Edmunds tests 9 pure EVs

[Bicster]

I drove the FFE today. Amazed. Excited. It evoked emotions the LEAF did not. I'm so conflicted by this. And the tiny tiny trunk... I'll start a new thread about it later when I have more time.

 

[mwalsh]

I drove the FFE today. Amazed. Excited. It evoked emotions the LEAF did not. I'm so conflicted by this. And the tiny tiny trunk... I'll start a new thread about it later when I have more time.

I'm not sure we need a new thread. There is already an "official" one for the FFE:

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=6641" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[DeaneG]

...If it shows 5 to go, they should expect it will go 5 more miles. Nissan can easily fix this, and rig up the GOM for any parameter they want.

Not sure, Nissan was too optimistic at first (stranded motorists), then too conservative (disappointed motorists). Maybe their engineers don't really know how to accurately measure the last bit of capacity?

 

[nosuchthing]

I wish Edmund's took the cars to Hwy 5 and ran them at 65 on flat ground. In town mileage to me is meaningless... California is a freeway country. That's all we drive here. I bought the Leaf for a 84-mile freeway commute. Didn't materialize because the range is 73. It's "her" car now.

 

[adric22]

I wonder if they'll ever include PHEV models in this test.

 

[TonyWilliams]

I wish Edmund's took the cars to Hwy 5 and ran them at 65 on flat ground. In town mileage to me is meaningless... California is a freeway country. That's all we drive here. I bought the Leaf for a 84-mile freeway commute. Didn't materialize because the range is 73. It's "her" car now.

I wouldn't be so quick to make such a statement. Both in town and freeway mileage are important, and for a battery electric car, hot and cold mileage, and new and old mileage are important.

As we saw in Phoenix last year, we drove a total of 13 cars at 64mph indicated on flat ground as you suggest, and got ranges of 83 miles all the way down to 59 miles. Those cars were all at the same temperature and on the same dry roadway. Imagine if there had been a severe change to a cold battery with the heater running?

I find that the Rav4 EV actually gets significantly better economy at 65mph (3.4 miles/kWh - 142 mile range) than is typical in the city, where I get about 2.7 miles/kWh - 113 miles range. That's quite a difference from the LEAF, where I got the same 4 miles/kWh - 84 mile range at 65mph that I got in town.

 

[cwerdna]

I wish Edmund's took the cars to Hwy 5 and ran them at 65 on flat ground. In town mileage to me is meaningless... California is a freeway country. That's all we drive here.

Agree w/the first point.

As for the latter, it depends on the person and their daily routine and commute. My mother almost flat out refuses to drive on the freeway as it's "too fast" and "makes her dizzy". :roll: If she has to go somewhere that would normally be much faster via freeway, she'll take non-freeways (e.g. Camden Ave, San Tomas Expressway, etc.) :roll: Sometimes, she has to visit a particular cemetery that is quite a ways away (I believe ~43 miles one way, almost all by freeway). She ends up hiring some driver to take her there...

This isn't a recent thing either (due to old age or anything). She's been like this ever since she learned to drive over 35 years ago...

It takes me almost 10 mins just to get to the closest freeway. I'm not working at the moment and my drives frequently take me to around the freeway entrance but I have no reason to get on, on most days. When I was last working in the Bay Area, I HAD to take the freeway every working day. My dad had a particular job for >10-15 years that involved no freeway commute.

I could argue that the Seattle area is also "freeway country" as one would be nuts to take the surface street route to between say the Eastside (where Redmond and Bellevue are) and Seattle. It's possible but very slow and roundabout.

 

[Herm]

As for why Toyota and Tesla made the RAV so good, I imagine that once Tesla was involved, they didn't want anything with their name on it to be substandard. Too much risk of damaging their still young brand. I agree, though, that Toyota could have opted to "cheap out" with a tiny city car. I'm glad they didn't.

Its possible Tesla CANT make a pack smaller than 40kWh with the cells they have experience with, also they are using an existing motor from the Tesla S.. I assume the inverter is the same also.

 

[dgpcolorado]

I wish Edmund's took the cars to Hwy 5 and ran them at 65 on flat ground. In town mileage to me is meaningless... California is a freeway country. That's all we drive here. I bought the Leaf for a 84-mile freeway commute. Didn't materialize because the range is 73. It's "her" car now.

To me the freeway mileage would be meaningless, since there isn't a freeway within LEAF range of where I live. Same for "in town mileage", for that matter, because city driving is just a few percent of my total miles. But, I'll grant you that, since most car owners drive freeways regularly, it would be helpful to know what the high speed performance and range is for an EV.

For me the useful information would be regen braking effectiveness on very steep hills (up to 14% grades) and handling in hairpin turns...

