dependent on traffic and conditions, of course. Still, having a car that can hit 40mpg while cruising at 80 with the AC blasting is pretty neat.
My roomate in college had a 2012 (I think) TDI Jetta that averaged 56 and his father had the top of the line TDI Jetta that was about the same. Both 6MT. I was amazed when I saw the readouts and the range
Holy smokes!!! Yeah, I have two of these JSWs to sample. My 2012, which has stock everything, no error codes or mechanical issues, but 360+k miles, does about 45 mpg unloaded and A/C off on the highway.
The 2010, as I said earlier, does 42 mpg on a good day, empty and A/C off. In its defense, it’s in need of a new DPF and EGR, so maybe there’s where the fuel economy losses went. There’s also nearly 240k on that one.
Or, perhaps it’s like that phenomenon I’ve noticed with gas powered Smarts. Lots of people say they never get better than like 35 mpg, but mine does 43+ mpg without even trying. The only time my Smart does 35 mpg is when it’s towing a motorcycle or doing 90 mph…uh…in Mexico. 🙂
Try some diesel fuel additive. I used to use Optilube XPD in my ’15 Sportwagen and found that it seemed like it improved fuel economy enough to justify the price. I would dump a few ounces (I can’t remember the recommended dosing, but I always ran on the low end of it) in the tank before fill-ups.
My “testing” was just comparing a few tanks with it vs a few tanks without it, and cycling back and forth a few times. Seemed to get 5-10% better MPGs if I remember correctly.
Other than that, I stayed up on maintenance like crazy (fuel filters, oil changes, tire pressure) and I had zero problems getting mid-to-high 40’s on the highway going ~75mph with AC on.
Honestly at the time, I would have taken even the lower 42MPG number. I was driving a beaten down Legacy GT with an auto and was averaging 17MPG on premium.
My cheating VW (’15 Golf Sportwagen) always made it into the 40s. Over the 48k miles I tracked on that car, I averaged 44.5 mpg. My best tank was 51.1 mpg.
It was fantastic when it came to fuel economy.
That’s 30 mpg average, which would take into account getting into to town and driving around too. Even when I had a cheating TDI VW I wasn’t averaging 40mpg. Maybe low 30’s, even though highway MPG was something like 42 mpg (I can’t remember what it was before they fixed it).
I couldn’t care less about the small difference in cost outlay, there is no getting around the time lost to sitting at chargers.Those 8 hours of my life are more important than a few bucks to me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t see amazing mpg with TDIs. My diesel Smart will easily get 70 mpg around town and will still get 60 mpg on the highway. My fixed cheating Jetta SportWagen TDI does 42 mpg on a good day on the highway and that’s being really careful. It usually hangs around 37 mpg.
6th Gen TDIs MPG got hit buy the pre-DEF emissions system and often 40 MPG is the best mine JSW would do. My Golf 4 couldn’t do worse than 40 MPG, even did 42 MPG towing a Buell on a trailer. My latest, a Golf 7, gets mid 40s unless towing into a headwind.
My Sportwagen can get up to 45mpg highway, but I swear the stars must have to align perfectly, because other trips on the same roads in the same conditions resulted in lower numbers. I usually get ~40 on the highway, and roughly 35 in town, so I usually average about 37mpg per tank. We took a trip from Louisville to Detroit last month, just for a few days. The average for the whole trip was about 43mpg, so pretty impressive honestly. Diesel was actually cheaper than gas during that trip as well, an added bonus. Because of that, outside hybrids and EVs, I was driving the car with one of the lowest cost/miles of anything else I shared the road with on that trip.
Part of the reason I get lower fuel economy than some is tires. I’m running TSW wheels with 235s, Continental DWS 06 Plus tires. They are definitely not the lower rolling resistance tires the car was originally fitted with. That, and I cannot simply drive the speed limit. I usually cruise at 75-85, dependent on traffic and conditions, of course. Still, having a car that can hit 40mpg while cruising at 80 with the AC blasting is pretty neat.
My roomate in college had a 2012 (I think) TDI Jetta that averaged 56 and his father had the top of the line TDI Jetta that was about the same. Both 6MT. I was amazed when I saw the readouts and the range
Holy smokes!!! Yeah, I have two of these JSWs to sample. My 2012, which has stock everything, no error codes or mechanical issues, but 360+k miles, does about 45 mpg unloaded and A/C off on the highway.
The 2010, as I said earlier, does 42 mpg on a good day, empty and A/C off. In its defense, it’s in need of a new DPF and EGR, so maybe there’s where the fuel economy losses went. There’s also nearly 240k on that one.
Or, perhaps it’s like that phenomenon I’ve noticed with gas powered Smarts. Lots of people say they never get better than like 35 mpg, but mine does 43+ mpg without even trying. The only time my Smart does 35 mpg is when it’s towing a motorcycle or doing 90 mph…uh…in Mexico. 🙂
Try some diesel fuel additive. I used to use Optilube XPD in my ’15 Sportwagen and found that it seemed like it improved fuel economy enough to justify the price. I would dump a few ounces (I can’t remember the recommended dosing, but I always ran on the low end of it) in the tank before fill-ups.
My “testing” was just comparing a few tanks with it vs a few tanks without it, and cycling back and forth a few times. Seemed to get 5-10% better MPGs if I remember correctly.
Other than that, I stayed up on maintenance like crazy (fuel filters, oil changes, tire pressure) and I had zero problems getting mid-to-high 40’s on the highway going ~75mph with AC on.
My cheating VW (’15 Golf Sportwagen) always made it into the 40s. Over the 48k miles I tracked on that car, I averaged 44.5 mpg. My best tank was 51.1 mpg.
It was fantastic when it came to fuel economy.
I demand to know why every time a list of PHEV’s gets posted, it lacks Volvo’s Recharge cars. Sure, they’re a little on the expensive side (ok, a lot), but 40+ miles on electrons, clean, handsome styling, wagons, and fast as fuck, boi.
