EV manufacturers test their electric vehicle range using standard criteria such as SAE International’s J1634 202104 procedure (see below). These trials aim to iron out individual driver preferences, and so produce comparable results industry-wide. To our mind, this means manufacturers would not have the interior heating turned on during the test.
Auxiliary Factors Affecting Electric Vehicle Range
An article in Innovation News Network caught our attention on May 26, 2023. The publication reported on five factors that could be draining an EV battery, which would have implications for electric vehicle range too. We appreciated the way they reported on their load in terms of electric vehicle range lost, as follows:
- Interior climate change control systems are the greatest thieves of driving range.
- It costs seven miles of driving range per hour to run the air conditioning system.
- Whereas interior heating is more economic, only costing five miles per hour.
- Fortunately front and rear heated screens are little more than a minor irritation.
The research team included five vehicles’ unique data, and used advanced math to smooth the results. They standardized this information using average vehicle efficiency, and settled on 288 watt-hours-per-mile as the average driving rate across all types of cars.
What Impact Did The Vehicle Lights Have?
Advances in LED technology, meant that electric navigation and warning lights had minimal impact on electric vehicle driving range. In fact fog lights, brake lights, and headlights only used a minuscule 0.2 miles of energy per hour between them.
However in-vehicle technology, including touch screens and sound systems were twice as energy-expensive. We agree with Innovation News Network’s conclusion that it might be worthwhile turning these off too, if the EV battery is sufficiently degraded,
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