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2023 EV Range??

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#41 ·
ikerex88 said:
Usually when we take our Prime on the freeway we kick it in HV mode since it’s more efficient at high speeds. We use EV mode almost exclusively around town and get 3.5+ mi/kWh, and usually close to 50 miles per charge.
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I see this thought often on the forums and I'm not sure that I agree with it. EV mode is more efficient in the city that HV. But that does NOT mean that HV is more efficient than EV on the highway (subtle but important logical fallacy to infer that)

In fact EV is substantially the same efficiency across every speed (ignoring very slow corner cases). The efficiency doesn't meaningfully change, but he energy inputs needed do- since you're going faster, and wind resistance increases as an exponential function, battery will drain much faster on the highway (BTW so will the gas tank).

If you run HV on the highway and don't finish your trip with a depleted battery, all this does is push the mi/kWh up, but you've put more energy into the trip than you would have if you ran the battery down. If you're "saving" EV for the city portion of a trip, it makes sense as long as you've fully exhausted the battery.

Back to the topic, IIRC from other posts, @SDGTR charges at work and at home. Commute out is uphill. This sucks the range. On the downhill run home, you won't get near as much back, especially 1) if he launched with a full battery- nowhere to put the energy, and 2) it's all being burned up moving air at high speeds. So the overall range averages low.

Occam's Razor. I really don't think anything is wrong with the car, or 23s in general.
 
#42 ·
chuckles70 said:
I see this thought often on the forums and I'm not sure that I agree with it. EV mode is more efficient in the city that HV. But that does NOT mean that HV is more efficient than EV on the highway (subtle but important logical fallacy to infer that)

In fact EV is substantially the same efficiency across every speed (ignoring very slow corner cases). The efficiency doesn't meaningfully change, but he energy inputs needed do- since you're going faster, and wind resistance increases as an exponential function, battery will drain much faster on the highway (BTW so will the gas tank).

If you run HV on the highway and don't finish your trip with a depleted battery, all this does is push the mi/kWh up, but you've put more energy into the trip than you would have if you ran the battery down. If you're "saving" EV for the city portion of a trip, it makes sense as long as you've fully exhausted the battery.

Back to the topic, IIRC from other posts, @SDGTR charges at work and at home. Commute out is uphill. This sucks the range. On the downhill run home, you won't get near as much back, especially 1) if he launched with a full battery- nowhere to put the energy, and 2) it's all being burned up moving air at high speeds. So the overall range averages low.

Occam's Razor. I really don't think anything is wrong with the car, or 23's in general.
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True true, it’s not more efficent on the highway than EV mode. I misspoke on that for sure. We mainly use HV at high speeds to save the battery for low speed city driving. And you are right, it does push the mi/kWh up by using HV on the highway. Lately, we’ve mostly just been using EV even if driving on the freeway, if we have enough range to complete the trip fully in EV.
However, my estimate of 3.5 mi/kWh is fairly accurate for us using 100% EV mode. Maybe we drive like geriatrics to save battery. I’ve been super impressed with the range now that it’s warmed up some. I love this car….0 complaints from me. I just wish I could drive it more (it’s my wife’s DD).
 
#43 ·
My calculations always end up with driving in EV being less expensive than driving in HV. If my miles/kWh are extremely low then it follows that for the same drive with the same driving conditions my mpg will also be lower if I'm driving in HV.

Either way my fuel costs are still lower than the Forester I traded in which averaged 27mpg.

What I've started doing lately is driving the first 5 or 10 minutes in HV mode to warm up the ICE, then switching to Auto mode so I spend most of the time in EV mode while still having the full 302hp available if needed without having to worry about the ICE not being warm enough to push hard.
 
#45 ·
@ikerex88 says: “I’ve been super impressed with the range now that it’s warmed up some.”

Why is warmup important? What is the physics behind warmup (of the gas engine, I presume)? The resistance to movement of parts of the engine, which produce motion thru the transmission, is less due to higher oil temp after warmup?

Is warmup of the electric motor important to overall EV range?
 
#47 ·
CuriousGary said:
@ikerex88 says: “I’ve been super impressed with the range now that it’s warmed up some.”

Why is warmup important? What is the physics behind warmup (of the gas engine, I presume)? The resistance to movement of parts of the engine, which produce motion thru the transmission, is less due to higher oil temp after warmup?

Is warmup of the electric motor important to overall EV range?
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He is talking about the weather. All EVs do poorly in the bitter cold.
 
#48 ·
I've only had my R4P SE for a couple of weeks, and have only taken it on two in-town trips in 100% EV mode. The longest of these 2 trips was 31 miles. I left with the State of Charge at 90.2%, and arrived with the SOC at 49%. When I got to my destination, the guess-o-meter said I still had 20 miles of range left, implying that I might have made 51 miles on that battery charge.
The total "available" energy in the R4P's traction battery is about 75% of 18.1 kW-hr, or 13.5 kW-hr. The car's EV "economy" display said I averaged 4.5 miles per kW-hr. 13.5 kW-hr times 4.5 miles per kW-hr = 61 miles. That's stretching things. I've heard of Rav4 Primes going that far in EV mode, but the drivers were "hypermiling" the vehicle - driving very slowly, avoiding full stops wherever possible, taking maximum advantage of regen braking, et., and in real world traffic, you usually can't actually drive this way without causing other drivers to flash their lights and honk their horns at you. Or make unhappy hand gestures at you. On flat terrain, in good weather (not too hot or cold), no use of HVAC, driving 30~40 mph on city streets, 45 miles EV range seems do-able, maybe even 50 if you get lucky and hit most intersections on green lights so you don't have to stop very often. Hill climbing and frequent stops are what will kill you, because the car is going to consume vastly more power to climb hills than it will on the flat, and thanks to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, you will never recover more than about 25 to 30% of that energy through re-gen braking on the downhills and at stops. Regen braking is a cool feature of Hybrids, but it can't perform miracles. As good as the Toyota Hybrid Synergy powertrain is, there are simply too many places in the wiring, circuit boards, and the motor/generator stators themselves, where resistance causes some of your regen braking energy to be lost as waste heat, before it ever makes it to the battery. And of course, a considerable amount of energy is lost as heat IN the battery, as those lithium ions are shoved back and forth by the electric currents entering and exiting, which is why it has to be cooled. Like I said, regen braking can only reclaim 30% max.
 
#49 ·
AC running (although it hasn't been that hot) a few dozen stoplights, a short trip on the highway at 100 km/h, and a couple hills. Very normal driving conditions. I get 85 km each and every week in the summer on my commute to work and home. 90 km on the GOM if I turn off the AC.
 
#54 ·
I think the cars coming from Japan are the same, very similar ... however personally I only once managed to go electric for 104km!
With 20 km of motorway at 110 km/h, the rest of the city is flowing!
 
#55 ·
anav_ds said:
Hi 2 Wheeler, what does the available kilometer reading state , after a full charge? Mine started low in the 50s when I got the car in Winter but now its rock steady at 78.
In other words, 85 and 80 seem like that gemstone unobtainable.
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This morning it was 89 km on the GOM (guess-o-metre) without AC.
 
#60 ·
SDGTR said:
There's a 65 pound difference between an SE and an XSE. That's less than a tank of gas. I can't see that small amount of weight causing such a drastic reduction in EV range.
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I think it is a lot more. Especially if you have a PP on XSE. All of the extra sensors. 1500w inverter with a socket, more speakers with JBL system plus separate amp, power passenger seat, Panoramic roof, Hud, foot sensor and all of the associated hardware and wiring will probably add up to way more than 65lbs.
 
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