Shame they are so expensive. I saw a V60 Recharge in the parking lot at work the other day. Black with the brown interior, and was just “damn, I could see myself in that”.
But then I remember they go for $70k+. And I don’t know how I feel about their outlook for quality.
I suggested we check out a XC90 Recharge for our “expensive car” and my wife had no interest.
I too suggested we check out Volvo when it was time to replace my wife’s SRX and she vehemently refused. We ended up with a Q7.
Yeah, I think they have a pricing problem, specifically for the V60 Recharge. I’d guess most people interested probably are willing to forgo something like efficiency and just get a non-recharge model like the CC, forgo wagon and get a XC60 Recharge and save like $15k or S60 Recharge and save $20k, or just step into something like an R1S/ for not much more money. The choice to only offer the V60 Recharge loaded to the hilt is weird when they have platform mates without that restriction.
They clearly don’t care about the 2 of us who like the V60 better than the XC60 or V60 CC. So they make the lone V60 model a Polestar PHEV and price it like the performance model they view it as.
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
A household the next street over from me picked up a V60 Recharge earlier this year and boy is it nice. I took a gander at pricing and nearly passed out from shock. I also mistakenly assumed that the local dealer would have them at MSRP or possibly discounts, but the two they had on the lot were both listed with a $10k markup. I should check and see if they are still sitting on the lot…
I periodically check prices too, and they just don’t make very many. Often the dealer has zero on the lot.
Yep, I think you are spot on there. I just looked again at the local dealer and it doesn’t look like there are any markups on their Recharge models anymore. However, while they have two dozen XC60 Recharge models, they don’t have a single V60 (Recharge or normal) on the lot.
I demand to know why every time a list of PHEV’s gets posted, it lacks Volvo’s Recharge cars. Sure, they’re a little on the expensive side (ok, a lot), but 40+ miles on electrons, clean, handsome styling, wagons, and fast as fuck, boi.
Shame they are so expensive. I saw a V60 Recharge in the parking lot at work the other day. Black with the brown interior, and was just “damn, I could see myself in that”.
But then I remember they go for $70k+. And I don’t know how I feel about their outlook for quality.
I suggested we check out a XC90 Recharge for our “expensive car” and my wife had no interest.
I too suggested we check out Volvo when it was time to replace my wife’s SRX and she vehemently refused. We ended up with a Q7.
Yeah, I think they have a pricing problem, specifically for the V60 Recharge. I’d guess most people interested probably are willing to forgo something like efficiency and just get a non-recharge model like the CC, forgo wagon and get a XC60 Recharge and save like $15k or S60 Recharge and save $20k, or just step into something like an R1S/ for not much more money. The choice to only offer the V60 Recharge loaded to the hilt is weird when they have platform mates without that restriction.
They clearly don’t care about the 2 of us who like the V60 better than the XC60 or V60 CC. So they make the lone V60 model a Polestar PHEV and price it like the performance model they view it as.
There are dozens of us! Dozens!
A household the next street over from me picked up a V60 Recharge earlier this year and boy is it nice. I took a gander at pricing and nearly passed out from shock. I also mistakenly assumed that the local dealer would have them at MSRP or possibly discounts, but the two they had on the lot were both listed with a $10k markup. I should check and see if they are still sitting on the lot…
I periodically check prices too, and they just don’t make very many. Often the dealer has zero on the lot.
Yep, I think you are spot on there. I just looked again at the local dealer and it doesn’t look like there are any markups on their Recharge models anymore. However, while they have two dozen XC60 Recharge models, they don’t have a single V60 (Recharge or normal) on the lot.
Is it just me or has the site starting shitting on BEVs a lot lately? I don’t comment here often and a big part is because I haven’t decided if I’m part of the group or not since I own not 1, but 2 BEVs (gasp/shock/horror!). I’ve also owned multiple high powered V8 cars, old cars, little cars, and a bunch of mid-size trucks, so you’d think I’d fit in, and yet, I’m still not so sure. Starting to feel like BEVs are an us/them tribe scenario, even here.
But they are not shitting on them, they are just showing straight facts and they happen to suck. I’m pro BEV, even considering to buy a 3 performance but I’m pretty aware that they are not the perfect solution and if the mainstream automotive manufacturers delayed their development was not because of evil oil companies paying them, it was because battery technology IS NOT THERE.
“Showing straight facts” is an interesting way of describing an article that compares BEV efficiency in its least efficient application to a hybrid in its most efficient application and claims victory for the hybrid without ever mentioning that highway miles are the BEV’s least efficient application and a hybrid’s most efficient application.
I mean, even with that in mind, he didn’t say “BEVs suck in all cases” or something.
Just because it is comparing a best-and-worst case…he’s explaining and responding to something that went viral, not presenting this as his own question or research or something.
I could maybe give a pass for comparing highway miles only given that was the subject of the tweet at hand. But comparing fully loaded car full of people and stuff to MPG specs for unladen vehicles and then comparing a Model Y which is generally a pretty nice car to things like civics, Jettas and RAV4’s kills any chance at maintaining an appearance of objectivity here.
I ask this seriously: does a car mostly empty vs. at/near its GVWR have a more serious effect on EVs than ICE cars?
I know, for example, that even though my van’s 33 gallon tank could hold somewhere around 200 pounds of gas, it didn’t noticeably affect the fuel economy while closer to full than closer to empty, even though that’s like an extra person in it.
Intuitively it makes sense that extra weight does reduce fuel economy/battery efficiency, no contest there–but as to how much is what I’m asking.
If this was largely urban miles, weight would matter as that extra mass needs to be accelerated repeatedly (though EVs can recoup some of that via regeneration), but the extra weight has minimal effect during steady state cruising on the highway where aerodynamics is the major player. The other thing here is that EVs tend to weigh more, so the number of people in the vehicle (some of which were children) is even less a factor due to them being a lower percentage of the total weight vs those same people in a lighter vehicle.
