"Why do EV's need to accelerate like "supercars", with only a 300 mile range, when 50% of that power would double their range ?

[Ez2cDave]

Answer THIS question :

"Why do EV's need to accelerate like "supercars", while having only a 300 mile +/- range, when having only 50% of that power would DOUBLE their driving range ?"

 

[Art Upton]

It was answered already

 

[KennB]

You may have noticed, some people like to drive faster than the recommended or legal speeds. Car reviews generally include a time to get from 0 to 60 mph. When used properly (nobody is forcing them to go into supercar mode), a good burst of acceleration is safe and useful. My present vehicle, non-EV, can give me great fuel mileage for its style but it takes a lot longer to get up to speed entering a highway than my recent car; it can be a little nerve wracking sometimes.

 

[Art Upton]

You may have noticed, some people like to drive faster than the recommended or legal speeds. Car reviews generally include a time to get from 0 to 60 mph. When used properly (nobody is forcing them to go into supercar mode), a good burst of acceleration is safe and useful. My present vehicle, non-EV, can give me great fuel mileage for its style but it takes a lot longer to get up to speed entering a highway than my recent car; it can be a little nerve wracking sometimes.

Yea, my 5.3L Silverado with a "small" trailer getting on a free way was "I think I can"

My Tundra get just burst and do it; but those days are slowing down for me now.

Anyway Dave seemed to move the end of one thread into a new one when the answers were answered

 

[Steven]

As a car enthusiast, I love power, speed and style. Muscle cars and sports cars have been a primary joy in my life. They're not just a boring means of transportation but become an actual experience like a rollercoaster ride. As far as MPG is concerned, I'm not. Though I don't ever see myself going EV, I enjoy a healthy exhaust note which enhances the joy of ownership for myself.

 

[jqavins]

Answer THIS question :

"Why do EV's need to accelerate like "supercars", while having only a 300 mile +/- range, when having only 50% of that power would DOUBLE their driving range ?"

It's not using that much power most of the time. Limiting the peak power use would do very little to alter the average power use. Furthermore, if the driver doesn't use the supercar acceleration, then that extreme power use never happens, and making it impossible would have no effect at all.

 

[cerving]

It would be trivially easy to "dial in" the acceleration curve... if you want 0-60 in 3 seconds, fine, if you want "normal" acceleration then 0-60 in 8 seconds would be more than adequate. Most ICE cars already have an "Eco" mode that short-shifts, and some vehicles (like my Tacoma) have a setting that long-shifts to maximize torque at the expense of gas mileage (like when you're pulling a trailer).

 

[Cape Byron]

"Why do motorcycles need to be able to have their front wheel in the air all the way through a change into third?" said no-one ever.

Need ≠ Want.

End of discussion, methinks.

As ever, YMMV. (<= See? A vehicle economy joke! Smashing out the morning humour here!)

 

[Funkworks]

The high initial torque is probably my favorite thing about EVs (and then silence makes it feel magical). But to answer the question, I'd say there's no point in waiting to reach the speed limit. You just want to get there safely ASAP. Having a wide range of accelerations just gives more options to the driver. Slowly if others cars are around, quickly if you're alone or want to please a tailgater in back.

Let's make it clear that you don't have to use full torque each time, You can save energy for range if you want to instead. But most people don't do 100 miles in a day and charge at home, so there's no point in saving for range.

 

[tsmith1315]

“No, it will never have enough power until I can spin the wheels at the end
of the straightaway in high gear. Too much power is never enough....”

Mark Donohue

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

I don’t think I agree with the premise of the question. You can’t double the range of an electric car from a maximum of 300 miles up to 600 miles by driving it more gently, can you? If you could, then you would see plenty of cars advertised as having a 600-mile range.

Most cars have a variety of different driving modes anyway. It’s just a switch in the algorithm that puts a car in more sport or more efficient modes, not a hardware change, and often you can get the same affect by just changing how you work the accelerator. So if you could really double the range by driving at half power, I’d expect to see a “Range Doubler” mode.

 

[jderimig]

Let's make it clear that you don't have to use full torque each time, You can save energy for range if you want to instead. But most people don't do 100 miles in a day and charge at home, so there's no point in saving for range.

If you neglect dissipating losses, no more energy is used in a fast acceleration to a fixed speed than a slow acceleration. The work and energy used is the same at 1/2mV^2 where V is the speed you are accelerating to. With an EV there will be some I^2R losses in the power supply, wiring and motor windings and some losses due to heat generation in the tires but this is probably small compared to the first order energy required.

The "supercar" acceleration is free or is paid for in the component costs to provide the current capacity of the motive electrical system. The cost is not range.

 

[Peartree]

In the early 90s I had a midnight blue Thunderbird turbo coupe. It had a 4 cylinder engine and, despite its mid-sized car appearance, generally got something close to economy car gas mileage. I could get nearly 500 highway miles on a tank of gas.

But near the bottom of the gas pedal swing was a slight detent where the turbo-charger would kick in. A fraction of a second later, that car behaved as if it had an eight cylinder engine. I'm sure that, for ten or twenty seconds, it lost much of its efficiency but doggone it I never had trouble merging onto the freeway in heavy traffic. I could accelerate from 40 to 80 in just a few seconds (and it cornered like it was on rails).

If you can't tell, I loved that car. And I never once noticed, or worried, that good acceleration took anything away from my excellent fuel economy.

 

[Art Upton]

It would be trivially easy to "dial in" the acceleration curve... if you want 0-60 in 3 seconds, fine, if you want "normal" acceleration then 0-60 in 8 seconds would be more than adequate. Most ICE cars already have an "Eco" mode that short-shifts, and some vehicles (like my Tacoma) have a setting that long-shifts to maximize torque at the expense of gas mileage (like when you're pulling a trailer).

The HAUL button

 

[jderimig]

I was given a new Volvo loaner last week by the dealer when servicing my car. It was an brand new XC90, 2L 4cyl with mild hybrid (motor/generator on the crank), turbo and electric surpercharger. From a stop the electric motor would get the car rolling and the electric supercharger would run while turbo was spinning up. Felt like the big block V8's of my youth. Cool as hell? Yes. Impressive engineering and tech? Hell Yes. Would I want to own and maintain that car long term? No.

 

[cerving]

Why can't we just use all that alien technology that we've acquired since the 1920's to solve these problems?

 

[jderimig]

Why can't we just use all that alien technology that we've acquired since the 1920's to solve these problems?

Musk is an alien. He is smartly just rationing out the tech to not blow his cover.

 

[cerving]

Well, suddenly his recent behavior all makes sense... he's just like John Lithgow in "3rd Rock from the Sun".

 

[techrat]

Why can't we just use all that alien technology that we've acquired since the 1920's to solve these problems?

I wonder about that too, as it seems we could have gotten out of the oil crisis we're in with all that alien tech, and be driving fusion powered cars that run off an isotope of element 115. God may love the United States, but for some reason, God gave all the oil to the Arabs.

 

[rharshberger]

The HAUL button

Usually called TOW mode, at least on all the pickups I have seen.

 

[cerving]

Usually called TOW mode, at least on all the pickups I have seen.

Not on the Tacoma, they call it "ECT" for "Electronically Controlled Transmission". It's not like the transmissions aren't all electronically controlled nowadays... seems a bit odd.

 

[Art Upton]

Usually called TOW mode, at least on all the pickups I have seen.

Yes on my Chevy it said Tow. On the TACOS and Tundras the button Says HAUL and their are YouTubes demonstrating the Haul A$$ button while not pulling anything. In my Tundra it also takes out all the Nannies that they build in.

I would see no advantage to a hi Performance tune as it already built in that button, out of warrantee I had to put a aftermarket tune in the Silverado to get the Nannies shut off.

 

[Art Upton]

Not on the Tacoma, they call it "ECT" for "Electronically Controlled Transmission". It's not like the transmissions aren't all electronically controlled nowadays... seems a bit odd.

Yes some Tacos have ECT and others had Haul, I forget which years are which. They do more then gearing, they change the throttle response curves and the VVT comes up on the CAM sooner.

 

[Ez2cDave]

In the early 90s I had a midnight blue Thunderbird turbo coupe. It had a 4 cylinder engine and, despite its mid-sized car appearance, generally got something close to economy car gas mileage. I could get nearly 500 highway miles on a tank of gas.

But near the bottom of the gas pedal swing was a slight detent where the turbo-charger would kick in. A fraction of a second later, that car behaved as if it had an eight cylinder engine. I'm sure that, for ten or twenty seconds, it lost much of its efficiency but doggone it I never had trouble merging onto the freeway in heavy traffic. I could accelerate from 40 to 80 in just a few seconds (and it cornered like it was on rails).

If you can't tell, I loved that car. And I never once noticed, or worried, that good acceleration took anything away from my excellent fuel economy.

Your experience would have been different, if the car were supercharged ( belt-driven ) vs. turbocharged ( exhaust-driven ). With a belt-driven blower, the "Boost" is there, all the time ( engine RPM increases, Boost increases ), unlike a Turbocharger, which only builds Boost pressure when the exhaust flow volume is sufficiently high to drive the Turbocharger. Impeller. Turbochargers are much more fuel efficient, for the reasons previously cited. ( not providing Boost continuously ). Most "factory" Turbocharger system provide 5-7 psi of Boost ( a 33% - 47% increase in engine HP ) . . . Approximately 15 psi (14.7 psi ) doubles engine HP, while under Boost.

 

[bjphoenix]

It's not using that much power most of the time. Limiting the peak power use would do very little to alter the average power use.

Something like the Tesla is fast, really fast. If you made the Tesla to be only as fast as a Camry I'm guessing it would have a smaller motor. Wouldn't a smaller motor be more efficient? I don't know the answer to the question.

 

[Tom Flint]

Something like the Tesla is fast, really fast. If you made the Tesla to be only as fast as a Camry I'm guessing it would have a smaller motor. Wouldn't a smaller motor be more efficient? I don't know the answer to the question.

I don't think a smaller motor would necessarily be more efficient, but I do think it would be cheaper to build, because it could have less copper wire for windings and smaller rare-earth magnets in it, and would likely require a smaller and less expensive motor controller. This is one reason why I think building EVs with less performance would be a good idea. One of the problems with EV adoption is the lack of affordable EVs compared to gasoline powered vehicles, and this will not change as long as manufacturers treat EVs as an expensive niche product filled with unnecessary tech like self driving features and supercar like performance.

 

[teepot]

We have a 2021 Explorer ST. Twin turbo. 400hp. 416flbs torque. 4 wheel drive. It has different driving modes to. Eco, normal, tow/haul. And my favorite, Sport. It is a rocket. Faster than my 300hp Mustang GT. Quicker too. We think it's the best car we have ever owned. Oh, And it sounds great. Down shift growl. Snarl at launch.

 

[Cape Byron]

Snarl at launch.

Sounds like Billy Idol...

 

[techrat]

I don't think a smaller motor would necessarily be more efficient, but I do think it would be cheaper to build, because it could have less copper wire for windings and smaller rare-earth magnets in it, and would likely require a smaller and less expensive motor controller.

And then when you have to go uphill in the car or merge onto a busy highway, the car feels gutless and you feel that the vehicle is worthless. Electric cars in the 1970's during the gas crisis were given a bad rap because they used DC motors which didn't have the necessary oomph to drive the vehicle with any real range or speed. It's not unitl GM developed the "impact" (which was a terrible name for a car) that electric vehicles started to come into their own.

When Musk developed the Tesla, performance was definitely a selling point -- if the Tesla wasn't a brilliant vehicle from bumper to bumper it would have never sold in the numbers that it did, and electric vehicles as an entire market segment would have been deemed a failure.

 

[Tom Flint]

And then when you have to go uphill in the car or merge onto a busy highway, the car feels gutless and you feel that the vehicle is worthless. Electric cars in the 1970's during the gas crisis were given a bad rap because they used DC motors which didn't have the necessary oomph to drive the vehicle with any real range or speed. It's not unitl GM developed the "impact" (which was a terrible name for a car) that electric vehicles started to come into their own.

When Musk developed the Tesla, performance was definitely a selling point -- if the Tesla wasn't a brilliant vehicle from bumper to bumper it would have never sold in the numbers that it did, and electric vehicles as an entire market segment would have been deemed a failure.

I think there is some middle ground here, between supercar-like acceleration and being a total dud.