 

[ELROY]

I still think it is too bad how some of the other BEVs easily surpass their EPA range ratings compared to the LEAF. Kind of interesting the CODA has all that range with one of the lowest efficiency ratings. The FIT surpasses the LEAF in rated range (+9 miles), and actual (+18 miles), better efficiency, and acceleration even though it has a smaller battery. Same with the Focus EV. Barely rated higher than the LEAF in range (+3miles), but tested (+13.8 miles). Its too bad that Nissan has such optimistic factory ratings. Too bad they aren't more like BMW which in the same fashion, grossly underrates the HP of many of their engines (compared to actual dynos), and are conservative with their 0-60mph ratings.

Gotta Luv how efficient the FIT is, and still 3rd quickest in acceleration on that list. Its only 136lbs lighter than the LEAF...(and even less of a difference with the 2013 LEAF). Really curious to see if there is a noticeable improvement with the 2013 LEAF. Would love for Nissan to be at the top of the performance list in its EV class!

Wondering how the Spark EV is going rank in this list. Supposed to be near the top of the class according to GM

One of the main things I can think of is the tall profile of the LEAF (which gives it extra head room and cargo area), may be hurting its aerodynamic efficiency?

 

[DaveEV]

Here's what's interesting:

They assumed the LEAF would only go 83 miles before turtle - their test procedure involves driving each car down to an indicated 5 mi DTE - I presume that on the LEAF if they say 2 mi DTE they drove it 3 miles past when they saw 5 mi DTE.

Their measured efficiency was 24.7 kWh/100 mi, assuming that the LEAF really would have turtled at 83 mi, that indicates that it only took 20.5 kWh to charge back to 100% had it been driven to 83 mi (and comes out to 20.0 kWh from the wall to charge back to full).

That's 3-4+ kWh short of what it would take to charge a new LEAF from turtle to 100% - at ~250 Wh/mi that's 12-16 miles left on the table which would have put it right up there with the other EVs (assuming that the other EVs had an accurate DTE indicator).

Anyway, calculating their from the wall energy numbers (1st # is energy actually used to charge back to 100% as driven, 2nd is extrapolated energy assuming DTE indicator is accurate, 3rd is official capacity):

RAV4-EV 32.9 kWh / 45.1 kWh / 41.8 kWh
ActiveE 28.6 kWh / 31.0 kWh / 32 kWh
Coda    32.3 kWh / 34.1 kWh / 31 kWh
Fit     19.5 kWh / 20.1 kWh / 20 kWh
Focus   21.9 kWh / 23.0 kWh / 23 kWh
Golf    26.6 kWh / 28.0 kWh / 26.5 kWh
LEAF    20.0 kWh / 20.5 kWh / 24 kWh
iMiEV   15.2 kWh / 15.9 kWh / 16 kWh

The LEAF is the only car that comes in significantly lower for a 0-100% charge - every other car's from the wall energy is very close or slightly more than it's rated capacity which is expected - most manufacturers seem to reserve about 15% capacity to enhance calendar life.

So what's wrong with their LEAF? Is theirs significantly degraded and down 15%+ capacity? Or did the GOM get too pessimistic? Or both?

 

[ELROY]

Here's what's interesting:

They assumed the LEAF would only go 83 miles before turtle - their test procedure involves driving each car down to an indicated 5 mi DTE - I presume that on the LEAF if they say 2 mi DTE they drove it 3 miles past when they saw 5 mi DTE.

Their measured efficiency was 24.7 kWh/100 mi, assuming that the LEAF really would have turtled at 83 mi, that indicates that it only took 20.5 kWh to charge back to 100% had it been driven to 83 mi (and comes out to 20.0 kWh from the wall to charge back to full).

That's 3-4+ kWh short of what it would take to charge a new LEAF from turtle to 100% - at ~250 Wh/mi that's 12-16 miles left on the table which would have put it right up there with the other EVs (assuming that the other EVs had an accurate DTE indicator).

Anyway, calculating their from the wall energy numbers (1st # is energy actually used to charge back to 100% as driven, 2nd is extrapolated energy assuming DTE indicator is accurate, 3rd is official capacity):

RAV4-EV 32.9 kWh / 45.1 kWh / 41.8 kWh
ActiveE 28.6 kWh / 31.0 kWh / 32 kWh
Coda    32.3 kWh / 34.1 kWh / 31 kWh
Fit     19.5 kWh / 20.1 kWh / 20 kWh
Focus   21.9 kWh / 23.0 kWh / 23 kWh
Golf    26.6 kWh / 28.0 kWh / 26.5 kWh
LEAF    20.0 kWh / 20.5 kWh / 24 kWh
iMiEV   15.2 kWh / 15.9 kWh / 16 kWh

The LEAF is the only car that comes in significantly lower for a 0-100% charge - every other car's from the wall energy is very close or slightly more than it's rated capacity which is expected - most manufacturers seem to reserve about 15% capacity to enhance calendar life.

