[Andystroh]

Hello everyone. New to EVs here. My wife and I live in Golden, CO and our biggest hesitation (along with a lot of people we know) to EVs was winter and mountain range performance. I am floating the idea of tracking metrics on our drives in the mountains to better understand how far we can go, and maybe share them on our blog so other drivers in cold/mountainous areas (in particular drivers in CO making the exact same trips) can use this information, especially with the ID.4 being a newer vehicle and there's not as much info out there as there are for e.g. teslas.

My primary questions are:

• Is there a place already doing this? I'd be happy to upload my driving metrics to something to help track this information.
• If I continue with this, what would be useful to see? To begin I am thinking:
  • High level:
    • Tires - we plan on swapping to 18" wheels with winter tires in the winter
    • Model - we have a RWD Pro; different wheels, tires, range, drivetrain etc.
  • trip level:
    • Starting and ending location (segments - thinking now it is most valuable to see individual segments, and maybe describe the trip as a whole as well if we stop and charge)
    • Distance
    • starting battery
    • ending battery
    • Net elevation change
    • efficiency
    • temperature
    • If we have any accessories (e.g. bike rack, ski rack)

Again, new to EVs so if there is any fundamental information that might be nice to include I could definitely be overlooking it. This is something like what the table would look like with some preliminary information from my wife's drive today:

Thinking it will be most valuable as temps cool off and we enter the first winter with the ID.4, and will be interesting to see the same drives at different temperatures. Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Spin]

Just be aware that divers probably make the biggest difference. Some of us get less than 3 miles/kW and some get close to 4.

 

[Andystroh]

Definitely a good thing to consider. I’ll include some baseline metrics for what we get in “around town” driving.
also will be adding “ground” to the table; dry pavement, wet pavement, snow, dirt, etc

 

[Keowee]

Just for fun, I used ABRP to check a mountain route in SC/NC. 34 miles with 3,500 ft elevation gain. I checked uphill vs downhill consumption (close to what I see in real life) and then adjust from 78F day to 30F day.

• 78F day - uphill 2.7 miles/kW, downhill 6.3 miles/kW, overall 3.8 miles/kW
• 30F day - uphill 2.2 miles/kW, downhill 4.0 miles/kW, overall 2.8 miles/kW

ABRP estimated the temperature impact to be -25% overall

Winter is coming and it should be interesting for those of us with cold weather and mountains.

 

[ARob]

There are some general numbers like AAA figuring efficiency drops of 20-45% in sub-freezing temps. HVAC use tends to be a big factor. @Keowee figures pretty much align with this.

My experience with I70 between Golden and Glenwood is the climb up to the summit at the tunnels is a slow, steady drop in efficiency and the downhill stretches make up for much of the loss. I would say, maybe you recover 70-80% on the downhill stretches.

In my Bolt EV, in weekend return traffic backed up all the way from Silverthorn to Idaho Springs, with average speeds of ~20MPH, I recover almost 5 kWh in regen from the tunnels to C470. The slow speeds and downhill almost make the backup tolerable.

Honestly, I don't get too worked up about the range and efficiency, I know in summer I can get from Monument to Glenwood Springs with 20%+ SoC to spare. In winter, I expect I might need to stop sooner, but I quit skiing several years ago so most of my trips to the west are in milder temps. The Bolt is 238 miles of range and 60kWh capacity and tends to run a bit more efficient than ID4 due to being lighter. The 77kWh capacity of the ID4 makes the difference fairly minimal I suspect WRT actual range.

So, from Golden, you should easily reach Glenwood for a first stop, perhaps even Grand Junction. The return is a bit less efficient as the net elevation gain from W to E is greater. On return trips, I tend to stop at Glenwood and Frisco.

Most new EV owners with a technical leaning get into analyzing things like you suggest. I too did that at first. But, once you have some time under your belt, intuition and simplicity take over. I don't even "plan" my trips anymore. The DCFC infrastructure on I70 is excellent and improving. Compared to 3 years ago, when we only had two 20kW DCFC in Glenwood (Mtn Chevy) and Grand Junction library, we now have 13 DCFC between Golden and Grand Junction, with a couple of 62.5 kW, most 150 - 350 kW. So, my trip planning now consists of using plugshare to confirm the status of chargers on the route, and I pretty much go by the in car stats to make final determinations where to charge. The 277 miles from Golden to Grand Junction is borderline on non-stop, so the one or two charging stops you do will be more than sufficient almost any time of year.

Oh, and EA will apparently add 2-3 more sites on i70 in the next round (2022-2023), so maybe Idaho Springs, Silverthorn, and Rifle\Parachute?

Good luck with your analysis, but keep in mind the primary factors impacting efficiency are temp, HVAC use, speed, and driving technique. Most of these are fairly complex to factor in given variable speeds (the i70 corridor is particularly unpredictable). With so many variables, each trip will tend to give different results.

 

[SunWizard]

Is there a place already doing this? I'd be happy to upload my driving metrics to something to help track this information.

Yes, ABRP already does this and is quite good at it. It also can plan for your expected weather since rain and wind also affect range along with the temperature and elevation. Its also got automated features to upload and include driving and charging metrics from the existing 1000's of users.

 

[mochalatte]

Here are some rule of thumb numbers if you just want to do mental calculations of mountain driving. Elevating 5309 lbs up 1000 ft requires 2.0 kWh of energy. That's probably conservative leaving room for about 644 lbs for passengers and cargo given the FE & Pro S 4665 lb curb weight.

And using a 60% conversion efficiency for a round trip converting kinetic energy -> battery energy -> kinetic energy, you would get back about 1.2 kWh for each 1000 ft of decent. (I'm not sure how conservative the 60% figure is.)

 

[Andystroh]

Great, thanks for the input. Glad to know about those features in ABRP, that is very useful.

 

[cosev]

I recently drove from Colorado Springs to Buena Vista, spent the night, drove to the Mt Yale trailhead, and drove back to Colorado Springs. Left with the battery around 97% and arrived home at 16%. I ran the A/C the whole time and didn't work hard to drive efficiently, generally about 5mph over the limit and passed 2 or 3 slower drivers. There's a good bit of elevation change, I was very pleased with the efficiency!

 

[Andystroh]

Yeah it is looking good. Wife ended up averaging 3.8mi/kWh from golden to winter park and back today. Summer seems like it will be no issue. It will be interesting to see how cold and really cold impact these cars.

 

[VW TECHNICIAN]

Here are my suggestions besides the suggestions from other people.
Obd2 dongle and EV Notify that will give you more Information on BMS SOC ...Display SOC...battery temperature changes and once you get familiar you can get better apps for getting even more information....it will be definitely interesting to watch what people have experienced driving in the winter weather.