Effect of traffic jam type driving on range

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DavidBurbidge

Member
Joined
Jun 15, 2020
Messages
7
Hello,

I have had my Leaf S Plus for about a year. I have done one 300 mile drive, having to stop twice and driving down to about 10% charge. I am considering taking it on a long drive that may include stop and go and slow and go highway traffic. Assuming I do not need heat or a/c, does this kind of driving seriously affect range? My gut/limited science tells me that with eco mode on so I don't over accelerate, this should not cause much extra use of the battery. In some ways, it may be more like city driving and therefore result in more miles than faster speed. Please provide any knowledge and experience. Thank you.

As an interesting side note, my LEAF is listed to go 226 miles on a full charge. Today, with 64 degree weather through town, I drove 5 miles on 1% of battery usage! Wow!
 
The faster you travel, the more energy it takes because of air resistance. Slow traffic, stop and go will be similar to city driving, expect excellent mileage.
 
DavidBurbidge said:
Hello,

I have had my Leaf S Plus for about a year. I have done one 300 mile drive, having to stop twice and driving down to about 10% charge. I am considering taking it on a long drive that may include stop and go and slow and go highway traffic. Assuming I do not need heat or a/c, does this kind of driving seriously affect range? My gut/limited science tells me that with eco mode on so I don't over accelerate, this should not cause much extra use of the battery. In some ways, it may be more like city driving and therefore result in more miles than faster speed. Please provide any knowledge and experience. Thank you.

As an interesting side note, my LEAF is listed to go 226 miles on a full charge. Today, with 64 degree weather through town, I drove 5 miles on 1% of battery usage! Wow!

I get excellent mileage in slow traffic; even stop-and-go traffic. Of course there is a limit -- in complete gridlock your battery will eventually drain down as you sit. But that would take days. In all practical cases I've been in, slow traffic has been great for range.
 
I find thick but moving highway traffic to be optimal. 45 mph, high vehicle density which removes a lot if the wind resistance and no stopping. You will feel like you have a 300 mile EV.
 
Yes, I've found unlike an ICE vehicle, stop and go traffic to be a real benefit to range, EVs or even PHEVs are perfect for stop-and-go traffic.
 
The only time that stop & Go traffic can hurt range is if you are blasting the heat in frigid (below 25F) temps, or in any temps with no heat pump. A/C and heat pump heat in milder temps aren't a big issue.
 
LeftieBiker said:
The only time that stop & Go traffic can hurt range is if you are blasting the heat in frigid (below 25F) temps, or in any temps with no heat pump. A/C and heat pump heat in milder temps aren't a big issue.
A big +1 for that, resistive heat can totally kill your range, longer time in the car, longer time the battery will drop, in that case getting to your destination as fast as you can is probably better.
 
Consider: a hydrocarbon-burning vehicle is consuming fuel even standing at idle. It is also consuming fuel when coasting, whether in engine-braking or in neutral (or clutch-disengaged).

Conversely, an electric vehicle is only consuming energy when it is actually applying forward (or reverse) thrust (aside from what's consumed to run heat, A/C, lighting, radio, &c.). Dynamic braking, unlike engine braking, harvests kinetic energy and feeds it into the traction battery, to the extent shown on the counterclockwise blue bar-graph.
 
A small nit - I would assume most modern cars consume no fuel while engine braking. The computer(s) controlling the fuel input can sense that no fuel is required and would supply none.
 
Stop and go can make you...or break you. Its all about blending in with the flow of traffic so your goal is to get thru the entire slowdown without using your brake (E Pedal included) at all. If you do that, you have won. If you can't then its all about minimizing the damage.

It sounds impossible but I have done 20-30 mile crawls engaging the brake light no more than half a dozen times and ALL those times were at speeds under 10 mph.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Stop and go can make you...or break you. Its all about blending in with the flow of traffic so your goal is to get thru the entire slowdown without using your brake (E Pedal included) at all. If you do that, you have won. If you can't then its all about minimizing the damage.
Exactly. It is all about how much braking. Extend the following distance and drive at the speed of traffic
 
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