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

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TahoeMichael

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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.

www.caranddriver.com

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 www.caranddriver.com
 
I recall the wails of misery and claims of incompetence that accompanied the MPG standards created by the EPA back in the 70's. It is a standard, all companies follow it. You can compare apples, oranges and froot* rollups. It doesn't tell you exactly how good for you each one is. In otherwords you can compare BMW, Lucid and Bob's spare parts ev motors to each other and then multiply by .79 to get real world numbers. The numbers are supposed summarize a set of certain types, and amounts of driving. Every type of driver (long distance rural, stop and start city etc) can extrapolate from these numbers to their actual situation. It is actually more useful than it seems on the surface.

*see what I did there front boot = froot, yeah it is 'too european' but it sounds better.
 
Continuing with the efficiency topic, I've got question to Gravity Touring owners, is it any better than GGT? I'm thinking about swapping my wife model Y with the Gravity, and she does only city driving, so the big battery isn't a necessity. However 1-2 times a year she does a 250miles ride, and in Poland, where we live, highway speed limit is 87mph. Lets say się would average 80mph, is it than possible to make this trip without charging, or taking into consideration above mentioned and tested efficiency - the only way is to get the GGT?
 
drMism said:
Continuing with the efficiency topic, I've got question to Gravity Touring owners, is it any better than GGT? I'm thinking about swapping my wife model Y with the Gravity, and she does only city driving, so the big battery isn't a necessity. However 1-2 times a year she does a 250miles ride, and in Poland, where we live, highway speed limit is 87mph. Lets say się would average 80mph, is it than possible to make this trip without charging, or taking into consideration above mentioned and tested efficiency - the only way is to get the GGT?
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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?
 
All these range discussions, my bladder and my back are my true range limits 😂 nothing better than a stretch after a stretch of road, especially with so many wondrous new charging places to visit 🤣
 
A huge 3 row (two in OoS) SUV EV gets over 350 miles of range and it’s a disappointment…if there were no EPA number to even talk about, nobody would be complaining at all. The EPA is broken AF and still, this is what everyone holds to. This whole damn thing is just so f’ng stupid. The Gravity gets more range in a full charge on highways than most can deal with before needing to stop themselves and charges stupidly fast (for an EV in the US). That’s all we really need to know. F them EPA numbers! 😂
 
TahoeMichael said:
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.

www.caranddriver.com

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 www.caranddriver.com
Click to expand...
Not sure why the media reviews EV’s with the largest tires available? I think this review was based on an iX3 with 22 inch tires, which really hurt range. As someone who wants the most range possible, I would like to see reviews with the tires that offer the most potential range.
 
TahoeMichael said:
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.
Click to expand...
This is actually an excellent result! The EPA range is tested at relatively low speed. And then, automakers are allowed to de-rate their range numbers, so the EPA range becomes a useless number for comparison.

One rubric to think about, is that 70 MPH highway tests get around 85% of accurate EPA range, and 75 MPH highway tests get around 75% of accurate EPA range. C&D got 84% of BMW's published EPA range, which is very strong. And it probably exposes a little sandbagging of the EPA range.

Car & Driver got 310 miles on the Grand Touring and 260 miles on the Touring. Those are 76% and 77% of their stated EPA ranges. That is dead on what I would expect to see, and it probably contrasts BMW's probable EPA sandbagging.
 
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exxxviii said:
This is actually an excellent result! The EPA range is tested at relatively low speed. And then, automakers are allowed to de-rate their range numbers, so the EPA range becomes a useless number for comparison.

One rubric to think about, is that 70 MPH highway tests get around d85% of accurate EPA range, and 75 MPH highway tests get around 75% of accurate EPA range. C&D got 84% of BMW's published EPA range, which is very strong.

Car & Driver got 310 miles on the Grand Touring and 260 miles on the Touring. Those are 76% and 77% of their stated EPA ranges. That is dead on what I would expect to see, and BMW is probably sandbagging EPA range a bit.
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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!
 