I have no clue if it effects ICE or EV more than the other, but a quick google, the EPA says rule of thumb is every 100 lbs = 1-2% delta in efficiency.
The tweet says 5 passengers and fully loaded frunk and trunk. So 4 extra passengers, assuming that’s spouse + 3 kids, depending on age/size could vary a lot, but to keep the numbers even let’s just say ~300 lbs. Maybe call it another 200 lbs for enough stuff to fill both front and rear trunk and you’re already at up to 10% delta in fuel economy.
And my figures are probably low, average US adult female is 170 lbs so assuming 3 kids total 130 lbs seems low, especially when you consider if one or two of the kids are particularly young, you’ll also need to add in weight for car seat.
So basically the article is taking a situation where the EV is in it’s least effective/efficient application (highway miles), has a ~5-15% penalty for weight, and compares it to hybrid empty weight spec sheets without ever making mention of the fact the above factors will impact results.
And on top of all that, the poster said they drove “as fast as conditions would allow” which presumably means some modest speeding. Any car on the planet is going to see some MPG hit versus the spec sheet if you’re cruising at 70 in a 65 or 80 in a 75.
Which is why it’s a good idea to go to the EPA’s website and customize their side by side comparison with what you pay for gas and electricity. In my case typically hybrids win by a very long shot, even charging at home overnight is at best a wash* **
Best apples to apples IMHO is to benchmark using PHEVs since they burn gas and joules in the very same chassis.
*Unless of course I can get the electricity for free, then its BEV all the way but only when that power is free to me.
**Also ignoring purchase costs, maintainence, insurance and a myriad of other costs that can potentially shift the balance significantly. Overall though I think a good used hybrid or PHEV will offer the lowest $/mile and the least inconvenience which is what really matters.
They didn’t fabricate this. The point of the article is a tweet about a highway road trip.
The EPA rating of a ’22 Prius, the gold standard of hybrids is 58 city / 53 highway.
So it really depends on the hybrid in question.
No, it’s cherry-picked data, AT BEST. It’s like saying that an F-150 gets better mileage than a Civic, while neglecting to mention that the Civic is towing a U-Haul while the F150 is coasting downhill.
I guess it depends on your definition of what they suck at is. Granted, this is an article about mileage and stoppage time, so in a straight-up comparison of those things I guess BEVs do suck. But my original comment was aimed more broadly at BEVs in general, so I think saying they suck is weird. I have a vehicle that will beat yours to 60 mph, ford deep water, drive up steep hills, raise and lower it’s ride height at my will, seats 7 adults with room to spare, but takes a bit longer at charging stops the 3 times a year I take it on a road trip. So I chose to lose out on one or two things while getting something that is superior in almost every other way for my specific needs.
Regarding the car manufacturer/oil company part of your comment, I didn’t really follow?
Just realized this could be misconstrued to think I have a cyber truck. I don’t. Those suck lol. I have a rivian
I don’t think so. This is explicitly showing off what I’d consider the second-worst use case for current EVs (road trips, second only to towing long distances). David drives an i3 and avoids using the range extender when possible. I don’t think there’s real anti-EV sentiment among the staff, just recognition that hybrids will work for a lot more people.
Something like 1/3 of US residents rent. If you figure the vast majority of them can’t charge at home, you’ve already taken out a huge chunk of potential BEV and PHEV customers.
They shit on Tesla particularly and BEVs in general because it gets clicks and engagement, and they need that. It is what it is.
I don’t think they have been criticizing BEVs as much as pointing out the overlooked benefits of hybrids and PHEVs. Realistically, manufacturers (and most of the media) have focused so much on BEVs that a lot of non-car enthusiasts have forgotten hybrids exist. Honestly, I’m not sure the average driver even knows what a PHEV is. Today, the choice is usually framed as ICE vs BEV, with no acknowledgement of the middle ground.
I am a big fan of BEVs (my daily is a Model 3), but I think it is good that this website is highlighting hybrids/PHEVs and their role in the future of transportation. Unfortunately, this comes across as critical of BEVs since it would be hard to highlight the advantages of PHEVS/hybrids without highlighting the limitations of BEVs. Hybrids/PHEVs and BEVs are competing solutions to the same problem (i.e. climate change due to ICE vehicles) so comparisons are inevitable and reasonable.
> Is it just me or has the site starting shitting
With a name like Turd Ferguson I think it might be you
Turd Ferguson. It’s a funny name.
This guy gets it
I’m the posterchild of someone who should drink a can of shut the fudge up. But, I still comment anyway. So, welcome Turd.
That said, I just feel there is a general frustration with Elon. We all want this to simply be better than it is. It could be, it should be, but here we are. I think this site is overall neutral, with the exception to taillights, of course.
Please, comment. Give us non BEV owners information, facts, and feelings about your automotive experience.
In the immortal words of Groucho Marks:
I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.
Don’t worry about fitting in, just do you. I, for instance, happen to find Elon a fascinating person and am impressed by all he’s accomplished. I’m no foamer or anything, but I’ll watch any interview he gives, because even in the perceived faults of another there is something to be learned.
While that may make me an outsider in this here town, I don’t give a shit. I find it funny all the hate the dude gets here, as if this comment section is the sole arbiter of virtue (plus it’s childish to call him a meanie or whatever, lol)). I like cars, clearly so do you, so why not chirp in every once in a while? If nothing else, writing out what you believe gives you clarity on what your stance is and allows you to examine it in written form. It’s a healthy thing for anyone to do.
Not the whole comment section. Just me.
Oh, where are my manners. Pardon the omission, lol.
Hey Turd! I’m sorry you feel that way. We do like EVs here just as much as we love all cars! Remember that David has a cheap EV and two range extended EVs. I’d own a quirky EV (a Th!nk City) if I had a place to charge it.
