Which Automaker Will Get There First
If I had a penny for every time I heard someone complain about EVs and Range.whoaId be a rich man! In fact, Id be so rich that I might be able to afford a Lucid Air, the new range King!
Itll hit 500 miles on the highway, which is about 800kmbut would it hit 1,000km if you nursed it around town?now theres a thought.
Today were looking at rangeand what elements really influence range. And finally, we consider who will win the race to 1,000km!
Low Range!
Lets take a moment to look at some of the best and worst for range out there. And well start off with some of the worst. The Dacia Spring comes to mind with its tiddly 27kWh battery and a real-world range of about 110 miles. But its so cheap that youll excuse it that! Not so much luck for the Mazda MX-30. Its usable 30kWh battery will yield a mere 110 miles in the real world, but its twice the price of the Dacia.
Even if youre willing to spend a lot more money, it doesnt necessarily guarantee you a good range. The all-electric Hummer has a battery that is actually heavier than some small cars! Its huge well over 200kWh! So does that give you mind-blowing range? Nowe wont know for sure until we see them in the real world, but maybe 300 miles? Even the likes of the Mercedes EQC is a pretty inefficient vehicle. It may look good and be extremely comfortable. Butin real-world driving, itll struggle to get anything more than 250 miles.
Best Range!
What affects range?
Tires & wheels
Aerodynamics
Batteries
Tesla Model S: 405 Miles
For a car that was first launched back in 2012, its testament to Tesla that the Model S remains in the top three range toppers 10 years later. These days its available in just two flavours: the entry-level dual motor, AWD variant, good for up to 405 miles, or the top-spec Plaid, equipped with three motors, 1,006bhp, and slightly reduced range of up to 396 miles. Whether you can get on with the yoke is another matter entirely.
Cost Of A New Nissan Leaf Battery
According to various reports, including a forecast by the Bloomberg New Energy Finance, the lithium batteries used by the Nissan Leaf can cost you an estimated $6000.
However, the battery unit comes to around $4000.
This is all dependent on the type of battery package you are looking to buy. However, global finance forecasts estimate that you will pay around $137 per kilowatt of battery capacity.
In other words, if you are looking at a 40kWh battery, you can expect to pay $5 500.
Dealerships vary in price, so the best advice is to get a few quotes from various dealerships in your area.
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Ford Will Launch 7 Evs In Europe Including A Full
Ford plans a full-electric version of its best-selling European passenger car, the Puma crossover.
Ford Motor is launching seven full-electric vehicles in Europe including a battery-electric version of the Puma small crossover, its best-selling passenger car in the region.
The three new full-electric passenger cars and four new electric vans will be launched by 2024 and will all be built in Europe, Ford said in a statement on Monday.
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The first EV will be a midsize crossover that will go into production at Fords factory in Cologne, Germany, this year. The crossover will use Volkswagen Groups MEB electric platform that underpins the VW ID4, among other VW Group models.
Ford had already said it would build a new EV in Cologne, but this is the first mention of the models body style.
The electric crossover will have a 500 km driving range on a single charge. Its name will be revealed later in 2022, with production commencing in 2023, Ford said.
The seven new battery-electric vehicle launches will bring the number of full-electric cars sold by Ford in Europe to nine.
A second vehicle, which Ford said was a sports crossover, will also be built at Cologne starting in 2024. The vehicle is also expected to be based on the MEB platform.
The electric sports crossover means that EV production at the Cologne factory will increase to 1.2 million vehicles over a six-year timeframe.
Do Electric Cars Lose Range Over Time
Yes, but not as much as you may think or as fast as you may fear. Under current estimates, most EV batteries will last between one and two decades before they need to be replaced. And contrary to popular belief, EV batteries dont simply stop working. Instead, they slowly degrade over timemeaning that it’s unlikely that you’re going to need a replacement abruptly.
A battery gradually loses capacity with many reporting the loss of only a few percent over several years. When looking at the average decline across all vehicles, that loss averages out at 2.3 percent per year. To demonstrate, if you purchase an EV today with a 240 km range, after five years the battery will have lost 27 km of accessible range.
To put consumers’ reservations to rest, many manufacturers give a warranty on their battery which is usually between five and ten years or 100,000 km . Want to know how to increase the lifespan of your EVs battery? Check out this blog we wrote on EV battery longevity.
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Lucid Motors Takes A Prototype Air Ev On An 800
The company set out to prove that its new luxury electric sedan could live up to its 400-mile range claim.
Silicon Valley EV startup Lucid Motors has been hard at work over the past year, gearing up for what was supposed to be the company’s official unveiling of a production-spec version of its Lucid Air luxury EV sedan in New York in the coming weeks. We suspect that those plans are on hold, given the giant mess the world finds itself in, but the company is still making moves.