So what's wrong with their LEAF? Is theirs significantly degraded and down 15%+ capacity? Or did the GOM get too pessimistic? Or both?

Its definitely an issue sometimes, as I wish I had a little more range at times. Today I went to Very low battery warning with only a little over 50 miles, and a dash economy of 3.6mi/kWh. 100% charge might have given me 65 miles. My battery seems to be slighty low in range for some reason. Even at 5mi/kWh, I can't get much over 80-90 miles, when I should be at 100 miles with that kind of economy.

 

[Herm]

Kind of interesting the CODA has all that range with one of the lowest efficiency ratings.

They probably dont know how to game the EPA cycles, look at how different the consumption was from the EPA numbers. It does not matter, most people only notice the dated looks. Car buyers are shallow.

 

[ydnas7]

Here's what's interesting:

....

Anyway, calculating their from the wall energy numbers (1st # is energy actually used to charge back to 100% as driven, 2nd is extrapolated energy assuming DTE indicator is accurate, 3rd is official capacity):

RAV4-EV 32.9 kWh / 45.1 kWh / 41.8 kWh
ActiveE 28.6 kWh / 31.0 kWh / 32 kWh
Coda    32.3 kWh / 34.1 kWh / 31 kWh
Fit     19.5 kWh / 20.1 kWh / 20 kWh
Focus   21.9 kWh / 23.0 kWh / 23 kWh
Golf    26.6 kWh / 28.0 kWh / 26.5 kWh
LEAF    20.0 kWh / 20.5 kWh / 24 kWh
iMiEV   15.2 kWh / 15.9 kWh / 16 kWh

The LEAF is the only car that comes in significantly lower for a 0-100% charge - every other car's from the wall energy is very close or slightly more than it's rated capacity which is expected - most manufacturers seem to reserve about 15% capacity to enhance calendar life.

So what's wrong with their LEAF? Is theirs significantly degraded and down 15%+ capacity? Or did the GOM get too pessimistic? Or both?

In addition to battery aging, the differing chargers used will have differing efficiencies, the differing companies have differing ideas of reserve capacity, and the differing manufacturers will have differing ideas about SOC range, or even what 100% SOC is.

 

[jkirkebo]

I find it amusing that the heaviest car has the shortest braking distance (by far) and the highest slalom speed

 

[TomT]

There is far more to the braking and handling equation that just weight...

I find it amusing that the heaviest car has the shortest braking distance (by far) and the highest slalom speed

 

[TomT]

Or, phrased differently, it gets significantly worse economy in the city than the Leaf...

I find that the Rav4 EV actually gets significantly better economy at 65mph (3.4 miles/kWh - 142 mile range) than is typical in the city, where I get about 2.7 miles/kWh - 113 miles range. That's quite a difference from the LEAF, where I got the same 4 miles/kWh - 84 mile range at 65mph that I got in town.

 

[Electric4Me]

I find it amusing that the heaviest car has the shortest braking distance (by far) and the highest slalom speed

Likewise! And it's the quietest.
I also find it amusing that the other "ground-up" car, the Leaf, performed so poorly in handling in comparison to the others. Probably due to the very soft suspension. If it had better tires that would have helped, but of course would likely hurt the range further. What are the other cars' tires like?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Anyway, calculating their from the wall energy numbers (1st # is energy actually used to charge back to 100% as driven, 2nd is extrapolated energy assuming DTE indicator is accurate, 3rd is official capacity):

RAV4-EV 32.9 kWh / 45.1 kWh / 41.8 kWh
ActiveE 28.6 kWh / 31.0 kWh / 32 kWh
Coda    32.3 kWh / 34.1 kWh / 31 kWh
Fit     19.5 kWh / 20.1 kWh / 20 kWh
Focus   21.9 kWh / 23.0 kWh / 23 kWh
Golf    26.6 kWh / 28.0 kWh / 26.5 kWh
LEAF    20.0 kWh / 20.5 kWh / 24 kWh
iMiEV   15.2 kWh / 15.9 kWh / 16 kWh

One quibble; the Rav4 does not advertise it's battery size... only the usable capacity of 41.8kWh. We believe the actual size to be 50kWh.

Unlike the LEAF, when I travel a distance in the Rav4 from 100% to dead, and I divide by the economy, I always get 41.8. That's the beauty of a temperature controlled battery.