Most of my motorcycle news content is about EVs and my long-term tester is also an EV. One of our future plans involved putting me into some EV trucks.
Jason likes EVs, too! This post isn’t supposed to shit on EVs as much as it tries to point out that Twitter guy’s bragging is not much of a flex. As some readers have pointed out, a hybrid minivan or crossover with 5 people and luggage would do the same trip far faster and cheaper. But that’s ok! EVs aren’t really at the point where “cannonball run” is in their list of advantages. 🙂
I’ll bet writing “Hey Turd!” wasn’t on your daily vision board for today. lol
Is it just me or has the site starting shitting on BEVs a lot lately? I don’t comment here often and a big part is because I haven’t decided if I’m part of the group or not since I own not 1, but 2 BEVs (gasp/shock/horror!). I’ve also owned multiple high powered V8 cars, old cars, little cars, and a bunch of mid-size trucks, so you’d think I’d fit in, and yet, I’m still not so sure. Starting to feel like BEVs are an us/them tribe scenario, even here.
But they are not shitting on them, they are just showing straight facts and they happen to suck. I’m pro BEV, even considering to buy a 3 performance but I’m pretty aware that they are not the perfect solution and if the mainstream automotive manufacturers delayed their development was not because of evil oil companies paying them, it was because battery technology IS NOT THERE.
“Showing straight facts” is an interesting way of describing an article that compares BEV efficiency in its least efficient application to a hybrid in its most efficient application and claims victory for the hybrid without ever mentioning that highway miles are the BEV’s least efficient application and a hybrid’s most efficient application.
I mean, even with that in mind, he didn’t say “BEVs suck in all cases” or something.
Just because it is comparing a best-and-worst case…he’s explaining and responding to something that went viral, not presenting this as his own question or research or something.
I could maybe give a pass for comparing highway miles only given that was the subject of the tweet at hand. But comparing fully loaded car full of people and stuff to MPG specs for unladen vehicles and then comparing a Model Y which is generally a pretty nice car to things like civics, Jettas and RAV4’s kills any chance at maintaining an appearance of objectivity here.
I ask this seriously: does a car mostly empty vs. at/near its GVWR have a more serious effect on EVs than ICE cars?
I know, for example, that even though my van’s 33 gallon tank could hold somewhere around 200 pounds of gas, it didn’t noticeably affect the fuel economy while closer to full than closer to empty, even though that’s like an extra person in it.
Intuitively it makes sense that extra weight does reduce fuel economy/battery efficiency, no contest there–but as to how much is what I’m asking.
If this was largely urban miles, weight would matter as that extra mass needs to be accelerated repeatedly (though EVs can recoup some of that via regeneration), but the extra weight has minimal effect during steady state cruising on the highway where aerodynamics is the major player. The other thing here is that EVs tend to weigh more, so the number of people in the vehicle (some of which were children) is even less a factor due to them being a lower percentage of the total weight vs those same people in a lighter vehicle.
I have no clue if it effects ICE or EV more than the other, but a quick google, the EPA says rule of thumb is every 100 lbs = 1-2% delta in efficiency.
The tweet says 5 passengers and fully loaded frunk and trunk. So 4 extra passengers, assuming that’s spouse + 3 kids, depending on age/size could vary a lot, but to keep the numbers even let’s just say ~300 lbs. Maybe call it another 200 lbs for enough stuff to fill both front and rear trunk and you’re already at up to 10% delta in fuel economy.
And my figures are probably low, average US adult female is 170 lbs so assuming 3 kids total 130 lbs seems low, especially when you consider if one or two of the kids are particularly young, you’ll also need to add in weight for car seat.
So basically the article is taking a situation where the EV is in it’s least effective/efficient application (highway miles), has a ~5-15% penalty for weight, and compares it to hybrid empty weight spec sheets without ever making mention of the fact the above factors will impact results.
And on top of all that, the poster said they drove “as fast as conditions would allow” which presumably means some modest speeding. Any car on the planet is going to see some MPG hit versus the spec sheet if you’re cruising at 70 in a 65 or 80 in a 75.
Which is why it’s a good idea to go to the EPA’s website and customize their side by side comparison with what you pay for gas and electricity. In my case typically hybrids win by a very long shot, even charging at home overnight is at best a wash* **
Best apples to apples IMHO is to benchmark using PHEVs since they burn gas and joules in the very same chassis.
*Unless of course I can get the electricity for free, then its BEV all the way but only when that power is free to me.
**Also ignoring purchase costs, maintainence, insurance and a myriad of other costs that can potentially shift the balance significantly. Overall though I think a good used hybrid or PHEV will offer the lowest $/mile and the least inconvenience which is what really matters.
They didn’t fabricate this. The point of the article is a tweet about a highway road trip.
The EPA rating of a ’22 Prius, the gold standard of hybrids is 58 city / 53 highway.
So it really depends on the hybrid in question.
No, it’s cherry-picked data, AT BEST. It’s like saying that an F-150 gets better mileage than a Civic, while neglecting to mention that the Civic is towing a U-Haul while the F150 is coasting downhill.
I guess it depends on your definition of what they suck at is. Granted, this is an article about mileage and stoppage time, so in a straight-up comparison of those things I guess BEVs do suck. But my original comment was aimed more broadly at BEVs in general, so I think saying they suck is weird. I have a vehicle that will beat yours to 60 mph, ford deep water, drive up steep hills, raise and lower it’s ride height at my will, seats 7 adults with room to spare, but takes a bit longer at charging stops the 3 times a year I take it on a road trip. So I chose to lose out on one or two things while getting something that is superior in almost every other way for my specific needs.
Regarding the car manufacturer/oil company part of your comment, I didn’t really follow?