Specifically, it’s making moves 400 miles at a time, if a video released by the company on Thursday is to be believed. Lucid has been claiming a range of 400 miles for the Air, and it would seem that it’s managed to hit that target — albeit with a super-development-spec car.
In the video, two engineers drive from Silicon Valley, down California’s coast and into Los Angeles on a single charge. The team charges the prototype overnight and completes a different trip — this time predominantly on the freeway — on the way back up. The company’s CEO even joins them in a second Lucid development mule for the final leg.
Now, leaving aside all the cheeky social media tie-ins and message sounds that Lucid tossed in the video, it’s a pretty neat look into one of the new crop of high-end electric vehicles that we’re most excited about.
What we really want to see, though, is the unedited and timestamped footage of the drive to verify the company’s numbers.
How Much Is A Battery For A Hybrid Car
The price varies from producer to producer and from model to model. An overall figure goes from $2,000 to $8,000, and if you need an exact figure, you will need to search per model. Sometimes even service centers have an impact on the price of the battery, so keep your eyes open when doing this job.
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Tesla Model 3 Long Range: 374 Miles
The Model 3 was not only the best-selling electric car in the UK last year, but the second-best seller on our shores overall, illustrating the ever-growing popularity of EVs in Britain. Standard Range guise gets you rear-wheel drive and a claimed 305 miles of range, one up from that gets you the Long Range, dual motor, AWD, 374-mile variant, while if its performance youre after the er, Performance, offers a 0-60mph time of 3.1secs and 340-mile range. Would you bet against it claiming overall best seller this year?
Are Electric Cars Better For The Environment
For many would-be electric motorists, this will be the million-dollar question, yet its also the one that theres probably most argument over. Supporters of electric mobility will tell you that having fewer cars chucking out CO2 into the atmosphere cant help but cut down on greenhouse gases. Meanwhile, sceptics will argue that electric cars take more energy to build in the first place, and that having more of them on the road just means an increased burden on the national grid, meaning more CO2 emissions from the coal-fired power stations that make the electricity used to charge them. So, whos right?Unfortunately, nobody really knows for sure. Countless studies have provided evidence on both sides, but its such a complex equation with so many variables that nobody has managed to prove their case conclusively.What you can say with confidence, though, is that electric cars definitely improve local environments. If you ignore carbon dioxide for a moment, petrol and diesel cars kick out all sorts of other pollutants that pollute the atmosphere and can cause breathing difficulties for those in the vicinity.And the bigger picture? Well, as fossil fuel reserves run dry, power producers will have no choice but to move towards more renewable energy sources, so as power stations become greener in future, so will electric motoring.
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Polestar 2 Long Range: 336 Miles
Volvos former racing offshoot has now turned its attention to EVs, and its starting to make a name for itself for all the right reasons too. Leading the way is the Polestar 2, with the entry-level standard range single motor version offering a 64kWh battery capable of up 275 miles of range, while the long range single motor features a bigger 78kWh unit that’ll do 336 miles on a full charge. Top of the performance tree is the long range dual motor, with the same 78kWh battery but reduced 299-mile range.
How Much Does It Cost To Install An Electric Car Charger At Home
The typical cost of a home charge point is around £800.
Under its Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme, OLEV currently offers a grant of up to 75% of this cost, capped at a maximum grant of £350.
If you own or have primary access to an EV and off-street parking you may be eligible for an OLEV funded grant towards the cost of a home charge point.
Find out more about home ev charging in our full guide.
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Global Energy Prices: Gasoline
Which countries and regions pay the most for a gallon of gas?
| Rank |
|---|
| $4.6 |
At an average $11.10 per gallon, households in Hong Kong pay the highest for gasoline in the worldmore than double the global average. Both high gas taxes and steep land costs are primary factors behind high gas prices.
Like Hong Kong, the Central African Republic has high gas costs, at $8.60 per gallon. As a net importer of gasoline, the country has faced increased price pressures since the war in Ukraine.
Households in Iceland, Norway, and Denmark face the highest gasoline costs in Europe. Overall, Europe has seen inflation hit 10% in September, driven by the energy crisis.
When Do Nissan Leaf Batteries Need To Be Replaced
Depending on a range of factors such as number of charging cycles completed, frequency of fully charging or draining the batteries, exposure to temperature extremes, and just general aging the performance of any lithium ion battery degrades over time. You may have experienced this first-hand with your cell phone and the batteries in electric vehicles are no different. EV battery degradation is a normal process that permanently reduces the amount of energy the battery can store and deliver.