BS8899 said:
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!
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I agree. In Lucid's case, not many owners seem to be getting the EPA range even driving under similar conditions to the testing scenario. I'm saying this based on the comments here, Lucidtracker and my own experience. I get that you should take a break from driving after 300 miles and all those arguments, but it's still misleading to advertise these unicorn ranges.
 
One more thing to add to to the above is the Edmunds range tests. Edmunds tries to emulate the EPA protocol, so it should be an "accurate" EPA range. Normally, Edmunds gets higher range than EPA, because automakers are allowed to sandbag de-rate their EPA ranges. I have only seen a tiny number of times that Edmunds came up significantly shorter than a car's stated EPA range.
So, if I treat Edmunds' test as accurate EPA range of 388 miles (versus 407 stated EPA range), then the C&D 75 MPH range of 310 miles is 80% of accurate EPA range. Pretty efficient on the highway.
 
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exxxviii said:
One more thing to add to to the above is the Edmunds range tests. Edmunds tries to emulate the EPA protocol, so it should be an "accurate" EPA range. Normally, Edmunds gets higher range than EPA, because automakers are allowed to sandbag de-rate their EPA ranges. I have only seen a tiny number of times that Edmunds came up short of the car's stated EPA range.
So, if I treat Edmunds' test as accurate EPA range of 388 miles (versus 407 stated EPA range), then the C&D 75 MPH range of 310 miles is 80% of accurate EPA range. Pretty efficient on the highway.
Click to expand...
I have driven my 2022 AGT between Phoenix/Bay Area, I-10/CA-210/I5, 780 miles door-to-door multiple times. (more than 10X). I always drive the speed limit (70-75mph), maybe 2-3mph higher to compensate for the sandbagging. My efficiency rating on these trips is ~3.6mi/kWh. This is pretty good efficiency, but not as good as Lucid's numbers implies. If I drove at the EPA speed (avg of 48 mph), I may indeed get the 512-mile range/4.6+mi/kWh as claimed by Lucid. But that would add another ~3-4 hours to my 11 hour drive!
 
wallyllama said:
*see what I did there front boot = froot, yeah it is 'too european' but it sounds better.
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Oh no. If you sit in the Gravity frunk seat in the UK, are you frooting? 👀

drMism said:
Continuing with the efficiency topic, I've got question to Gravity Touring owners, is it any better than GGT? I'm thinking about swapping my wife model Y with the Gravity, and she does only city driving, so the big battery isn't a necessity. However 1-2 times a year she does a 250miles ride, and in Poland, where we live, highway speed limit is 87mph. Lets say się would average 80mph, is it than possible to make this trip without charging, or taking into consideration above mentioned and tested efficiency - the only way is to get the GGT?
Click to expand...
I have a Touring, and having recently done a long trip with similar speeds in mild weather, yes I think she'd want the GT. Maybe she could make it in a Touring, but she'd be leaving with 100% and pulling in with a single digit %.
 
BS8899 said:
I have driven my 2022 AGT between Phoenix/Bay Area, I-10/CA-210/I5, 780 miles door-to-door multiple times. (more than 10X). I always drive the speed limit (70-75mph), maybe 2-3mph higher to compensate for the sandbagging. My efficiency rating on these trips is ~3.6mi/kWh. This is pretty good efficiency, but not as good as Lucid's numbers implies. If I drove at the EPA speed (avg of 48 mph), I may indeed get the 512-mile range/4.6+mi/kWh as claimed by Lucid. But that would add another ~3-4 hours to my 11 hour drive!
Click to expand...
Yep. And one more little nuance... The average speed of the EPA protocol is not 48 MPH, it is 33 MPH. The average speed of the Highway Cycle is 48 MPH and the Urban Cycle 20 MPH. The two are weighted 45%/55% when calculating EPA range, so average speed swings heavily toward the Urban Cycle results.
  • C&D got 2.5 miles/kWh at 75 MPH
  • Edmunds got 3.2 miles/kWh simulating the EPA protocol at ~20 MPH.
  • Your road trip efficiency crushes both of those, which is very impressive
Edit: I just realized you are citing Air Grand Touring efficiencies... definitely a bit better than a Gravity Grand Touring.
 
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