1000 mile Challenge, 11 EVs (C&D)

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SageBrush

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https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-vs-ford-mach-e-porsche-taycan-vw-id4-1k-mile-race-video/

People love races, although I would not extrapolate their findings too far when it comes to how a regular Joe drives and experiences an EV. In the race, the Tesla cars dominated courtesy of the Supercharger network and the poor LEAF+ was pitiful, I presume due to rapid gating
 
Haven't had time to watch the video but did skim the article at https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a36877585/ev-1000-11-electric-cars-long-distance-race/. Don't know the details of the Taycan but if they skipped 350 kW chargers instead of using them, it might've done a bit better.
 
I saw the video and read the article. From the little in the article, they lost more time with bad route planning than any thermal issues. Race was over 2 days for all teams. Ex. The team waited over 90 minutes to start charging early in the race as the other teams had the charger.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TlD5uKwjt9uOMPCM9TT5g2C4uB61xRDU/view?usp=drivesdk


https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a36877585/ev-1000-11-electric-cars-long-distance-race/

Not saying the Nissan Leaf team could have won, but their was much room for improvement.

Certainly for novice EV drivers, nothing beats the Tesla network right now.
 
Yes, there's no way the Leaf could've won the w/slow charging rate and potential for rapidgate. From the C&D article, there were also these problems:
User error almost certainly played a role, but the drivers in the Nissan Leaf insist they were following the app's guidance when they made the first pit stop—charging for all of six minutes—just 23 miles into the race. That mistake came back to haunt them when they were the last of four teams to arrive at a single ChargePoint DC fast-charger at an adult-education center near Lima, Ohio. The day's lesson: Be wary of any fast-charging station with only one unit. The Leaf squeezed electrons from a nearby lower-power Level 2 plug for 96 minutes before the fast-charger became available. The Nissan team would have been waiting longer, but the duo in the Audi had given up their spot to search for another charging station, only to return a short while later. The unit they'd hoped to use was broken.
Too bad there wasn't a Bolt in there. I suspect it also wouldn't have done that great due to low charging rate esp. vs. ID.4 and e-tron BEV but likely would've beaten Leaf Plus.
 
Interesting article and video clip. It's good to look past the obvious Tesla charging network advantage. Notice the windy weather? See the light snow, road salt residue on the LEAF, and sometimes wearing coats & winter hats? Likely very early Spring judging by the trees starting to bud. The route they picked is basically through the public DCFC desert of rural Ohio and especially West Virginia. It's also interesting they mentioned the ABRP app. Living in the middle of their route area, that app definitely doesn't like my 40KWh LEAF. Some of the app's predictions are so pessimistic that I'm tempted to go drive them to prove it wrong.
 
rogersleaf said:
Interesting article and video clip. It's good to look past the obvious Tesla charging network advantage. Notice the windy weather? See the light snow, road salt residue on the LEAF, and sometimes wearing coats & winter hats? Likely very early Spring judging by the trees starting to bud. The route they picked is basically through the public DCFC desert of rural Ohio and especially West Virginia. It's also interesting they mentioned the ABRP app. Living in the middle of their route area, that app definitely doesn't like my 40KWh LEAF. Some of the app's predictions are so pessimistic that I'm tempted to go drive them to prove it wrong.
I like ABRP, and it does OK much of the time, but if I was doing a "race" like this, I'd use spreadsheet calculations. I know the LEAF and the etron better than ABRP does.

Also Graphhopper:

https://graphhopper.com/maps/
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
Not saying the Nissan Leaf team could have won, but [there] was much room for improvement.
The race introduced an ~ 1.5 hour delay for the LEAF because another EV reached the single charger first. If that had not happened the LEAF might have managed 30.5 hours instead of 32 hours, compared to the winner at 16 hours.

Mentioning the LEAF in the same sentence as winning is a joke. Heck, talking about the LEAF ending up anywhere other than last is unrealistic.

That said, this is a race and actual use can be quite different. Specifically,

Start with full charge
Drive until 5 - 15% SoC
Take hour long food break while charging
Drive to destination by end of day and charge overnight

One long charge a day
One long charge each night

So long as the LEAF has enough range to make it to the next charger, I think it can sustain 500 mile days in moderate weather without undue drama. Cooler weather is easier because rapid-gating is not a concern. The real caveats here are that overnight charging is needed, and the charging stops have to be spread out in a useful way for the LEAF+ range.
 
Sage

I agree with the approach, start full, one long DC charge, and maybe a second short DC charge to make the 500 miles. Assuming 55mph, hour for the first charge, and 30 min for then second, you would be able to do the 500 miles in about 11 - 12 hours each day, or 23 hours, which was the Niro EV time.
 
