PiP pure-electric range ?

A five-seat car that will allow you to to 24 km on pure electric and will also allow you to do long vacation drives on gasoline does not exist.

So you either stick with a conventional car that uses gas all the time, or you settle for four seats, or you get a Leaf for your commute and use a different car for long drives, or you settle for the PiP which WILL burn gas on your commute, but much less than a conventional gas car.

What you want does not exist, so you must decide which compromise you want to make:

All gas in a conventional car.
A small amount of gas in a PiP.
Only four seats with a Volt.
All-electric Leaf that does not make long trips.

I like the fourth option best, especially if you're going to have a gas car (maybe Prius) in the family anyway.

 

Dan,

Best way to get to work and back on EV is to get a Charge at work.

I'm installing an outside 120vac 15-20 amp weather-proof outlet at the building I work at. The owner of the building doesn't care, as long as it doesn't cost him. AND I'm going to pay him the added cost for my kwh used. He's 100% OK.

So ask and the building owner may allow it.

 

Thanks, I'll wait to hear from you how it works once you receive it. My PiP won't be here for another month at least, I have time...

 

If you want the best, get OBDLink MX. 62 PIDs per second and very tiny!

 

Not sure I'm "$245-serious" about collecting data

Is that the one you have? With the (much) cheaper ones, how many PIDs per second would they be capable of?

 

I am with you, that's ten times the price. How much better can it be?

How about the mid range priced units such as the $86 PLX?

 

I have the PLX Kiwi bluetooth. It does about 20 PIDs per second. I believe the ebay clones are said to get about 13 PIDs per sec.

 

My Vscan is getting 12-20 PID/sec (depending on how many fields and such) by my normal setup and logging is only 10 so that is fine with me. Only time I find the speed and issue is when I'm scanning looking for PIDs. Really how many things do I want on my screen updating faster than a second or so. how much do I really want in log files?

 

Agree !!!

 

Here's my latest results from a pure electric commute.
1) I'm 12.1 miles from my driveway to the plug at work.
2) 1/3 of the commute is 25mph and 35mph residential/feeder side streets
3) 2/3 of the commute is a 50mph expressway.
4) traffic was light

Today I made the trip entirely on electric with 2.8 miles of EV range to spare.
Yesterday I made it with about .1 mile to spare and the day before the ICE
kicked on for the last 1/2 mile.

The big differences are I set my timer to complete charging about an hour before
I left for work. I think this helped a lot because the ambient temperature was more
like 50deg instead of 40 or 45.

The other difference is based on some recommendations I used a modified pump and
glide technique. What I did was accelerate up to speed at the max of the EV only part
of the power bar and then back off and glide with the bar providing just a tad of power
(i.e. just a sliver on the right side of the regen line)

climate control was off but vents were on.

Anyway, that seemed to help range a great deal.

 

Tom, do you mean the fan was on? but it was not on Auto? If your fan was on, what was the temperature setting? on "low"?

 

In other words, with a little care, it is posible to attain 15 Emiles or even more....

 

that's a beautiful thing!

 

So it sounds like a Pip will 'glide' in EV mode. And it helps efficiency.
It'll be really interesting to see what how EV ranges increase when spring and summer temps get here.
I think we'll all be impressed.

 

I cannot see why this is true, other than perhaps an average lower speed. That, however, is cheating

 

Tom,

Thank you very much for your post. I have not yet read a more complete evaluation of the new PiP in EV mode (you seem to have thought of most everything).

This is most encouraging news of the car's performance. I am very much looking forward to doing similar drives on my commute.

Keep up the good work!

(...and please keep us updated on other things you note).

 

I'm really bummed they didn't integrate the lock for us... Luckily my company has a charging station (their plug) so I can leave mine at home.

Are you planning to secure the plug somehow to prevent theft?

 

I highly suspect experienced drivers will be able to get more than the advertised range on EV mode. For example, the EPA says the Leaf has 73 miles of range. Many drivers have managed to do a lot more than that. I think some have had over 120 miles on a charge. I've never personally driven my Leaf more than about 65 miles, so I can't really attest to that.

But I bet if you drive the PiP on city streets with a low speed limit, such as 30 to 40 mph, and be very gentle on the throttle, I bet you can exceed the advertised range.

 

Yes, the EPA EV estimates are more easily surpassed than the gasoline mpg estimates. Most electric vehicles (roadster, LEAF, probably Volt) seem to find their ideal efficiency down around 15 mph.

 

From Tesla Roadster blog:
Roadster Efficiency and Range | Blog | Tesla Motors

Very informative reading.