Give up charging during winter?

6 degrees here, i'm charging up and plan to make a 9 mile round trip on ev and no heat.

 

Sing a lot, it'll distract you from the pain.

 

Back to the previous subject on mpge ratings...
I didn't realize the EPA actually factors in charging efficiency into their mpge ratings.
I'm not sure on usable capacity of each of these cars but for comparison it's interesting to compare to the Tesla lineup and other plug ins.
Assuming this is the capacity needed on board to facilitate a reliable battery.
1. Model S: 60kW; 210mi; 0.2857kW/mi
2. Model 3: 50kW; 220mi; 0.2272kW/mi
3. Model X: 75kW; 237mi; 0.3165kW/mi
4. PiP........: 4.4kW; 11mi; 0.4kW/mi
5. Volt.......: 16kW; 35mi; 0.45714kW/mi
6. Prime....: 8.8kW; 25mi; 0.352kW/mi
Tesla sure does have the hybrid drivetrain/battery design down for efficiency. o.o
Now the volt (via EPA testing) had a usable capacity of 10.3kW.
Ballsy assumption but I'll assume the PiP had around the same usable capacity % at the time of 2.8325kW. Now if you have a charging efficiency of 84% on a full charge with a level 1 charger below 54F per EPA testing done on the Volt (not gonna assume people are going to install a level 2 charger in their home for such a tiny battery) that reads as "I'll need 3.3720kW to charge my car up every night."
So if we are using 2.8325kW to travel 11 mi (margin of error is pretty high here with such imprecise numbers given and broads assumptions) we have a 0.2575kW/mi transmitted to the road which works out to about 130.87mpg for the drivetrain system but thats not realistic so we convert up to power in power out value (like everything else in the world) and use the 3.3720kW value you get 122.98mpge (oh one mpge = 33.7kW in EPA test).
Looks like the EPA actually charges the car with level 1 and 2 chargers and does real world testing with the charging efficiency factored in and using accessories that are required in some of their test which consume a lot of your relatively small battery to get their values.
So this value is incorrect because it doesn't take into account your accessory usage, but if you could drive with absolutely nothing on but the car in drive...
Likely Toyota didn't design their accessories very efficiently and it screwed them over in real world EPA testing.
@ $.12/kW = $0.03679/mi off of my 122.98mpge
@ $.12/kW = $0.04493/mi off of EPA 90mpge
Gas $2.12/50mpg= .04258/mi
Max effort if you really try you can get anywhere 86.4%-105.5% the cost of hybrid mode to travel.
So it looks like with no accessories you could get about 15mi range before factoring in hyper miling. My recommendations: try not to use any accessories besides keeping the windshield defogged and dress warm. You could buy a level 2 charger to increase charging efficiency up to 87.3% which would drop cost down to a possible 83.13%
Makes me realize the new ecomodding could heavily depend on reducing the car's accessory usage on top of the standard treatment.
If you got really crazy with it, there is a guy on Ecomodder who successfully measured his drag coefficient to be .19cd with a makeshift boat tail on a gen 3 prius hybrid out of coroplast and a host of other things and at 70mph displayed 61mpg or 57.95mpg at the pump. So he went from 46mpg highway to 57.95mpg while also looking like a goof ball. It would be interesting for traveling. Imagine strapping on a boat via hitch carrier that also had storage for long distance highway travels.
But that could get you to 19 miles of range. dropping your cost even further to $0.0213/mi

 

Be careful with units. kW is a unit of power. Saying a Tesla battery capacity is 60 kW is like saying a battery is 60 hp. It makes no sense. The unit you want is kWh.

You can’t ignore useable capacity. EPA already lists the efficiency of each car. A Model S60 gets 95 mpge using 35 kWh per 100 miles for an efficiency of 0.350 kWh per mile. The Prime gets 133 mpge using 25 kWh per 100 miles or 0.250 kWh per mile. And the Volt is at 0.310 kWh per mile. It’s unlikely a 4000 plus pound Tesla behemoth will be more efficient than the Prime or Volt.

 

Is there going to be a test on this?

