EPA vs real world range: maybe Gravity isn't so bad after all

[illopp00]

I see that Car and Driver has published a BMW iX3 75 MPH highway range test. They report getting 330 miles out of it, versus the EPA range of 392. There's been a lot of doom and gloomy here about Lucid somehow standing apart from their competition and misleading consumers about range. But it seems like the iX3 exhibits very similar discrepancies, as one would expect given the EPA rating procedure that companies are following.

In Our First Test of a Neue Klasse BMW, the iX3 Gets a Passing Grade

There is, however, some room for improvement.

www.caranddriver.com

On the US configuration there is ONLY one possible config to get the max range (its a summer tire, so not going to be in Michigan test in the fall). So BMW also misleads with marketing, there is no 60K car with 430 miles range, there is only one minute spec to get that range.

 

[RajD]

I can’t understand why OOS and others think EPA range should equal ‘highway 70mph maintained speed’ range. It never has. Bizarre.

Also I suspect Kyle’s Gravity does have a problem - tom m from State of Charge got over 400mi range on his 70mph Gravity test and he didn’t even run it to dead, just 0%. He’d have hit 420mi if he had done that.

Maybe wind, temp, elevation issue? Or maybe some other mechanical issue? Even Edmunds got 400mi last week.

 

[illopp00]

EPA literally runs vehicles till they stop moving and have 0 energy, that is different than holding 70mph. You can sit and run a Gravity another 30 miles under 0% at 20 mph.

 

[BS8899]

EPA literally runs vehicles till they stop moving and have 0 energy, that is different than holding 70mph. You can sit and run a Gravity another 30 miles under 0% at 20 mph.

Does EPA ACTUALLY run the battery down all the way or do they extrapolate from the tests and the energy consumption and the battery capacity??

 

[exxxviii]

Does EPA ACTUALLY run the battery down all the way or do they extrapolate from the tests and the energy consumption and the battery capacity??

"A vehicle with a fully charged battery is driven continuously over the EPA city cycle until the battery is depleted and the vehicle can drive no further. The distance driven is recorded."
Fuel Economy and EV Range Testing

 

[illopp00]

I mean it's a dumb test as far as actually representing people's real world driving behavior, but it is a proper lab test for figuring out how much energy a vehicle can get out of it's battery. Anyways, I was told I can't run my ICE car below 20% gas tank level so I don't burn out my fuel pump so the MPG range is also garbage...

 

[dbsb3233]

I think the explanation @exxxviii summarized is the correct interpretation.

Inasmuch as people want to blame EPA, the EPA range tests (avg of 48mph of mixed highway/city driving) were never supposed to be interpreted as US highway range @70-75mph. The confusion arose when the car manufacturers' advertising tend to be a bit misleading. If you think your Lucid (Air or Gravity) is going to get EPA range on US hwy driving, it is not going to happen. But to call these discrepancies an EPA fault is a cop-out. The car manufacturers know very well what they are doing. In Lucid's case some of these myths are further exaggerated when they roll an Air down the hill from St. Mortiz and achieved incredable range!

There's still plenty of valid blame for the EPA. First off, they shouldn't apply/require the old ICE methodology to EVs at all. That's the real problem. EPA methodology for ICE is fine. It's designed for ICE and it provides information pertinent to what people care about. The vast majority of consumers care about ICE MPG for cost purposes (fuel cost to drive). EPA cares about it for environmental purposes/policy.

NONE of that applies to EVs (or at least very little). What people care about for EVs is highway range, because DCFC charging is sparse and time-consuming and thus a concern (especially for newbies). Hardly anyone cares about city or combined range (most charge at home and have no concern about local range). It's HIGHWAY, HIGHWAY, HIGHWAY.

Applying ICE methodology to EVs never made any sense. It's comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Brou]

OOS/C&D testing is dishonest. It isn't a test of EPA range. It's a 70 mph constant hwy speed test. Car and Driver is a 75 mph highway speed test. EPA tests 55% city 45% hwy, with regen braking and accelerating included, and then multiplies it by 0.7 to factor in wind, HVAC, elevation changes, etc.

OOS and Car and Driving are making up their own testing protocols and calling it an EPA test. They both know better, but they both know most of their viewers/readers DON'T know better, so they can get away with lying for clicks.

 

[BS8899]

EPA literally runs vehicles till they stop moving and have 0 energy, that is different than holding 70mph. You can sit and run a Gravity another 30 miles under 0% at 20 mph.