In the case of the Gen1 LEAF models, their smaller battery packs tend to have a shorter lifespan than the average electric car because they go through more charging cycles for an equivalent amount of miles travelled. The early LEAF battery packs also did not have dedicated battery warming systems, leading to batteries being used in non-ideal temperature ranges. Compounding these issues is the fact that regenerative braking is less efficient when the battery degrades, so actual range per charge decreases more rapidly than one might expect. Where an early LEAF may have provided 75+ miles driven per charge when new, that range could potentially decrease significantly over time, eventually necessitating replacement of the battery pack to keep your electric car at its full potential.
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Dodge Can Do Better Than An Electric Hellcat
Electric cars and traditional internal combustion cars are very different vehicles with different strengths. For this reason, it holds electric cars back when automakers use internal combustion cars as benchmarks and try to set new EVs up as direct competitors. One obvious example is the way Dodge is setting its new SRT Banshee powertrain up as its Hellcat replacement. But multiple electric cars already produce Hellcat levels of power. Automakers such as Dodge will need to create something all new.
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Miles Per Charge Whats Under The Hood Of The Longest Range Electric Cars
The race is on to build the most efficient electric car. This alone is worth taking note of, as only a few years back, most major carmakers seemed to be in silent agreement that ranges of around 200 miles would meet most peoples everyday driving needs and convince them to switch to electric models. Well, reality struck hard, a new phobia – range anxiety – was born, and the industry had to adapt.
All the more reason for a quick stocktaking on where things stand today.
For many years, Tesla TSLA has proven its ability to innovate while delivering long ranges at scale. Hence, its no surprise that two models from Tesla, Model S and Model 3, rank among the top three of the worlds longest-range production EVs available today, going 405 and 358 miles respectively on a single charge. More of a surprise is the fact that Tesla recently got dethroned by a newcomer, Lucid, which records an impressive 520 miles.
Looking a little bit further down the Top 30 list, one thing becomes quite apparent: incremental changes still seem to be the norm as most current cars offer mediocre ranges of under 300 miles under optimal conditions.
Aptera’s new Solar Electric Vehicle
Aptera
Quantum leaps are on the horizon with newcomers leading the way
Thankfully, there are great examples of quantum leap innovations on the vehicle level which will result not only in hugely efficient EVs but will lead to a radical change in the entire user experience.
Bart Geers
So HOW is all of this possible?
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Are Electric Cars Cheaper To Insure
No. In actual fact, theyre usually a little bit more expensive to insure than a comparable petrol or diesel car.There are a couple of reasons for this, the most influential being the cost of repair. Electric cars have fewer moving parts than conventional cars, meaning theres less to go wrong, but some of the components they do have the lithium-ion batteries being case-in-point are enormously expensive to repair or replace if they do become damaged. Another factor thats not often talked about is the availability of technicians qualified to work on electric cars, as these are far lower in number than those who can repair regular cars, which also pushes costs up.Its worth bearing in mind that there are companies that specialise in providing insurance for electric cars, and going with one of these could drop your premiums significantly. Even with these providers, though, its essential you shop around for the best deal. Whats more, all the usual tricks for dropping your premiums still apply with electric cars. Consider paying up front rather than monthly, or getting a black box or dashcam fitted.But the fact remains that while electric cars do reduce daily running costs in most areas, insurance isnt one of them, sadly.Read more on electric car insurance here.
What Other Factors Affect The Driving Range For Evs
Battery size isnt the only thing that affects an EVs range. The quicker you drive, how much you need to accelerate, whether you turn on your AC or the heater, as well as how warm it is outside, all affect how far you can go on a single charge.
Driving speed
The faster you drive or the more aggressive you accelerate, the quicker the battery of the EV drains.
Temperature
The colder it is outside, the faster the battery drains.
Electrical-powered features
When you use the heating, cooling, or other electrical-powered features, this affects the distance an EV can drive on a single tank.
To bring these factors to life, Renault has a handy tool for its ZOE e-Tech Electric where you can input driving conditions and see the battery capacity change.
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Global Energy Prices: Electricity
Extreme volatility is also being seen in electricity prices.
The majority of the highest household electricity prices are in Europe, where Denmark, Germany, and Belgiums prices are about double that of France and Greece. For perspective, electricity prices in many countries in Europe are more than twice or three times the global average of $0.14 per kilowatt-hour.
Over the first quarter of 2022, household electricity prices in the European Union jumped 32% compared to the year before.
| Rank |
|---|
| $0.08 |
In the U.S., consumer electricity prices have increased nearly 16% annually compared to September last year, the highest increase in over four decades, fueling higher inflation.
However, households are more sheltered from the impact of Russian supply disruptions due to the U.S. being a net exporter of energy.
