Tesla Cybertruck gets less than 80% of advertised range in YouTuber’s test

The insideevs article reports 239 miles for a Model 3 Performance while clicking all the way through to the actual source of the testing "Whatcar" reported 324 miles for a M3 LR. What car indeed. I don't believe these low numbers.

I'm sure Tesla has been overly aggressive with the range numbers. Especially people in colder climates must be getting far less than advertised. But these low-effort articles are not the best of sources.

In traffic, the largest reduction of efficiency comes from accelerating and the braking. You use energy to start moving (proportional to m V^2) and then you dump that energy into heat in your brakes to stop. The second comes from idling where you use energy to keep the engine rotating. As others have mentioned, EVs use regenerative braking so a substantial portion of the energy used to slow and stop the car is used to recharge the battery. EVs have no need to keep an engine running so unless you’re running the a/c there are minimal demands on a stopped/idling EV.

On the highway, you have the internal friction in the drivetrain to overcome, the constant deformation of the tires, and - most importantly - wind resistance, which is proportional to cd x rho x V2.

Cd (drag) and rho (air density) are low, but that V (speed) squared means driving at 75mph incurs 25x the energy use as driving at 15 mph. An EV gets no sage harbor here - plowing through a fluid (air) is essentially the same work.

To give you a sense of numbers, my vehicle (F150) gets less than 10mpg the 5 miles to my local pool/gym. The speed limit is 25 mph but there are stop signs every block or two. Lots of braking loss. On back roads with gentle curves and a 45 mph limit I get close to 30 mpg. That’s the sweet spot between overcoming transmission friction and air resistance. On the highway at 60 mph I get 22-23 mpg. At 78-79 mph I get 19 mpg. These are all generally on flat stretches using the 6 min average on my dashboard.

(Sorry for the long post…I’m an engineer and mechanical efficiency and aerodynamics are my happy place)

Traveling at high speeds just takes a lot of power regardless of fuel, but ICE cars are so inefficient in city driving it makes highways look good in comparison. 25-50mph might be more efficient, but every time you brake that kinetic energy is turned into waste heat, totally negating the benefit of driving slower.

EVs on the other hand have regenerative braking systems. Rather than using friction to slow the car down, they just use the motors by applying resistance to the wheels. The kinetic energy is used to charge the battery while slowing the car down. You get the benefit of slower speeds without much braking loss, so this is where EVs shine.

Frequent lite braking allows the regenerative brakes to do all or almost all the work, meaning you recover a good chunk of the energy you’re using in city/stop-and-go traffic.

Infrequent braking or hard braking (which requires the service brakes) means less energy recovered, so shorter range.

Excuse the meta conversation but why are people downvoting what seems to be an earnest question?

Lighten up and just answer the question.

In addition to what atmur said, EVs don't have the baseline inefficiencies an internal combustion engine requires just to keep itself running. ICEs waste a huge amount of energy just running, which gets lost as heat, vibration, and noise. EVs have the advantage of being able to run just as much as needed, so you don't throw away huge amounts of energy at low speeds.

The efficiency curve of an ICE vehicle generally peaks somewhere around 70-90km/h, due to a combination of wasted energy at low speeds and gearing ratios. EVs peak much lower, generally in the 35-55km/h range. This is due to not having the low speed overhead of an ICE, but still being subject to high speed inefficiencies like rolling resistance and drag.

Regenerative braking isn't magical. It doesn't add range. It reduces range lost by stopping. Conservation of energy is still a thing.

If you were to drive any speed uninterrupted until the vehicle died, then attempted the same drive with stops every mile, the vehicle wouldn't make it to the end.

It's not only not "not stellar", it's the reason hybrids and EVs have higher city miles than highway. Acceleration takes a lot of energy compared to maintaining speed, and regenerative breaking recaptures most of that for use next time you take off.

It's why hybrids can increase fuel mileage so much without being plugged in. It's huge.

If you're ever driving an EV that has the option to see real time flow of watts (with numbers, not just graphics), watch what it does while taking off, coming to a stop, and cruising at speed (both slower city speeds and higher highway speeds). You'll probably see fifty to a hundred plus kW flow either direction while speeding up and slowing down, and under five while cruising

It's the New York Post, temperature would be a chilly 45F for their American audience

It's farenheit, Its winter/cold in America right now

Top Gear were completely phony though, they purposefully ran the battery flat before the demo. This is known. Elons a douche but so is Clarkson.