Does EPA ACTUALLY run the battery down all the way or do they extrapolate from the tests and the energy consumption and the battery capacity??

 

[Aka-none]

I believe the highest EPA rating for the Touring is 337 miles (you need to select the 20/21 wheels). At 80 MPH, I don't know that you'd get 250 miles, especially in a Polish winter. From my experience in Poland, I'm assuming the route gets quite cold at that time of year. And you have to consider whether she wants to maintain a range buffer, or is comfortable departing at 100% charge and arriving with close to 0%. On the flip side, a Touring charges very quickly. Is it really worth spending a lot of money to prevent needing a quick charging stop twice a year?

Hopefully the Polish roads (other than highways) are in better condition than the last time I drove there.

 

[BS8899]

There's still plenty of valid blame for the EPA. First off, they shouldn't apply/require the old ICE methodology to EVs at all. That's the real problem. EPA methodology for ICE is fine. It's designed for ICE and it provides information pertinent to what people care about. The vast majority of consumers care about ICE MPG for cost purposes (fuel cost to drive). EPA cares about it for environmental purposes/policy.

NONE of that applies to EVs (or at least very little). What people care about for EVs is highway range, because DCFC charging is sparse and time-consuming and thus a concern (especially for newbies). Hardly anyone cares about city or combined range (most charge at home and have no concern about local range). It's HIGHWAY, HIGHWAY, HIGHWAY.

Applying ICE methodology to EVs never made any sense. It's comparing apples and oranges.

While I agree that the EPA test methodology, which is based on ICE cars, is not a good fit for EVs, I think the EV manufacturers also have a moral responsibility to inform their customers as to what the actual performance (efficiency, realistic range, etc.) of the EV. While I think some of the EV manufacturers take the time to understand the EPA tests vs the actual performance and derate the efficiency claims on their vehicles from the raw EPA tests, I don't think Lucid (and Tesla) are doing an adequate job on this front. As a result, the achievable range, as in US highway driving (70-75 mph), fall significantly short of the "EPA rated range". The EV manufacturers know how their EVs perform and the impact of speed, temperature, elevation, and other factors affect range. There is no mystery behind this stuff. Blaming EPA is not the answer!

 

[Mooncusser]

Just a quick post to note that I saw the Out of Spec video last night and can't figure out why their range was so low.

I have virtually the same spec'ed Gravity GT and have driven it to Atlanta (from NYC) and back twice, plus to central VA from NYC and back once. I've got about 7,500 miles on the car (almost all these large drives) I get MINIMUM 3.15 miles/kWh (over the mountains in western NC with a FULLY loaded car moving my son back from school). Lately, I've been closer to 3.4 miles/kWh. That implies a 100-0 (assuming available battery capacity of 120 kWh) range of 384-408 miles.

I tend to drive between 70-75 mph when cruising, use the AC almost all the time, my son and wife will regularly use the seat massager, and I have a giant cooler plugged in to the back a lot of the time. In other words, I'm not trying to max range...

Something is definitely wrong, either with their test, or the vehicle.

 

[Aka-none]

I mean it's a dumb test as far as actually representing people's real world driving behavior, but it is a proper lab test for figuring out how much energy a vehicle can get out of it's battery. Anyways, I was told I can't run my ICE car below 20% gas tank level so I don't burn out my fuel pump so the MPG range is also garbage...

Yeah, try running a diesel till it stops. Have fun bleeding the fuel system

 

[9point81]

Just a quick post to note that I saw the Out of Spec video last night and can't figure out why their range was so low.

I have virtually the same spec'ed Gravity GT and have driven it to Atlanta (from NYC) and back twice, plus to central VA from NYC and back once. I've got about 7,500 miles on the car (almost all these large drives) I get MINIMUM 3.15 miles/kWh (over the mountains in western NC with a FULLY loaded car moving my son back from school). Lately, I've been closer to 3.4 miles/kWh. That implies a 100-0 (assuming available battery capacity of 120 kWh) range of 384-408 miles.

I tend to drive between 70-75 mph when cruising, use the AC almost all the time, my son and wife will regularly use the seat massager, and I have a giant cooler plugged in to the back a lot of the time. In other words, I'm not trying to max range...

Something is definitely wrong, either with their test, or the vehicle.

