Range and Charging

[jrreno]

So I’m creating this thread because I have not seen this particular metric discussed or comprehended.
If it has been somewhere the admin can move this and delete the thread.

Lately I have seen discussion claiming that longer ranges are really not necessary for your average driver.
This claim is made with the assumption that most driving is local and that longer drives will just require more charging stops.

When I seek longer range vehicles it is for a very simple reason. The fastest charging is done below 50% SOC.
So with my soon to be replaced ( by Gravity ) Model S I typically will drive 150 - 200 miles to get SOC down to 10% or lower before stopping to charge.
This also works well with my human frailties. It means that my charge session for the next leg will be about 30 minutes.
If the Gravity meets or gets close to it’s range estimates this means I’ll always be charging below 50% SOC on a trip which means charge times of 12-15 minutes, barely enough time for me to get to the restroom and back!
This travel strategy is what Kyle Connor of Out of Spec promotes, that is arrive at the charger with a low SOC and only charge to maybe 80%.
Frequent faster charging stops.

 

[hank-iv]

Not so much metrics, but thoughts around the use case. Most of my driving is long road trips as well (annually to Lido Key for a time share my wife inherited)

In my Model 3, I ignorantly started off driving down to 10% or so and then topping off to above 90%, thinking it would save me stops. Have since modified that, and target the 80% level, although sometimes go over if I think it will get me to one more SC down the road, or if the in-between bail outs are few. But rarely go over 90%, except overnight level 2.

While I do need the bio breaks that charging affords, I do find myself sitting at the SC longer than that. Along the line you are stating, between the longer range to begin with AND the faster charging, should speed drives up quite a bit. I am also hoping the quieter and smoother ride makes longer legs between charging more tolerable.

 

[Ron_Burgundy]

So I’m creating this thread because I have not seen this particular metric discussed or comprehended.
If it has been somewhere the admin can move this and delete the thread.

Lately I have seen discussion claiming that longer ranges are really not necessary for your average driver.
This claim is made with the assumption that most driving is local and that longer drives will just require more charging stops.

When I seek longer range vehicles it is for a very simple reason. The fastest charging is done below 50% SOC.
So with my soon to be replaced ( by Gravity ) Model S I typically will drive 150 - 200 miles to get SOC down to 10% or lower before stopping to charge.
This also works well with my human frailties. It means that my charge session for the next leg will be about 30 minutes.
If the Gravity meets or gets close to it’s range estimates this means I’ll always be charging below 50% SOC on a trip which means charge times of 12-15 minutes, barely enough time for me to get to the restroom and back!
This travel strategy is what Kyle Connor of Out of Spec promotes, that is arrive at the charger with a low SOC and only charge to maybe 80%.
Frequent faster charging stops.

I don’t disagree re: SOC, but see it more as a side benefit to longer range. I think most folks still want the long range for road trips and range anxiety reasons. I am still “young” enough, and my kids old enough, to go 5+ hours without stopping as long as I have the range.

My wife’s been driving an X for years with 330 of max range and still gets concerned if it ever drops below 100. Range anxiety is real - even for folks who have been driving EVs for years.

 

[9point81]

The 385 mile estimate of range totally changes our regular road trips from Alabama to Orlando/Port Canaveral area and to Shreveport especially. We can now reach these areas with one stop to charge (by our estimates as we haven't done these trips yet, not till Nov/Dec) and winter range losses may have to charge twice. Our previous trips in the ev9 with about a 270 mile range in warm weather is just left in the dust now. With the outstanding charging curve and native NACS and getting fast speeds on the SC network just makes this all so easy now. The EV9 while it has SC access, it was limited to about 80kw, so not a good option for us to charge quickly.

 

[bryway]

Thanks for starting this thread!

I just took my Gravity on my first road-trip (San Francisco to Palm Springs) since ditching my Model X Plaid, and the relative efficiency of the Gravity has changed the way I’m going to approach subsequent trips. In the Model X on the same route, I routinely stopped three times to charge — and all three were from a low SoC (10 or 20%) to about 80%. I’d plan these stops around meals and bathroom breaks. Most of the time it all worked out, but added hours to the total trip duration.

Having departed my origin (San Francisco) with a 100% SoC, my Gravity DE really only needed one stop for a deep charge from ~20% to ~80% to get me all the way to Palm Springs ~490 miles door to door. Uncertainty about charging at my destination (my first time using the Lucid 14-50 charging kit at the Palm Springs property) gave me a little trepidation about arriving with a low SoC, so I did stop a second time, briefly, a little closer to my destination to give me peace of mind. That second stop was at a Tesla Supercharger which I wrote about here:

Thread 'First Road Trip in My Gravity Dream Edition'

Wednesday at 7:55 PM

This week, I took my first real road trip in my Gravity -- and damn, this car is a roadtripping beast!

I drive between San Francisco and Palm Springs several times a year, and this was my first time making the trek since taking delivery of my Gravity Dream Edition last month.

On this inaugural trip, I backed out of my garage at my home in San Francisco at a 100 percent SoC, and arrived at my usual first stop (Kettleman City) for food and a restroom break, and still had an SoC in the high 20’s when I hit the Kettleman City offramp. In my Model X Plaid, I’d usually have to stop at a...

• bryway
• Replies: 22
• Forum: Gravity: Photos, Videos, Reviews, Showcase

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… and I now know was unnecessary.

I can now confidently say next time I’m only stopping / charging once (maybe farther down I-5 in Bakersfield instead of Kettleman City) now that I know the full capability of the Gravity. And, understand this is coming from someone whose only previous fast charging experience had been with Tesla vehicles on Tesla’s Supercharger network — I’m blown away by the charging performance of the Gravity at 350kW EA stations. Speed deep into the meaty part of the battery pack I’d never before experienced!

 

[jrreno]

I have experienced charging an EV 6 at an EA. It has an advertised 800v architecture.
We experienced 10% to 80% in 18 minutes.
I’ll also mention that after a year owning our 2014 Model S I no longer had any range anxiety and regularly drove it below 10% on trips. This probably due to the spread of Tesla Superchargers and the fact that as a retiree I rarely HAD to be anyplace on time