Speaking for myself, saving energy is part of decreasing carbon emissions. We aren't getting a free ride from any source of energy. Even PV panels require fossil fuel use for their manufacture, transport, and often for installation. It's a small contribution, but one I can make without significant effort. Adds up to a lot of KWh over the lifetime of the car.Volusiano said:
To conserve energy, don't look at acceleration rate, look at reducing your speed. But as for me, if I have plenty of range I like to enjoy it. 
To me, if the OP gets some enjoyment out of being able to accelerate freely thanks to the virtue of the electric motor giving instant high torque, then it has value as entertainment. We already spend a lot of money (and using up a lot of fossil fuel in process) for the sake of entertainment in this country. So if the OP wants to enjoy and take pleasure in something that's already available and inherent in his car for very little cost, he should born no guilt to take advantage of it. After all, it's not like he wants to accelerate on a Hummer or anything like that.Stoaty said:
Motor losses won't be too bad, but you also need to take into account battery, inverter and wire losses at the higher power / current levels. - Wait, I just read the graph axis and it says "This graph shows the efficiency of the electric power train" - so that presumable includes the inverter efficiency, but I don't know if that includes or excludes battery efficiency.johnr said:I would make an educated guess that the Leaf's electric motor is around 95% efficient between 1/4 to 3/4 power. At full power it probably drops to about 80% efficiency. Of course, this is just a guess, but you have to start somewhere. Now consider that if you accelerate faster, you can travel at a slightly lower top speed and still reach your destination at the same time. So you save a slight amount of energy by not going quite as fast. I think after doing a boatload of complicated math, you will find that it makes hardly any difference what rate you accelerate. In fact, if you accelerate too slowly I think you'd use slightly more energy because you'd either be on the road a bit longer or have to go a bit faster to make up for it. This is an electric car, there is no engine, it's a whole different world.
Time for pulse and glide for the Leaf?garygid said:
-but more efficient than going faster. I think the low torque region is where the power output is so low, you'd actually be loosing speed from friction, tires, and aerodynamic lossses, at least above, say 35 mph. With peak efficiency at 95% and the lowest efficiency at 85%, the losses vary by only 10% and are much less than aerodynamic losses for most of that power curve if your going over 50 mph. Even at it's lowest efficiency, I wouldn't worry too much about drive train losses as I would about aerodynamic losses and maximizing regen when braking is required, end even then only if I'm on a trip that needs most of the pack's range. Cruising speed will still be a much more important impact to overall energy consumption and range.garygid said:
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Torque and energy are very closely related, are they not? I believe the bubbles on the dash are a very rough measure of the energy being expended at any point in time. So is there any mapping between bubbles and torque? I know it can't be this simple, but there are 9 power bubbles and, according to the SAE chart, 275 Nm torque max. So could we be talking about 30 Nm per bubble? Obviously that can't be right, because I have seen at least 7 bubbles accelerating hard at 60 to merge into freeway traffic. The chart says I'm limited to well under 150 Nm at 60 mph, not the 210 this would represent.garygid said:
mbutter said:
"Torque and energy are very closely related, are they not?" - Well, yes they are! Especially when you put RPM into the mix! My understanding is Torque X RPM = Power. In an Electric Motor - more torque tends to mean more current, Amps, and higher RPM tends to mean more voltage.planet4ever said:
