Electric Vehicle Range Anxiety is Real
 

Ok, yesterday at my part time retirement gig, I went to one of the area hospitals to pick up donated blood from a Mayo Clinic blood drive and transport it to one of the Mayo labs for processing.

While exiting that hospital, I saw this:

https://nastyz28.com/attachments/nis...af-jpg.134066/

A Nissan Leaf. But not a "normal" Nissan Leaf. Notice the rear fender skirts added for aerodynamic improvement of it's range.

When I first saw it, my mind flashed back to when I lived in Germany nearly 50 years ago, and the Citroen:

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...g?format=1000w

I thought the Citroen was ugly then and the regular Nissan Leaf is almost as ugly. But putting those fender skirts on only made it look worse.

And I seriously doubt that they really extend the range enough (or at all) to justify the time and expense to have them fabricated. And they didn't even paint them to match, so they stick out like a sore thumb.

It feels like car makers will go to any length to improved an efficiency number on paper. I can't imagine the extra expense and engineering to have gas powered cars shut off at a stop light to save a gallon per year (guessing and maybe guessing poorly). If I get stuck waiting for a long train to go by, I will turn it off myself.

yes, i hear the absurdity of a gas engine start at residential stop signs. Is a wonder they dont roll thru to keep the engine running!

Some of the Prius models have aluminum wheels but have hubcap to make it more aerodynamic, LOL.
Might same a few lbs on the wheel weight I guess.

My ‘18 Volvo V90 wagon shuts off at stoplights when it’s in “Eco Mode” or “Comfort Mode”. I always thought it to be true that cars use more gas starting back up from being off, than versus just leave it idling within a reasonable amount of time of course. I’m probably wrong since the auto industry has a little more research invested in that than my old wives tales from the’70’s, hahahaha. That being said, I don’t see any significant fuel savings when it’s in Eco Mode, than when I put the car in “Performance Mode” (and it doesn’t shut off at stoplights in Performance). But it NOTICEABLY hauls ass more when it’s in Performance mode.


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The auto shutoff is for reducing emissions as well as for economy. This article helps explain, in city driving with lots of stoplights it can improve your mileage: https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/...save-fuel.html

As for the skirts on the Leaf, the owner must be a hypermiler; they like making modifications to their cars to get as much mileage as they can. It really isn't all that different than people who try to improve the performance of their cars...they have different end goals but both groups do things that may or may not help that much. The enjoyment is in trying things out to see what works.

These start/stop systems have been out long enough that I am seeing ALLOT of battery replacement now in my shop. Especially GM cars with the Ecotech 4-cyl. They use two batteries, a smaller one in the trunk for the power electronics and the larger one under the hood on top of the main computer. (brilliant) They are generally sold in a pair now and that can be required to maintain a warranty as they both fail more or less together every 3-4 years max at around $400-450.00 retail for the battery pair from a reliable brand. So with a regular battery costing $150.00 retail maximum, you have to save another $300.00 in gas before you break even every 3-4 years.

Yes the emissions aspect seems to make more tangible sense than straight fuel savings. Thanks for posting that article.

My first brand new car was an ‘88 Festiva, one of those pregnant roller skates, lol. I was a young man with a career in sales and was after the most economical car I could find. I did a number of tweaks to that thing from maxing out the ignition timing, the tire pressure, to a home made “Ram Air” induction system made with dryer vent hose. Ford (made by Kia, actually) rated it at 46mpg highway but I was getting 52! Damn I wish I tried the fender skirts, haha.


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To some electric car owners its all about the mileage. Same way people on this board want to increase hp or better their 1/4 mile time. A lot of similar techniques are used like increasing efficiency, reducing any parasitic drag, weight reduction, aerodynamics and some very annoying driving styles.

I had a science teacher in grade school who had a Citroen like the one pictured. It was green, and just as ugly as that one.

I've always wondered how those all electric vehicles do in places with very cold winters - I would think battery life would take a pretty decent hit due to subzero cold and (I'm assuming) electric resistance heating for the cabin.

From what I've been told they don't do well in the Yukon, and I imagine Alaska is the same story.

I have a 2012 Chevy Volt. Bought it used with 14000 miles. Great car. Not made anymore. We use it for everything. Yes the miles traveled in the winter goes down because of the electric heater. But I can go for weeks in the winter between getting my 5 gallons of gas..
Average for the life of the car right now is 135 mpg. Normal highway mpg on gas is 41 mpg.