Makes me wish some of us from here could get in on this "challenges" and surprise everyone.
I think most of here already know, if we had to drive 1,000 miles as fast as possible, "in a Leaf", we would just drive slow to stretch out the range as far as possible between charging stations. If you drive the Leaf+ @ 30 mph, you'll probably get close to 500 miles of range on a single charge. :lol:

I think it would have been funny to have the Leaf drivers just drive slow and get mad range to throw everyone off when they show the numbers. That's what I would have done... :mrgreen:

"The Leaf came in last but was getting 500 miles per charge"
 
knightmb said:
If you drive the Leaf+ @ 30 mph, you'll probably get close to 500 miles of range on a single charge. :lol:
I'm pretty skeptical of this. I approximate this driving pattern sometimes on short local trips where I catch all the lights and never have to brake. Under these conditions I see efficiency of about 2 GIDS per mile, which would translate to a range of 360 miles.
 
pulse and glide extends range quite a bit too, a "normal" person does not bother with hypermiling techniques.

Anyway yea 500 miles a day is quite doable as said above. Starting full, one long full DCFC then a shorter one, charging overnight to full again at destination. Still no way the LEAF could win. On that second shorter charger I actually chargegated last week as temperatures were showing 43C outside in western Colorado.
 
Knight

Exactly, I want to do the challenge to give the Leaf just a little more street cred. It tends to get crapped on everywhere.

Oxo,

Yes, I also see 1.5-2 gids per mile on local conservative driving. To do 500, I think you would need to try 15mph on 70psi Styrofoam rims.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
Knight

Exactly, I want to do the challenge to give the Leaf just a little more street cred. It tends to get crapped on everywhere.
Let me drive those other EV in my job and see if they last. I know my Leaf can stay on 8 hours straight with the AC running the whole time (never turn off for stops) through thousands of miles of stop and go driving each week. I would be curious if other EV could handle that as well. :cool:
 
knightmb said:
Makes me wish some of us from here could get in on this "challenges" and surprise everyone.
Nah

You can estimate this optimization problem by solving the first derivative of the time function for zero.
So long as you are charging at 50 kW (let alone 70), you want to drive a lot faster than 30 mph.

Unless your route and driving forces you to use L2 charging. Then by all means, slow down !! ;)
------

You are right though -- these C&D drivers are pretty representative of clueless EV drivers. In that sense they offer "real world" results
A smarter but still EV clueless driver would have figured out the arithmetic challenged approach to EV racing: drive slower at the start of a leg and if possible, faster for the second half gauged to arrive at the DCFC with a low SoC. The really clever would know about the battery reserve.

[rant]
I find C&D obnoxious. They imply that EV drivers need co-pilots to be hunched over spreadsheets. As if every drive is a 1000 mile race.
[/rant]
 
knightmb said:
Makes me wish some of us from here could get in on this "challenges" and surprise everyone.
Nah

You can figure out this optimization problem by solving the first derivative of the time function for zero. **
As speed increases, you only care about the change in aero related work.
So long as you are charging at 50 kW (let alone 70), you want to drive a lot faster than 30 mph.

Unless your route and driving forces you to use L2 charging. Then by all means, slow down !! ;)
------

You are right though -- these C&D drivers are pretty representative of clueless EV drivers. In that sense they offer "real world" results
A smarter but still EV clueless driver would have figured out the arithmetic challenged approach to EV racing: drive slower at the start of a leg and if possible, faster for the second half gauged to arrive at the DCFC with a low SoC. The really clever would know about the battery reserve.

[rant]
I find C&D obnoxious. They imply that EV drivers need co-pilots to be hunched over spreadsheets. As if every drive is a 1000 mile race.
[/rant]

**
You can also estimate with a little algebra:
Say 60 mph is 200 Wh/mile and 100 Wh/mile is Aero (this should be measured on the road)
The change in Aero losses are proportional to the square of the speed change so e.g. 70 mph would be (7/6)*(7/6)*100 - 100 = 36 Wh more per mile so 2.52 more kWh per hour. The higher speed saves 10 minutes per hours or about 30 minutes per 3 hours. The overhead involved in going to a charger could be some 10 minutes so net 20 minutes are saved in driving time every 3 hours. That implies that charging has to be faster than 2.52*3*3 = 22 kW to save time.
 
DougWantsALeaf said:
Sage

I agree with the approach, start full, one long DC charge, and maybe a second short DC charge to make the 500 miles. Assuming 55mph, hour for the first charge, and 30 min for then second, you would be able to do the 500 miles in about 11 - 12 hours each day, or 23 hours, which was the Niro EV time.

Yeah, but as I amended in my other post, the LEAF *really* is dependent on overnight charging. I'll guess the LEAF did not have it in the race. Would a regular car owner ? Maybe. And maybe it would be expensive, or inconvenient. So I would say possible, with SMALL PRINT

The important point for LEAFers on long trips is to avoid battery temps from driving that lead to rapid-gating during that daily DCFC. For that you need experience and LEAFSpy to decide what speed to travel ... after you have figured out what is needed to reach the next charging stop. It really is a drive for geeks.
 
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