Very often, a test drive of an electric car in the editorial office of a Ukrainian media looks like this: a journalist took a charged electric car from a test park, drove it around Kyiv for several days and returned it to the importer with a dead battery. Only the most responsible colleague when using a car will try to recharge it somewhere near a cafe or entertainment center while drinking coffee or watching a new movie with the family. This is what we have always done, and in principle this is enough for an experienced auto journalist to get an impression of the new model and compare it with others.
But this time we tested electric vehicles under an expanded program. More precisely, despite everything, we tried to operate them as if they were ordinary gasoline or diesel cars.
Electric cars versus cars with internal combustion engines
The editorial schedule of test drives coincided so much that in February we drove different electric cars for several weeks in a row. We will deliberately not name brands and models here, since we believe that the issue here is not at all about brands. Moreover, as sociologists say, our representative sample was more or less fair: of these two cars, one represented a high, almost premium class, and the second represented the budget segment of the electric mobility community.
We did not organize any special tests as such, we only arranged for two “electric trains” to operate in the mode of a typical family car. This involved both short city trips and long-distance raids – in our case it was several routes with a length of 350 – 400 km. Let’s say right away that there were many nuances. But some of it comes down to the fact that we were new to long-distance electric travel.
Chargers for electric vehicles
First – about the pleasant things. Today, electric cars allow the driver not to think much about recharging during city trips – the battery capacity lasts for several days. Although for complete comfort you need to know that somewhere a completely reliable charging place is waiting for you – at home, or, for example, at your place of work.
Regarding recharging at home, we note that for current cars with their batteries with a capacity of more than 60 kWh, the cheapest charging option – without a special station, from a 220 volt outlet – requires at least 10 hours “to full.” To speed up the process, you either need to have a powerful station at home, or look for one somewhere in the city or on the highway. But this is where all the difficulties begin.
Even for the most modern electric vehicles with a stated range of 350–500 km, a more or less long trip, more than 200–300 km, requires planning.
- You need to study the map of charging stations along the way. Knowing your mileage at one gas station, you need to find all the chargers on your route via the Internet;
- Download to your phone the applications of all networks whose stations you will meet along the way. Speakers where you can charge without an app are rare;
- Have a bank card with a reserve of money in your account. We did not see stations with cash payments;
- Prepare a cable to connect the machine to the public station. The most versatile will be Type 2 (Mennekes). In principle, this is not a prerequisite, but having your own cable increases the chance of charging in small towns, where slow stations often do not have a cable. However, one of our cars was not equipped with cable, but we traveled safely in it.
This time we did not travel along large popular routes such as Kyiv – Lviv or Kyiv – Odessa. And yet, there were no problems with the availability of stations. There are chargers in Ukraine; they cover the network of roads between regional centers, even in not the most popular destinations. But the picture is not cloudless and you need to be prepared for the following obstacles:
- The station is busy. Very often at an electric gas station there is only one column, on which someone is already charging. And it will charge for another half an hour or an hour (at least this is the waiting period in our experience). Conveniently, the application on the smartphone shows how much empty space remains in the battery of the connected car. But the application does not show the presence of other machines in the queue;
- The station does not start charging the car. First, you, then the hotline operator of the gas station network (whom you call) will have to take certain actions – turn the car on and off, re-insert the cable, reboot the station, wait half a minute or a minute. We had several similar cases, but to the credit of the network operators, we always finally managed to charge;
- Your machine does not fully get along with the station and takes less current than you expected – for example, 10 kW instead of 20 kW. That is, you will have to stand at the pump for more time than you originally expected;
That is, on the route it is very advisable to have at least one spare station at each station where you are going to charge. You need a reserve in case something doesn’t grow together at the first point. Perhaps we lacked the courage, but wise from our initial experience, in the first part of the long routes we did not miss a single station, even the slowest one. We recharged on them out of fear that we wouldn’t succeed on the next ones. And only when, according to the on-board computer readings, we understood that we would reach the finish line without recharging under any conditions, we felt more free and stopped searching for stations and saving energy.
How long does an electric car charge last?
The mileage on one charge indicated in the technical characteristics of the car differed from the real one, but not by much – on average about 10%. After all, the passport figure is determined according to a certain standard WLTP method, with which real conditions usually do not coincide. But at the same time, we kept such a small 10 percent difference thanks to careful driving, keeping in mind several factors that instantly change the range of an electric vehicle – both in the direction of reducing it and in the direction of extending it.
What affects the mileage without recharging?
Since today’s electric cars are no longer so much machines as gadgets, all the numbers on energy consumption and battery performance are easy to monitor as you drive. The corresponding numbers are displayed on a large screen, helping the driver adjust the flow of energy to and from the battery in real time.
Reduces electric vehicle mileage:
- Speed above 70 – 80 km/h. One of our cars had an efficiency limit at approximately the lowest of the indicated figures, the second – at the highest;
- Dynamic accelerations. This was especially noticeable in the electric car with a jerk of 4.9 seconds to 100 km/h. Actually, this problem also applies to cars with internal combustion engines;
- Cold weather. Even a symbolic frost of -2°C caused a noticeable reduction in the promised mileage – perhaps due to a deterioration in the performance of the cold battery, perhaps due to the operation of the “climate”;
- Heater. This time we drove electric cars in the winter, so we should expect a reduction in mileage due to the operation of the cabin heater. Surprisingly, in reality we did not notice this, although we always set the climate control regulator to +20°C. Apparently, both electric cars promised us the rest of the mileage, already taking into account the working stove.
Increases the range of an electric vehicle:
- Use Eco driving mode (where available). Yes, the car becomes a little sluggish in it, but purely by electric vehicle standards. Competitors with internal combustion engines under the hood of such “sluggishness” can only envy;
- Skillful use of the recovery mode. When an electric car coasts, it returns energy to the battery. If you study the factory instructions and practice using the pedals, the savings percentage can be noticeable.
It is gratifying that with all that has been said, on-board computers are able to accurately predict the remaining mileage, including taking into account the driver’s temperament. Therefore, we planned our trips not according to passport data, but according to the readings on the car screen.
In short
It’s already better, but not yet – yes, we can answer the question whether a modern electric car can completely replace a car with an internal combustion engine. And if in a populated area and on short suburban outings you can already rely on the “battery,” then intercity trips cause a lot of complications for the crew. For whom they are offset by the dynamics of electric vehicles, unprecedented for gasoline (diesel) cars in the “family” price segment. But for some, the feeling of confidence on a long journey that a full tank of gas gives is still important. Which can be replenished in 5 minutes on almost every corner.
2024-02-26 05:30:42
#misunderstanding #joy #features #traveling #electric #car #Ukraine