Here is a Tesla story...here in Utah we have near zero temps in winter.
My son lives 180 miles away in SLC and came home for christmas for a few days in his new Tesla.
It consumed about all the charge driving here so we just plugged in to 120v as I don't have a fast charge 240v here. With 120v it will only provide 3 miles in range per charging hour.
After overnite in near zero weather he only had enough charge to go 50 miles so
we took the thing down town to a charging station for another overnight charge
At the medium charge rate available there it will provide 18 miles of range per charge hour however with the cold the battery packs require heated coolant circulation and this alone sucked it down to 28%.
He decided to chance it and took off for home...didn't make it and had to get a room and charge again
Not impressed

I've been asked what gas mileage my Excursion gets. I reply that I don't know, but I've never run out of gas stations.

Range is reduced, but it's something the owners learn to deal with. Older cars used resistance heating, but more and more they're going to heat pumps that are a lot more efficient.

Fortunately there is a simple, easy prescription to cure that anxiety. The ICE!! LOL

Boy, do I miss my Excursion diesel. Selling that was one of the biggest vehicle mistakes I've made. 44 gallon tank and 21 mph at 70-75 mph. Awesome. I still don't know what I was thinking.

Doesn't have to be the Yukon or Alaska.

EV's in MN (except for city dwellers that use them for short commutes) are pretty worthless in most of the state.

Ask them if they run out, will someone come along to rescue them with a 5 gallon can of electricity?

Then there's this concern:

Range anxiety is real. Way worse as recharging is a hassle and can take a long time. I bought a Chevy spark 100% electric. Perfect weapon to have in your quiver for commuting. When new it was 80 miles. Now it’s like 50. So kinda lame as the batteries age. But if you drive a set commute as most do it’s fine. But you need a second car for road trips etc. I gave it to my mother in law. Don’t do any maintenance but tires.

Those savings will be eaten up when your starter goes out from all the extra use, especially in stop & go traffic I deal with.

Looks are the least of their problems.
Wait until they need repairs, and specialist to repair them aren’t common.
I went and looked at the new electric mustang as a friend worked at the Ford dealer.
They still don’t have the equipment or the technicians to repair if you need warranty work.

I have had "Stop/Start" on the last 3 EcoBoost lease vehicles I have driven.
In 9 years, I have never had a Battery Replacement required because I never
drive the vehicles beyond the 3 year lease.

The Battery finally did crap out on my wife's 2013 Ecoboost Escape but after
that many years, I am not complaining.

As far as the aero goes on the vehicles with rear "skirts" I never saw any improvements in the wind tunnel at street car city speeds.

Tom V.

Charge stations.

The starters are designed to handle the additional use, they aren't the starters of old.

According to whom ?
Many of these electrical components are manufactured in China.
Chrysler minivans aren’t even making it to 100k.

My take was the primary reason was to meet ever-increasing Federal CAFE standards. By raising the average, they could sell more SUVs without paying penalties.

https://www.autoweek.com/news/techno...week-explains/

I frequently drive rentals, and some have an off button for this "feature", some have some tricks to perform to disable it, and some you're just stuck with.

I think it’s dumb idea with only short term gains.
Someone mentioned strain on the battery, and you’re putting a lot more wear on the starter and on the flywheel.
Many starters along with many components are made in China, does anyone really think Chinese auto parts are better built ? I don’t.
Just imagine if the starter finally gives out when you’re stuck in traffic with a 100 cars behind you, especially if you’re in the hood of St Louis.

If you got 170 grand you can buy a new Lucid Air, epa rated 520 miles on a charge. :)

Which manufacturer is it... they have a good stop/start strategy of remembering which cylinder is close to TDC and when its time to go - squirt gas in there and fire that plug. No starter required.

Inspired me to read up on it and stop / start technology. Have it in my 2019 F150 and it weirded me out at first. Don't even think about it now. I am always impressed that it instantly refires. Disable button on dash if one wants.

In fairness, most of the start/stop systems do not use a traditional starter. Some, like GM, use essentially a giant starter/generator. We would refer to it as a giant alternator. When called on to start, it becomes a starter and turns the engine through a very large and extra strong serpentine belt. Another common system is to have a motor winding built into the flywheel area, IE Toyota, and this energizes and spins the crankshaft to start. These parts of the system have been pretty robust but very expensive if service is actually needed. The big advantage is no grinding of starter teeth during the thousands and thousands of starts at every stoplight. Tough on batteries though. The small power electronics battery in a Prius is a three year item if your real lucky. The big batteries have been very long lived.

TFL truck just tested the Rivian R1T on the IKE Gauntlet mountain towing test.
Had to re-charge for sure.
Without a "whole" lot of KWH battery storage, towing with trucks on anything but level ground will be a nerve wracking drive.

Came here to say this.

K

I’m not familiar with the Toyota’s as I don’t own one but our company has Chrysler minivan and it’s not smooth when it restarts; in anything it seems slow to restart and sounded like a starter.
I’d agree the Toyota might be robust but I wouldnt bet on the Chrysler; seems the repair cost will eat the fuel saving easily and then some when the time comes.
I just don’t like a vehicle that shuts down in traffic only to restart 2 seconds later.


