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Gravity Cold weather driving range experience (small sample)

Can confirm cold weather and elevation crushed my efficiency today. Had 6 people and dog in car, plus some luggage. Went from about 500 feet to about 3,000 feet with lots of ups and downs in between and got something like 2.2mi/kWh. Temps dropped from 40 to about 35 to 25 for last 50 miles of trip. Speed varied from 55-70. Normally I stay below 70, but for much of the trip, that was the speed limit, so felt I had to be at speed. Normally I stay at 68 when speed limit if 65.

I attached the trip info from energy app. I don’t really understand what’s in “driving” beyond propulsion and why it’s significantly higher than real miles, but you can see elevation crushed me - probably along with temps because it’s overall less efficient in temps. Also, climate control was not on full blast. Just about 70 and fan speed 1-2.

Similar trip in my R1S G1 got about 1.70 mi/kWh.
 

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Ron_Burgundy said:
Can confirm cold weather and elevation crushed my efficiency today. Had 6 people and dog in car, plus some luggage. Went from about 500 feet to about 3,000 feet with lots of ups and downs in between and got something like 2.2mi/kWh. Temps dropped from 40 to about 35 to 25 for last 50 miles of trip. Speed varied from 55-70. Normally I stay below 70, but for much of the trip, that was the speed limit, so felt I had to be at speed. Normally I stay at 68 when speed limit if 65.

I attached the trip info from energy app. I don’t really understand what’s in “driving” beyond propulsion and why it’s significantly higher than real miles, but you can see elevation crushed me - probably along with temps because it’s overall less efficient in temps. Also, climate control was not on full blast. Just about 70 and fan speed 1-2.

Similar trip in my R1S G1 got about 1.70 mi/kWh.
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Sounds like all Gravities are created equal more or less we just need to be all in the same place and time cruising together to confirm :-)
 
@Ron_Burgundy and other owners, any thoughts on this post?

The post seems somewhat related to this thread.
The difference being, this thread seems to suggest preconditioning of the car interior (climate control) before driving.
While the above linked thread seems to suggest preconditioning of the battery (and I think interior) before driving.
 
msaunders9430 said:
@Ron_Burgundy and other owners, any thoughts on this post?

The post seems somewhat related to this thread.
The difference being, this thread seems to suggest preconditioning of the car interior (climate control) before driving.
While the above linked thread seems to suggest preconditioning of the battery (and I think interior) before driving.
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I have never preconditioned the battery prior to a drive after a cold night. Not in any of my EVs. Generally, as the other thread reads, efficiency is crappy when battery is cold. No idea how much it would improve if we preconditioned the battery or if it takes more energy.

The car keeps the battery temp in a range no matter what. I do think it’s odd you can’t precondition battery if plugged in though. That seems like a no brainer.

When I say “precondition” I am usually referring to HVAC before I get in. But, that is a different process with respect to the battery as it just uses the battery (or wall power if plugged in) to heat/cool car - it’s not intentionally trying to heat (or cool) battery to a temp.

It’s interesting to note that preconditioning battery can also mean cooling it in hot weather. In our R1S, you can see battery temp and if you precondition before DC in August, you can see the temp go down. It can actually cool it in winter, too, if it’s too hot from driving already.

So, TLDR, I will try to remember to precondition battery on next cold morning if it’s not plugged in.
 
In my Taycan, I did this in winter. Plugged the car in and scheduled charging to get done around the time I would leave to go on a road trip (my daily is just too short at about 15 miles each way to really notice anything) in the morning, when it was super cold, and found that I got MUCH better range (I'm talking 50+ miles) than just heading out on a cold and fully charged battery. I plan to do the same with the Gravity. We'll see if it makes the same difference.
 
Here’s my latest. 31F to 41F, round trip to NH from Providence RI in Gravity Dream 20/21 inch wheels mostly 70mph with occasional 65 or 75mpg. Climate at 72, fan speed 3, battery not warm to start out. I got 84% of EPA which I think is great for those temps. At 65-70F I’ve gotten 94% EPA on the identical loop. Very happy with Gravity efficiency considering it’s a 7 seater SUV. I think the Escalade IQ is like around 1 mi/kwh hahaha.
IMG_5689.webp
 
9point81 said:
In my Taycan, I did this in winter. Plugged the car in and scheduled charging to get done around the time I would leave to go on a road trip (my daily is just too short at about 15 miles each way to really notice anything) in the morning, when it was super cold, and found that I got MUCH better range (I'm talking 50+ miles) than just heading out on a cold and fully charged battery. I plan to do the same with the Gravity. We'll see if it makes the same difference.
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Thermodynamics! It is all physics!
 
9point81 said:
In my Taycan, I did this in winter. Plugged the car in and scheduled charging to get done around the time I would leave to go on a road trip (my daily is just too short at about 15 miles each way to really notice anything) in the morning, when it was super cold, and found that I got MUCH better range (I'm talking 50+ miles) than just heading out on a cold and fully charged battery. I plan to do the same with the Gravity. We'll see if it makes the same difference.
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Ok.