In mine the torque converter clutch won't lock until the transmission is warm. That takes a while in winter.

You notice some differences just from the air temperature going into the engine too. Especially in a turbocharged car.

Colder air means denser air. Denser air means more oxygen molecules in the same volume of air. More oxygen means the engine can put more fuel and produce a bit more power.

Depending on your driving style, i.e. If you have a heavy foot, this means a bit more power and fun, but you're burning a bit more gas too.

Something else i dont see mentioned often either is that ICE cars generate heat as a waste byproduct of producing power, but electric cars dont produce usable heat, so if your in an area where its cold then using the AC heating will be additional battery usage coming off your driving range

Shoddy build quality and no physical buttons

ikr they deserve exactly normal damn it

Which is true, many countries have planned bans on the sale of new ICE cars by 2035. Which is good, even now electric cars are starting to be competitive without subsidies.

I would maybe extra-tax ICEs instead of banning them, so you still have your exotic cars with vroom sounds...

Is hypermiling different in a hybrid or an EV compared to say an old manual transmission ICE?

EDIT: To be more clear, I guess I was more curious about techniques used. I already am aware how much waste heat and energy there is in ICE vehicles.

Good to know. Sounds like this is just the same old shit Elon / Tesla just got slapped for by the feds.

The gearing in the Taycan/E-Tron GT aren't for efficiency, but for speed. Electric motors don't really lose efficiency as they spin faster, but they do start to lose the ability to move the car faster against the exponentially increasing wind resistance. This isn't an issue for most cars (they top out around 110mph), but for something like the Taycan it's important (tops out around 155mph).

The 70mph situation is more that manufacturers de-rate their cars. Both the Taycan and the Lyriq (a SUV brick) are well-known for demolishing their EPA ranges in 70mph cruising tests. Even the EV9 (the brickiest brick) exceeded the EPA range in this same test.

BYD is going to destroy Kia in the states in the 30s

I haven't done a ton of research on the matter so definitely take this with a grain of salt but I have heard that the volt has been receiving pretty good reviews.

I would say for sure that you'll want to investigate a TON before making your purchase, you do not want to end up in a tesla situation like I did where an update to the car after a lawsuit provides direct evidence that tesla lied to everyone about the range of the vehicles.

The price/performance ratio on tesla vehicles made sense when they were still in development, but tesla is now one of the largest companies in the world and should not be allowed to screw their customers over like this anymore, but I feel the same way about most technology companies these days and the law, unfortunately, does not appear to agree.

I hope that works out for everyone that uses it but the key reason I ended up getting an electric vehicle after my ICE vehicle broke down was to avoid oil and gas prices, especially in regards to the continuing degradation of the geopolitical situation in the middle east where OPEC+ produces and transports more than 80% of the world supply of usable oil.

I hated waking up and wondering if the dice roll would break my bank that day. Although my car ended up a fair bit more expensive than I had wanted, the vehicle has nearly paid for itself with all the charges I didn't have to pay at the pump.

This isn't an endorsement for electric vehicles just a note of a positive side that I personally was able to avoid.

If my country wasn't completely backwards and we had more nuclear facilities and less dependence on oil barons, I'd be happier, but the reality is not everyone has the ability to change over, and even I would still be using an ICE vehicle today if insurance didn't cover the rest of the price of my old car when my accident happened.

Due to electric drivetrains having minimal fixed losses at low speed unlike internal combustion engines. Aerodynamic losses start becoming the largest factor for EVs at relatively low speeds (25-35 MPH) since other losses at so low. This shows up on tests as higher city efficiency and lower highway.

For an internal combustion engine you are burning a large amount of energy just to keep the engine running, so the slower the speed, the less distance traveled for the fixed amount of running losses and lower the MPG. It isn't until higher speeds (55-65 MPH) that aerodynamic losses become the largest factor. This manifests as lower efficiency in the city tests and higher highway.

It has the aerodynamics of a brick

There’s more air resistance at higher speeds.

Aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed. Other frictional losses might follow a similar pattern.

Cars have other sources of inefficiency too (such as idle power consumption), so all cars have a different optimum speed for maximum range (which depends on wind speed, direction & temperature too).

Air drag

Modern ICE cars do not use fuel when coasting down hill. The computer completely shuts off the fuel injectors when coasting and the physical energy from the car rolling keeps the engine turning over.

Someone who relies on sensationalism to drive clicks to his business is not trustworthy. Believe what you want.