LCID & RIVN are down now good time to buy into them but as far as towing I wouldn’t want a RIVN to go venture out in remote spots especially where a plug in isn’t around.
Ford is building a new plant for electric trucks but they might be putting themselves in a dangerous financial hole.

Yeah. I was just going with what I know to be the extreme. Where I live now, Which is the north end of Vancouver Island, they are also pretty much useless except for around town.

EVs are pretty common in Minneapolis. I don't know how far people are driving in them, but I was out and about today and saw all kinds of them on the freeway in subzero temps.

EVs have been out for quite a few years now.
GM was one of the first to sell one.

My next door neighbor has a solar grid system on his roof that charges his vehicle when it is parked at his house.
Makes the Ranch house look really high tech.

The guy who installed the solar grid owns a Ford Electric vehicle.

Tom V.

"I’m not familiar with the Toyota’s as I don’t own one but our company has Chrysler minivan and it’s not smooth when it restarts; in anything it seems slow to restart and sounded like a starter.
I’d agree the Toyota might be robust but I wouldnt bet on the Chrysler; seems the repair cost will eat the fuel saving easily and then some when the time comes.
I just don’t like a vehicle that shuts down in traffic only to restart 2 seconds later."

I looked up some info on the Chrysler mini-van system 2020 and newer. You are mostly correct in your assessment of what it has going on under the hood. It uses a larger, more powerful, gear reduction starter and conventional ring gear on the flexplate. What is different it it has a clutch within the starter drive. When the engine stops, the starter drive engages but does not crank. When you release the brake pedal and the engine gets the start command, the piston near TDC get a squirt of fuel and a spark, and should start without needing the starter and the drive will retract. But what if none of the pistons have enough compression to light the fuel, which is possible? Then the starter will crank and help turn the engine to the next cylinder in the firing order and start the engine and so forth. I can see this being noisier and possibly a little jerky sometimes. Leave it to Chrysler. Fortunately, there is a button to disable the entire start/stop system at any time. But each time you drive the vehicle you have to disable it. It is a normally "on" switch. I am not advocating these systems as being good or bad. They are out there and if we want to own new vehicles or work on them as in my case, we have to understand and put up with them. If gas prices go through the roof, there may be a meaningful savings. I have no idea.

Yep, gotta get rid of the global warming we’re having outside today!

I think the auto stop-start "feature" was the answer to a question that no consumer would ask.

After reading this thread, I've come to the conclusion: Just like a golf cart, huh?

I've owned several, and got to be known as the golf cart guy in the neighborhood. So I work on several different makes. But guess how they work. You press on the accelerator and the engine starts and the vehicle goes, take your foot off the accelerator and the engine shuts off and the vehicle stops.

Starter/generator technology with CVT (that's a giant rubber band that propels them at different speeds) makes a very simple vehicle that operates the same as an electric starter/generator, but runs on gas, unless you have a battery golf cart.

Personal preference, but I'd rather not drive a golf cart in traffic in case the starter/gen brushes decide not work some time.

My :2cents:,
Ogre

To me it’s just 1 more expensive thing to go wrong that’ll easily offset the fuel savings especially since its a late model Chrysler.
Seems newer vehicles are more troublesome and expensive to repair because they’re overly complex.
We had several Ford 300s in vans and service trucks in the 90s that surpassed 300 and even 400,000 miles without major issues.
The Dodge Sprinters (Mercedes ones) that replaced them fell apart by 200,000 and they all had a stack of repair bills.

I know that there was a two battery system back in the early days of GM start/stop technology, but I think that went away in 2016 or thereabouts.

I first drove a start/stop vehicle in 2013. I currently own a 2019 Equinox that uses a 48 AGM battery. My 2021 Cadillac CT4 also uses a 48 AGM battery.

Many people don't realize that you can't charge an AGM battery with a conventional battery charger, so that may be the cause of the premature failure.

Retail pricing of a 48AGM is under $200.00.

Many people don't realize that you can't charge an AGM battery with a conventional battery charger, so that may be the cause of the premature failure.

I was not aware of that so I can understand why others might do like I would and cause a premature failure. Thanks for that info Champ

Tom V.

Up until recently I had a Bimmer with their exquisite inline 6. Silky smooth liquid power. But the start-stop feature was not seamless. I felt it to be intrusive sometimes, so I would just hit the overide on startup. Other times, just tooling around, I didn't mind it.

As far as these electric vehicles, the propulsion systems are pretty robust technology, but the next multi-billionaire will be the person that wins the battery race. For now, I'm wondering how much battery power is used just to transport a battery pack of up to 1,200 pounds around with you.

This is a good example of what electric cars are good for as far as I'm concerned..