So, the scheduled home charging provides the heating/cooling (preconditioning) the battery needs for efficient operation, including range efficiency.
Minimizing range loss due to a cold battery seems to be the goal. Goal achieved, in part, through battery temp optimization for proper charging.

I was concerned with protecting battery health in cold temps. My concern is based on the highlighted information from the manual (see image below).
I was wondering if battery conditioning (via the app) was worth trying in an effort to help maintain battery health even for short distance drives.
Honestly, I'm probably overthinking and overreacting because I can't recall the last time -4F or 113F occured in Virginia. :)

Also, the information in the manual seems to be about maintaining battery health (a good SOC) during prolonged periods of no driving, during which there is exposure to cold temps. My Gravity is sheltered from snow/ice, but the space is not heated, so there is exposure to cold temps.

I try to keep the car's SOC between 30% - 80% as recommended in the manual.
Do you think keeping the battery SOC in that range in cold temps is sufficient for maintaining battery health?
Same for extreme heat condition?
Battery preconditioning not necessary?

Screenshot 2025-11-30 at 11.19.43 PM.webp
 
msaunders9430 said:
Ok.

So, the scheduled home charging provides the heating/cooling (preconditioning) the battery needs for efficient operation, including range efficiency.
Minimizing range loss due to a cold battery seems to be the goal. Goal achieved, in part, through battery temp optimization for proper charging.

I was concerned with protecting battery health in cold temps. My concern is based on the highlighted information from the manual (see image below).
I was wondering if battery conditioning (via the app) was worth trying in an effort to help maintain battery health even for short distance drives.
Honestly, I'm probably overthinking and overreacting because I can't recall the last time -4F or 113F occured in Virginia. :)

Also, the information in the manual seems to be about maintaining battery health (a good SOC) during prolonged periods of no driving, during which there is exposure to cold temps. My Gravity is sheltered from snow/ice, but the space is not heated, so there is exposure to cold temps.

I try to keep the car's SOC between 30% - 80% as recommended in the manual.
Do you think keeping the battery SOC in that range in cold temps is sufficient for maintaining battery health?
Same for extreme heat condition?
Battery preconditioning not necessary?

View attachment 34715
Click to expand...
Most of us don't have to worry about temps thst extreme, so it's not really anything to be concerned about. The manual is giving best conservative advice and you can't go wrong following it, but my experience and research I've seen and read with other batteries is that as long as you don't regularly run the car SOC super low or keep it sitting frequently at 100% is that the battery health will be fine for many years. I had VERY little degradation in 5 years with my last EV following those guidelines.
 
Bunnylebowski said:
Here’s my latest. 31F to 41F, round trip to NH from Providence RI in Gravity Dream 20/21 inch wheels mostly 70mph with occasional 65 or 75mpg. Climate at 72, fan speed 3, battery not warm to start out. I got 84% of EPA which I think is great for those temps. At 65-70F I’ve gotten 94% EPA on the identical loop. Very happy with Gravity efficiency considering it’s a 7 seater SUV. I think the Escalade IQ is like around 1 mi/kwh hahaha.
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your Gravity seems to be getting better efficiency than most.

there was another YouTube reviewer recently who had a loaner 5-seater GT (maybe with 22/23"s?), with 4 people inside, driving Indianapolis to Chicago and I think all they could manange was 2.3 kWh/mi. Temps were just around freezing.
 
eelpout said:
your Gravity seems to be getting better efficiency than most.

there was another YouTube reviewer recently who had a loaner 5-seater GT (maybe with 22/23"s?), with 4 people inside, driving Indianapolis to Chicago and I think all they could manange was 2.3 kWh/mi. Temps were just around freezing.
Click to expand...
(tire) Size matters.
 
eelpout said:
yep. :)

we have a new record low though, Kyle C. from Out of Spec did a small towing test of a ~5000 lbs. trailer and got around 1 kWh/mi. ;)
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If my memory's correct, the trailer was 6.000 lbs and he was driving 75 mph or faster. He also said he purposely ignored the efficiency for that ride.
 
I am coming out for whatever the lowest efficiency records are…
 

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A Gravity owner on here posted a month or so ago that he got around 1.5 mi/kwh towing a ski boat. From pics it looked about 20ft, so around 4500 lbs and more aerodynamic than the trailer Kyle was towing.
 
Did a short trip this week, about 100 miles each way. Started out 2.54 mi/kwh and was 2.8 when I got home yesterday. Speed was around 70 average, although there was a lot of stop/start traffic around each destination. Used about a third of the battery each way, nice to be able to do the whole trip without charging and still have plenty left, even with temp in the 30s.

Edit: no preconditioning
 
not sure if this was mentioned elsewhere, but someone on Facebook had their Gravity go in turtle mode after sitting for 4.5 hours at around 0 F. after driving for a while and reparking it was back to normal.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1127961201991302

(need a Facebook account to see it, sorry)
 
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