Just realized this could be misconstrued to think I have a cyber truck. I don’t. Those suck lol. I have a rivian
I don’t think so. This is explicitly showing off what I’d consider the second-worst use case for current EVs (road trips, second only to towing long distances). David drives an i3 and avoids using the range extender when possible. I don’t think there’s real anti-EV sentiment among the staff, just recognition that hybrids will work for a lot more people.
Something like 1/3 of US residents rent. If you figure the vast majority of them can’t charge at home, you’ve already taken out a huge chunk of potential BEV and PHEV customers.
They shit on Tesla particularly and BEVs in general because it gets clicks and engagement, and they need that. It is what it is.
I don’t think they have been criticizing BEVs as much as pointing out the overlooked benefits of hybrids and PHEVs. Realistically, manufacturers (and most of the media) have focused so much on BEVs that a lot of non-car enthusiasts have forgotten hybrids exist. Honestly, I’m not sure the average driver even knows what a PHEV is. Today, the choice is usually framed as ICE vs BEV, with no acknowledgement of the middle ground.
I am a big fan of BEVs (my daily is a Model 3), but I think it is good that this website is highlighting hybrids/PHEVs and their role in the future of transportation. Unfortunately, this comes across as critical of BEVs since it would be hard to highlight the advantages of PHEVS/hybrids without highlighting the limitations of BEVs. Hybrids/PHEVs and BEVs are competing solutions to the same problem (i.e. climate change due to ICE vehicles) so comparisons are inevitable and reasonable.
> Is it just me or has the site starting shitting
With a name like Turd Ferguson I think it might be you
Turd Ferguson. It’s a funny name.
This guy gets it
I’m the posterchild of someone who should drink a can of shut the fudge up. But, I still comment anyway. So, welcome Turd.
That said, I just feel there is a general frustration with Elon. We all want this to simply be better than it is. It could be, it should be, but here we are. I think this site is overall neutral, with the exception to taillights, of course.
Please, comment. Give us non BEV owners information, facts, and feelings about your automotive experience.
In the immortal words of Groucho Marks:
I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.
Don’t worry about fitting in, just do you. I, for instance, happen to find Elon a fascinating person and am impressed by all he’s accomplished. I’m no foamer or anything, but I’ll watch any interview he gives, because even in the perceived faults of another there is something to be learned.
While that may make me an outsider in this here town, I don’t give a shit. I find it funny all the hate the dude gets here, as if this comment section is the sole arbiter of virtue (plus it’s childish to call him a meanie or whatever, lol)). I like cars, clearly so do you, so why not chirp in every once in a while? If nothing else, writing out what you believe gives you clarity on what your stance is and allows you to examine it in written form. It’s a healthy thing for anyone to do.
Not the whole comment section. Just me.
Oh, where are my manners. Pardon the omission, lol.
Hey Turd! I’m sorry you feel that way. We do like EVs here just as much as we love all cars! Remember that David has a cheap EV and two range extended EVs. I’d own a quirky EV (a Th!nk City) if I had a place to charge it.
Most of my motorcycle news content is about EVs and my long-term tester is also an EV. One of our future plans involved putting me into some EV trucks.
Jason likes EVs, too! This post isn’t supposed to shit on EVs as much as it tries to point out that Twitter guy’s bragging is not much of a flex. As some readers have pointed out, a hybrid minivan or crossover with 5 people and luggage would do the same trip far faster and cheaper. But that’s ok! EVs aren’t really at the point where “cannonball run” is in their list of advantages. 🙂
I’ll bet writing “Hey Turd!” wasn’t on your daily vision board for today. lol
So basically, an EV used for it’s WORST use case is equivalent to an ICE car used at its BEST use case*?
*(Charge/fueling time excluded)
Secondly, didn’t he specifiy that his Model Y was fully loaded with passengers and cargo? Does the MPG numbers cited take similar loading into account?
You read my mind, came to say exactly this! Not only is this the worst scenario for EV use, but you’re loading it down with tons of weight and comparing it to empty weight MPG’s of other cars.
And on top of that, you’ve got to consider the level of comfort/convenience of the Model Y. Torch says “And, keep in mind, 30 mpg is just a baseline here – it’s not hard to find all sorts of cars, like Toyota Priuses or Honda Civics or Volkswagen Jettas or Toyota RAV4s or any number of other cars that get well over 30 mpg, 35 and up, even 40 mpg for highway mileage”
First off 3 of those cars are tiny and wouldn’t work for a full family + gear, and even the RAV4 might fit everything but you’re still in a lame RAV4.
I realize I may come off as a tesla-stan which I promise I’m not at all.
Yeah this is the correct take. Presumably this person charges at home 99% of the time. With that in mind, the yearly savings over a hybrid are likely significant.
The level of comfort/convenience of the Model Y isn’t a high level of comfort/convenience. They’re weirdly cramped and not particularly passenger-friendly, especially compared to all other cars.
That was not my experience when I test drove one. The Y was comfortable and roomy for me, and I have a long torso so fitting in some cars is an issue. I have a 3 that I’ve taken on long roadtrips (free supercharging for the win!) and it’s really comfortable too. Maybe it’s a you thing?
Yeah, a RAV4 is lame, but so’s a Model Y. I guess it’s the eunuch that’s higher up in the court, but…
The Model Y isn’t being loaded down with tons of weight, it’s a few passengers, some of which are children, and gear in any substantial amount would mean less passengers, but mainly, the extra weight is of minimal effect on the highway where aero is the major factor. In an urban cycle, it would certainly matter, and the EV would excel in comparison with its prodigious torque moving the extra weight easily, regenerative braking recouping some of that lost energy, and not wasting fuel idling.
I’m not expert, but the EPA (who are presumably experts) say 1-2% efficiency loss per 100 lbs of weight added as a rule of thumb. Average adult US female is 170 bs, the kids weights could vary widely depending on age (although remember if they’re real young/small, you need to add carseat weight). And they said both trunks were full, so unless they were hauling pillows, probably another couple hundred pounds. So you’re looking at ~400LBS plus 3 kids times 1-2% per 100 lbs is not insignificant.