 

Dropped an h whoops. Mechanical not electrical here but I dabble. Not sure what more I can give you. I just stated Teslas can get way more range per kWh of onboard battery versus everyone else (there is about a dozen different types of li-ion batteries used so its no so simple as to say they use the same battery tech... they may or may not). So seems like they've made a breakthrough in usable capacity on top of destroying everyone else in aerodynamics. Also I did the usable capacity calc so re-read. All my calc numbers were with what the EPA found the usable capacity to be on a volt around the same year and making the same assumption for the Prius which from what I've read people agree with. It takes about 3kWh to charge the usable capacity of the battery which doesn't disagree nor necessarily confirm with accuracy. Also its likely the "4000lb" behemoth is more efficient because the numbers are released and don't lie. Also not sure which beheamoth you speak of because the model S weighs 5000 pounds so I assume the X weighs more.
The EPA uses AC and all sorts of bs which I didn't calc in. They have mandatory standards in their test that I didn't calc for as stated in my best case scenario calc.
EPA Test certified ratings (manufacturers over rate... so EPA is supposed to release fair numbers for even comparison)
Pip:95 mpg
S: 104 mpg (90D aka 90kWh Awd model)
3: 126 mpg
X: 93 mpg

 

If OP would use one of these and his odometer the problem would solve itself
Only 18-40$ to have your answer...

 

Where to purchase one?

 

Maybe it's just me, but I have a hard time picturing you:



breezing into a store, producing a credit card.

 

Do you See me now LOL!!

 

Heck, forget the credit card. Just take it and go.

 

It will be -23 actual degrees here in the morning. -23 !!! That is nuts. With wind chill it could be -40.

 

I agree with you. Same here in WI. Sucks that we lose a few months, but still way ahead overall.

 

I carefully reviewed the math and contend that there is no miscalculation here.
The 33.7KWh/gal number is irrelevant. The question is how much I would pay to go the same distance.

Right now (with temperatures hovering in the single digits, heaters and snow tires on, etc.) I am going about 22 miles per charge.
The meter on my charging station says I am using 6.3KWh to fully charge the car. I don't know why you insist I must factor in heat losses, the simple fact is the electric company charged me $0.75 to charge the car and I went 22 miles.
Since one gallon of gas is currently getting me only about 50 miles in these conditions, I need 0.44 gallons of gas to go the same distance (22 miles) I can go with the $0.75 I paid the electric company...With gas at $2.40/gal around here, it would cost me $1.06...
Even with these winter conditions, I am paying about 30% less to use electricity.

In the summer I was getting closer to 32 miles on the same $0.75/charge. But I also got a little over 65 mpg on the same gallon of gas.
Working through it, I needed a half gallon of gas to equal the distance of a single charge so I was paying $1.20 for gas vs. $0.75 for electricity to go those 32 miles.

In case anyone is interested, here's the meter I'm using to monitor actual energy used to charge. Haven't had it for very long (Xmas present to myself) but so far I really like it.
DROK Digital AC Multimeter Voltmeter Ammeter 80-300V 0-100A Watt Power Energy Meter
View attachment 141810

 

I’m sadly getting 20-21 EV miles here by me as the temps are sticking around -5 to 1 degrees.

 

Why is that sad?

There are some plug-in vehicles that aren't as efficient in the extreme cold.

 

Sad because I live in a cold state unfortunately and we’re the ones taking the beating. Tesla’s take a beating too though.

 

Well, when temperature hit sub zero, even though my PRIME is fully charged and showing 20-24 miles EV range, the car refuse to go into EV. I tried it with heat on and heat off, either way I was not able to make the car to stop ICE and drive EV for my 18 miles commute.

 

Same here. In fact this whole week I haven’t been able to use EV for the most part. Not liking this.

 

Some get so fixated on extremes, they forget to step back to consider the bigger picture... still getting outstanding efficiency.

Who cares if winter varies so much from summer. I don't. Here's why:

6°F is the coldest temperature many Prius Prime owners will ever encounter, so this particular commute home provided a great opportunity to capture & share.

Being below the 14°F threshold for the electric heat-pump meant the gas-engine would need to cycle to provide warmth inside. Electric-Only driving would still be available, but from time to time rather than continuously.

No plug was used. That meant the battery-warmer could not be taken advantage and a recharge would not occur. The car just sat there in the cold all day while I was busy at work.

18.5 miles of driving through traffic dealing with fresh fallen snow resulted in an overall average of 64 MPG. That's quite remarkable for what was basically treated as an ordinary winter commute here in Minnesota.