Poll, do you use Google Maps to get max EV range?

i just used that bike route program for my commute elevation. pretty cool, it doesn't give directions but let's you plot route on map and gives miles and elevation by profile or excel. turns out i have a 70' drop to work and a 'hill' consisting of a 200' climb over 2 miles at 40 mph.

 

it's definitely not easy. as i said, a computer program would help. fortunately for me, elevation changes around here are so minor, i would probably only lose or gain a mile or two. and on a round trip, you lose more than you gain back.

 

It would actually be a lot easier than you think. Toyota (or Google or whomever) just needs a good dataset on elevation gain for each road segment. After that, you can just build in some kind of cost / penalty for each segment based on elevation gain.

 

If you have the time and the money (roughly $1,500) you can do this project yourself this summer in your spare time.
ArcGIS Network Analyst | Overview

 

Can do it all for free.. google map API has all the info you need to do it. Can makes calls (in javascript0 for things like elevation on path (google.maps.PathElevationRequest)
and rroute/direction finding (DirectionsService) with various preferences (as well as all the plotting you might need).
see Google Maps Javascript API V3 Reference - Google Maps JavaScript API v3 — Google Developers

 

Just browsed through that page - it seems like it's a great way to quickly pull elevation data for specific road segments, but I don't see a way that you can revise a trip output from Google based on the cost (in lost MPGs, or extra fuel used) to climb a specific grade. Did I overlook it?

I've been interested in this for a long time, have access to decent desktop network analysis software, and have a load of free time this weekend. I may build a proof-of-concept model and present my findings in a new thread. stay tuned.

 

sorry p/k, didn't mean to derail your thread!

 

No its not built it.. I was just pointing out one can get free tools from which to build it.

 

Wanted to provide a quick update on my quote (above). Spent some time messing around with a simple model and basically gave up. Not because it was impossible - it would be easy to implement with the right dataset - but because building reliable data was way too complicated.

Networking models like Google Maps work by assigning a "cost" to every road segment in the network, then trying to find the lowest cost route between your start and end points. Cost can be anything - time, money, distance, number of car washes on a given road, etc.

At the end of the day, we all want to drive a route that balances the time of travel with the cost of fuel. Right now, Google Maps do this by making the simple assumption that the amount of fuel used is proportional to the distance traveled. In reality it's more complicated than that, and probably differs based on the kind of car you drive.

The next big step in the industry will be to have on-board trip planners that draw info from your vehicle much the same way a scangauge does, and figuring out routes that are most efficient when considering elevation changes, number of traffic lights, traffic congestion, etc.

Given enough time an amateur like myself could do something like this, but a big time player like Google or Garmin or Toyota will be able to do it much better much faster. Might as well let them handle it.

-Cheers