And on top of that the poster seems to suggest some mild speeding was involved and any car on the planet is going to see efficiency take a dive versus their rated MPG if you’re going over 65.
The extra weight has minimal effect during steady state cruising on the highway where aerodynamics is the major player. The other thing here is that EVs tend to weigh more, so the number of people in the vehicle (some of which were children) is even less a factor due to them being a lower percentage of the total weight vs those same people in a lighter vehicle.
One could paraphrase your flawed logic as “At high speeds, drag creates more resistance than mass, so we can just go ahead and assume the effect of incremental mass is ~0 🙂 “
Flawed logic? It’s pretty basic stuff. Aero drag increases at the square of speed while weight does not. Weight requires power to accelerate it. If anything, the heavier vehicle will do better as there’s more kinetic energy to convert into forward motion when off throttle or—in the case of an EV—convert into additional energy storage through regeneration. At a more or less steady speed on the highway, there is limited to no acceleration, hence why i wrote minimal effect. Unless the road he’s on is climbing altitude the whole way like grandad’s walking route to school and back, it has minimal effect. Of course, you could look this all up yourself if you don’t want to keep being wrong.
I acknowledge that if you are in a perfect vacuum and two objects of the same shape/size are traveling at identical and unchanging speeds in a perfectly straight line, they require the same amount of energy (zero) to maintain that exact same speed and direction. But you’re basically saying “hey when this very specific set of conditions are applied, mass doesn’t matter, so even though every one of those conditions has been removed in this case, I’m still going to assume Mass doesn’t factor in enough to even consider it “
What in the love of high school physics is this even supposed to mean…?
Kinetic energy does not get “converted” into forward motion. Kinetic energy is motion. Do you mean that heavier objects have more inertia and therefore lose kinetic energy to wind resistance more slowly*?
Obviously, at a steady speed, there is zero acceleration, that’s what “steady speed” means. But that doesn’t mean that forces aren’t being applied to the object, only that those forces balance out to zero. At a constant speed, you are still using energy to counteract wind, tire, and drivetrain resistance. If you take your foot off the accelerator, your vehicle will slow down.
——————————————————-
Firstly, increased mass means increased friction in the tires. 4 passengers plus full cargo would easily be 400+ lbs, approximately a 9.5% increase in weight of a Model Y. A Rav4 weights ~3,600lbs unloaded, so 400lbs of extra weight would constitute only an 11% increase. So it’s not nearly as much of a difference as you think.
Secondly, you aren’t even technically correct that changing the weight of the vehicle wouldn’t change the aerodynamic effects, since the increased mass of the vehicle would lower the suspension and therefore would affect air flows underneath the chassis. But we’ll ignore that since I’m not that kind of engineer and have no way of simulating or even estimating that change.
Thirdly, in electric motors, torque and speed are inversely proportional. Similarly to how doubling your speed more than doubles wind resistance, a 10% weight increase, and therefore a 10% friction increase, would require a more-than-10% increase in the amount of power required to move that extra weight at given, fixed speed.
Fourth, just to humor you, I did go and look it up. It turns out that at 60mph, approximately 43% of the drag on a Tesla Model 3 comes from rolling resistance from the tires, while drag is 55%. Rolling resistance is not dependent on speed, but scales linearly with weight. Air resistance increases as the square of the ratio of the two speeds. So a curb-weight Model 3 that speeds up from 60 MPH to 75 MPH (75/60 squared = 1.5625) would see aerodynamic drag go up to 65.6% of total resistant forces, and rolling resistance become 32.9% of total drag. But at both speeds, a 10% weight increase would create a total increase in drag of approximately 4%.
Combined with what I stated in Part 3, a 4% increase in total drag would require a more than 4% increase in energy consumption. A study posted to a Tesla forum found that for every 2 pounds of weight increase, you lose 0.1 miles of range. So at 400 lbs of extra weight, you would lose 20 miles of range, or 6.3% to 7.1% of range, depending on which Model Y trim, and assuming zero battery degradation.
The DOE estimates that for every 100lbs of weight added, you lose 1% on your fuel economy. Therefore, 400lbs added to an ICE vehicle would result in a range loss of approximately 4%.
If you compare the range loss due to weight of ICE cars to EV cars, you will find that Teslas suffer a weight-based range penalty 67.5% greater than ICE cars
*see the Mythbusters episode “Helium Football” for a visual demonstration
I didn’t read that whole thing, but it sounds like the gist is that EVs suck ass even more than I thought as that’s a far greater hit on efficiency than an ICE car (yet, somehow they’re subject to the same physics). I’ve added hundreds of pounds to cars (much lighter cars than these pig EVs where that weight is a much greater increase as a percentage of the car’s weight) transporting stuff and never noticed a difference to the highway mileage (I calculate every tank) outside a usual deviation, but definitely a hit in urban because of all the acceleration. Away from cars, riding loaded bicycles, I’ve never noticed appreciable additional effort to maintain speed vs unloaded, but certainly so while climbing or accelerating.
Not at all. They are just better at different things than ICE cars. Engineering is all about tradeoffs. Nothing can be great at everything. The reason that most EV’s have the added weight/towing penalty is because they can not change their RPM/Torque ratios, because they do not have multi-speed transmissions. The costs of adding a transmission to an EV would not justify the range improvement.
Literally, the point is that they are NOT subject to the same physics. ICE’s are subject to the laws of fluid and thermodynamics, while EV motors are subject to the laws of electricity and magnetism.
So basically, an EV used for it’s WORST use case is equivalent to an ICE car used at its BEST use case*?
*(Charge/fueling time excluded)
Secondly, didn’t he specifiy that his Model Y was fully loaded with passengers and cargo? Does the MPG numbers cited take similar loading into account?
You read my mind, came to say exactly this! Not only is this the worst scenario for EV use, but you’re loading it down with tons of weight and comparing it to empty weight MPG’s of other cars.