Yeah, I get about the same range at 80+ mph average highway cruising speed. And I have the mid sized tires…

 

[sgrenald]

Just a quick post to note that I saw the Out of Spec video last night and can't figure out why their range was so low.

I have virtually the same spec'ed Gravity GT and have driven it to Atlanta (from NYC) and back twice, plus to central VA from NYC and back once. I've got about 7,500 miles on the car (almost all these large drives) I get MINIMUM 3.15 miles/kWh (over the mountains in western NC with a FULLY loaded car moving my son back from school). Lately, I've been closer to 3.4 miles/kWh. That implies a 100-0 (assuming available battery capacity of 120 kWh) range of 384-408 miles.

I tend to drive between 70-75 mph when cruising, use the AC almost all the time, my son and wife will regularly use the seat massager, and I have a giant cooler plugged in to the back a lot of the time. In other words, I'm not trying to max range...

Something is definitely wrong, either with their test, or the vehicle.

Kyle mentions that at the end. He had Lucid check the metrics and they said something was wrong.

 

[exxxviii]

Just a quick post to note that I saw the Out of Spec video last night and can't figure out why their range was so low.

Kyle mentions that at the end. He had Lucid check the metrics and they said something was wrong.

This is not the first car where Kyle got sketchy results and acknowledged that something did not look right. His recent R2 range tests were abysmal and inconsistent with every other range test that others published. Everything he documents about his tests looks fine, but there is something nestled in there that screws up some of his outcomes. His tests seem to fail reproducibility and external consistency.

 

[socktucker]

He had Lucid check the metrics and they said something was wrong.

Lucid giving reviewers broken cars again? No way.

 

[doubletwist]

OOS/C&D testing is dishonest. It isn't a test of EPA range. It's a 70 mph constant hwy speed test. Car and Driver is a 75 mph highway speed test. EPA tests 55% city 45% hwy, with regen braking and accelerating included, and then multiplies it by 0.7 to factor in wind, HVAC, elevation changes, etc.

OOS and Car and Driving are making up their own testing protocols and calling it an EPA test. They both know better, but they both know most of their viewers/readers DON'T know better, so they can get away with lying for clicks.

Um, no they are not. Neither of them are claiming that their test is 'an EPA test'. Both of them are quite clear about it, and about what exactly they are testing, and the are doing it BECAUSE everyone knows that the EPA rated range/efficiency is useless to actual customers.

The only reason they mention EPA is to point out how useless/wrong the EPA rated range is for road trips - which is mostly the only time customers actually need to know what the full range is.

 

[dbsb3233]

While I agree that the EPA test methodology, which is based on ICE cars, is not a good fit for EVs, I think the EV manufacturers also have a moral responsibility to inform their customers as to what the actual performance (efficiency, realistic range, etc.) of the EV. While I think some of the EV manufacturers take the time to understand the EPA tests vs the actual performance and derate the efficiency claims on their vehicles from the raw EPA tests, I don't think Lucid (and Tesla) are doing an adequate job on this front. As a result, the achievable range, as in US highway driving (70-75 mph), fall significantly short of the "EPA rated range". The EV manufacturers know how their EVs perform and the impact of speed, temperature, elevation, and other factors affect range. There is no mystery behind this stuff. Blaming EPA is not the answer!

Oh there should absolutely be a range number for EVs. Primarily highway as the main, advertised number. But there does need to be a standard methodology for producing that number. That's where government comes in, and is currently failing by trying to force ICE methodology onto EVs. At present that's the EPA, so they get the blame. That task would probably fit better in a consumer agency instead, but whatever agency does it, they need to revamp it so it fits EVs. And produces a reasonable HIGHWAY RANGE number as the official range stat.

 

[dbsb3233]

Um, no they are not. Neither of them are claiming that their test is 'an EPA test'. Both of them are quite clear about it, and about what exactly they are testing, and the are doing it BECAUSE everyone knows that the EPA rated range/efficiency is useless to actual customers.

The only reason they mention EPA is to point out how useless/wrong the EPA rated range is for road trips - which is mostly the only time customers actually need to know what the full range is.

Exactly. And more to the point, they compare real world range to EPA because the EPA range number is the official stat that the vehicle is advertised with. Making it the number that most buyers use to determine whether that model fits their wants and needs, and sets their expectations by. It's not about bashing the EPA, it's about warning people how bad/misleading that headline range number usually is for the overwhelming case that consumers need a range number for (highway distance driving).