And on top of that, you’ve got to consider the level of comfort/convenience of the Model Y. Torch says “And, keep in mind, 30 mpg is just a baseline here – it’s not hard to find all sorts of cars, like Toyota Priuses or Honda Civics or Volkswagen Jettas or Toyota RAV4s or any number of other cars that get well over 30 mpg, 35 and up, even 40 mpg for highway mileage”
First off 3 of those cars are tiny and wouldn’t work for a full family + gear, and even the RAV4 might fit everything but you’re still in a lame RAV4.
I realize I may come off as a tesla-stan which I promise I’m not at all.
Yeah this is the correct take. Presumably this person charges at home 99% of the time. With that in mind, the yearly savings over a hybrid are likely significant.
The level of comfort/convenience of the Model Y isn’t a high level of comfort/convenience. They’re weirdly cramped and not particularly passenger-friendly, especially compared to all other cars.
That was not my experience when I test drove one. The Y was comfortable and roomy for me, and I have a long torso so fitting in some cars is an issue. I have a 3 that I’ve taken on long roadtrips (free supercharging for the win!) and it’s really comfortable too. Maybe it’s a you thing?
Yeah, a RAV4 is lame, but so’s a Model Y. I guess it’s the eunuch that’s higher up in the court, but…
The Model Y isn’t being loaded down with tons of weight, it’s a few passengers, some of which are children, and gear in any substantial amount would mean less passengers, but mainly, the extra weight is of minimal effect on the highway where aero is the major factor. In an urban cycle, it would certainly matter, and the EV would excel in comparison with its prodigious torque moving the extra weight easily, regenerative braking recouping some of that lost energy, and not wasting fuel idling.
I’m not expert, but the EPA (who are presumably experts) say 1-2% efficiency loss per 100 lbs of weight added as a rule of thumb. Average adult US female is 170 bs, the kids weights could vary widely depending on age (although remember if they’re real young/small, you need to add carseat weight). And they said both trunks were full, so unless they were hauling pillows, probably another couple hundred pounds. So you’re looking at ~400LBS plus 3 kids times 1-2% per 100 lbs is not insignificant.
And on top of that the poster seems to suggest some mild speeding was involved and any car on the planet is going to see efficiency take a dive versus their rated MPG if you’re going over 65.
The extra weight has minimal effect during steady state cruising on the highway where aerodynamics is the major player. The other thing here is that EVs tend to weigh more, so the number of people in the vehicle (some of which were children) is even less a factor due to them being a lower percentage of the total weight vs those same people in a lighter vehicle.
One could paraphrase your flawed logic as “At high speeds, drag creates more resistance than mass, so we can just go ahead and assume the effect of incremental mass is ~0 🙂 “
Flawed logic? It’s pretty basic stuff. Aero drag increases at the square of speed while weight does not. Weight requires power to accelerate it. If anything, the heavier vehicle will do better as there’s more kinetic energy to convert into forward motion when off throttle or—in the case of an EV—convert into additional energy storage through regeneration. At a more or less steady speed on the highway, there is limited to no acceleration, hence why i wrote minimal effect. Unless the road he’s on is climbing altitude the whole way like grandad’s walking route to school and back, it has minimal effect. Of course, you could look this all up yourself if you don’t want to keep being wrong.
I acknowledge that if you are in a perfect vacuum and two objects of the same shape/size are traveling at identical and unchanging speeds in a perfectly straight line, they require the same amount of energy (zero) to maintain that exact same speed and direction. But you’re basically saying “hey when this very specific set of conditions are applied, mass doesn’t matter, so even though every one of those conditions has been removed in this case, I’m still going to assume Mass doesn’t factor in enough to even consider it “
What in the love of high school physics is this even supposed to mean…?
Kinetic energy does not get “converted” into forward motion. Kinetic energy is motion. Do you mean that heavier objects have more inertia and therefore lose kinetic energy to wind resistance more slowly*?
Obviously, at a steady speed, there is zero acceleration, that’s what “steady speed” means. But that doesn’t mean that forces aren’t being applied to the object, only that those forces balance out to zero. At a constant speed, you are still using energy to counteract wind, tire, and drivetrain resistance. If you take your foot off the accelerator, your vehicle will slow down.
——————————————————-
Firstly, increased mass means increased friction in the tires. 4 passengers plus full cargo would easily be 400+ lbs, approximately a 9.5% increase in weight of a Model Y. A Rav4 weights ~3,600lbs unloaded, so 400lbs of extra weight would constitute only an 11% increase. So it’s not nearly as much of a difference as you think.
Secondly, you aren’t even technically correct that changing the weight of the vehicle wouldn’t change the aerodynamic effects, since the increased mass of the vehicle would lower the suspension and therefore would affect air flows underneath the chassis. But we’ll ignore that since I’m not that kind of engineer and have no way of simulating or even estimating that change.
Thirdly, in electric motors, torque and speed are inversely proportional. Similarly to how doubling your speed more than doubles wind resistance, a 10% weight increase, and therefore a 10% friction increase, would require a more-than-10% increase in the amount of power required to move that extra weight at given, fixed speed.
Fourth, just to humor you, I did go and look it up. It turns out that at 60mph, approximately 43% of the drag on a Tesla Model 3 comes from rolling resistance from the tires, while drag is 55%. Rolling resistance is not dependent on speed, but scales linearly with weight. Air resistance increases as the square of the ratio of the two speeds. So a curb-weight Model 3 that speeds up from 60 MPH to 75 MPH (75/60 squared = 1.5625) would see aerodynamic drag go up to 65.6% of total resistant forces, and rolling resistance become 32.9% of total drag. But at both speeds, a 10% weight increase would create a total increase in drag of approximately 4%.
Combined with what I stated in Part 3, a 4% increase in total drag would require a more than 4% increase in energy consumption. A study posted to a Tesla forum found that for every 2 pounds of weight increase, you lose 0.1 miles of range. So at 400 lbs of extra weight, you would lose 20 miles of range, or 6.3% to 7.1% of range, depending on which Model Y trim, and assuming zero battery degradation.
The DOE estimates that for every 100lbs of weight added, you lose 1% on your fuel economy. Therefore, 400lbs added to an ICE vehicle would result in a range loss of approximately 4%.
If you compare the range loss due to weight of ICE cars to EV cars, you will find that Teslas suffer a weight-based range penalty 67.5% greater than ICE cars
*see the Mythbusters episode “Helium Football” for a visual demonstration
I didn’t read that whole thing, but it sounds like the gist is that EVs suck ass even more than I thought as that’s a far greater hit on efficiency than an ICE car (yet, somehow they’re subject to the same physics). I’ve added hundreds of pounds to cars (much lighter cars than these pig EVs where that weight is a much greater increase as a percentage of the car’s weight) transporting stuff and never noticed a difference to the highway mileage (I calculate every tank) outside a usual deviation, but definitely a hit in urban because of all the acceleration. Away from cars, riding loaded bicycles, I’ve never noticed appreciable additional effort to maintain speed vs unloaded, but certainly so while climbing or accelerating.
Not at all. They are just better at different things than ICE cars. Engineering is all about tradeoffs. Nothing can be great at everything. The reason that most EV’s have the added weight/towing penalty is because they can not change their RPM/Torque ratios, because they do not have multi-speed transmissions. The costs of adding a transmission to an EV would not justify the range improvement.
Literally, the point is that they are NOT subject to the same physics. ICE’s are subject to the laws of fluid and thermodynamics, while EV motors are subject to the laws of electricity and magnetism.
My takeaway – Unless you have a home charger, EVs are not a good deal.
Not really? I mean, not in the case of a cross-country road trip, maybe? But EV’s are at their least efficient at highway speeds, while ICE cars are at their most efficient
If someone is convinced they will save the planet or just love the EV driving style they should buy one. But, if they don’t have a home charger and have to rely on expensive external chargers, they are paying about the same for fuel, saving a little on maintenance (offset by higher tires, insurance, depreciation, and upfront costs), and wasting time at chargers.
No, they are paying the same for fuel by driving very inefficiently, and in a part of the country that has cheap fuel
It isn’t a matter of when an EV is most efficient and all about the fact that fast charging is often more expensive than gas.
…. No it isn’t. As Torch pointed out, an EV driven in an inefficient manner cost the same to publicly charge as an ICE car driven in an efficient manner… but only when driven in areas where the cost of gas was at or below the national average.
Yes. It’s all about the price per kwh. The only reason my MME makes sense is charging at home with cheap midwest rates and my use case, only commuting and local trips. Otherwise it would be a kinda zippy cute ute with a two gallon tank that’s really painful to fill up.
Charging has been the number one thing I dislike about my 2023 Zero DSR/X long termer.
I started off the press loan (a year to the day sometime next week) without a way to charge at home. That meant going to the local Level 2 charger (there are no fast chargers anywhere close) and leaving the bike there for more than two hours.
Then my wife started renting a garage. I thought I finally had it made. Yet, I can’t even slow charge the bike on Level 1. We learned the hard way that the garage shares a circuit with two neighboring garages. So, the motorcycle ends up tripping the breaker, trapping my neighbors’ cars in their garages.
I could ask my condo association to install chargers, but yeah, that’s never going to happen. They’re such cheapskates that they’re still refusing to fix my clogged bathtub after two months. There’s not a chance they’re installing chargers.
So, after a year and over 2,200 miles I’m still shackled to annoying public charging. It’s a shame because it’s one of the coolest motorcycles I’ve ever ridden. But it feels like it was made for a future that hasn’t reached my area yet.
My takeaway – Unless you have a home charger, EVs are not a good deal.
Not really? I mean, not in the case of a cross-country road trip, maybe? But EV’s are at their least efficient at highway speeds, while ICE cars are at their most efficient
If someone is convinced they will save the planet or just love the EV driving style they should buy one. But, if they don’t have a home charger and have to rely on expensive external chargers, they are paying about the same for fuel, saving a little on maintenance (offset by higher tires, insurance, depreciation, and upfront costs), and wasting time at chargers.
No, they are paying the same for fuel by driving very inefficiently, and in a part of the country that has cheap fuel
It isn’t a matter of when an EV is most efficient and all about the fact that fast charging is often more expensive than gas.
…. No it isn’t. As Torch pointed out, an EV driven in an inefficient manner cost the same to publicly charge as an ICE car driven in an efficient manner… but only when driven in areas where the cost of gas was at or below the national average.
Yes. It’s all about the price per kwh. The only reason my MME makes sense is charging at home with cheap midwest rates and my use case, only commuting and local trips. Otherwise it would be a kinda zippy cute ute with a two gallon tank that’s really painful to fill up.
Charging has been the number one thing I dislike about my 2023 Zero DSR/X long termer.
I started off the press loan (a year to the day sometime next week) without a way to charge at home. That meant going to the local Level 2 charger (there are no fast chargers anywhere close) and leaving the bike there for more than two hours.
Then my wife started renting a garage. I thought I finally had it made. Yet, I can’t even slow charge the bike on Level 1. We learned the hard way that the garage shares a circuit with two neighboring garages. So, the motorcycle ends up tripping the breaker, trapping my neighbors’ cars in their garages.
I could ask my condo association to install chargers, but yeah, that’s never going to happen. They’re such cheapskates that they’re still refusing to fix my clogged bathtub after two months. There’s not a chance they’re installing chargers.
So, after a year and over 2,200 miles I’m still shackled to annoying public charging. It’s a shame because it’s one of the coolest motorcycles I’ve ever ridden. But it feels like it was made for a future that hasn’t reached my area yet.