Relative efficiencies also explain why city/highway efficiency is inverted between EV & ICE.
Gasoline is rather energy dense, but the ICE is rather wasteful.
There is a certain base load of energy being generated by an ICE engine, regardless of if you are moving or how slow you go. This is why carmakers experimented with things like rapid stop/start engines, regen batteries&motors, etc.
ICE becomes more efficient as you reach highway speeds, which is why highway mpg is better than city mpg.
Batteries by contrast are not very energy dense, while EV motors are extremely efficient.
The only energy being consumed is that which is needed to move the car, plus fight rolling & wind resistance, and power AC/heat. Wind resistance increases with the square of speed.
EVs as a result are most efficient at low speed, and at highway speeds become noticeably less efficient as you go from 55->65->75mph. This is also why running AC/heat has a noticeable impact on range in EVs.
Meh, the only reason EVs are more efficient in the city is because of regen braking.
An ICE car traveling at a constant 30mph is going to get much better fuel economy than an ICE car traveling at a constant 75mph. The difference is that <=30mph roads usually have a lot of stop-and-go.
ICE efficiency also more driven by RPM & therefore where you are in the gears. So ICE designers have decisions to make about which speeds to optimize for.
ICE peak efficiency tends to be more around 45mph than 30mph.
But yes, the less you brake in an ICE, the more efficient. Hybrids give you a bit of the ICE range/highway efficiency with the EV city driving efficiency, with the added complexity of having ICE & EV under one hood.
A modern 8-10 speed automatic transmission can easily put the engine at or near the ideal consumption RPM whether it's 30 mph or 80 mph.
If we really cared about efficiency, we'd have smaller motors. Throttling decreases efficiency, so the best mileage is going to be cruising at WOT (naively assuming no fuel mixture enrichment, which isn't always true). A classic example of this strategy is an old Geo Metro. Light, tiny motor, and barely capable of maintaining highway speed using peak horsepower.
Right, I think what sometimes gets discounted with EVs is .. they are really easy to make a no-compromise vehicle compared to ICE. You can make an ICE fast, but you'll pay for that at the pump.
You can make an EV that is as fast as a Porsche but highway cruises like a Prius.
It's up to the idiot behind the wheel if they prefer to go fast or go far.
I remember in high school my "fast for a regular car" Pontiac did 0-60 in about 7sec.
This is achievable in a Nissan Leaf or Chevy Bolt now. The most low price, vanilla and dated tech in EVs you can buy.
EV buyers will quibble about 0-60s in the 4 second range that aren't even sold as "performance". You used to have to buy a BMW of M designation to achieve these types of numbers in a 4 door sedan, and get the horrible MPG along with it.
The chunky hatchback crossover MachE GT Mustang EV is faster than an ICE Mustang Mach 1 which gets a mid-teens MPG..
Maximum heating power in my 2015 Tesla Model S 70D is 6 kW. Travelling for 100 km at 100 km/h costs about 25 kWh. I drive in shirtsleeves and barefoot in the Norwegian mountains at -20⁰C and the heater doesn't seem to be running hard. So unless you are traveling in severe arctic conditions the heater really isn't more than a few percent of the load.
Teslabjørn has a video where he turned his Model X into a sauna getting 40⁰C inside while it was -10⁰C outside.
Had a model 3 for 4 years, have another EV now.
It really depends on the type of driving.
Sure, if you are making a long road trip at high speeds then its probably negligible though still noticeable.
But being in Northeast US with constant traffic..
I used to have to park outdoors so the car would get cold soaked down to 20F in winter, and never really have sufficient time to warm up unless I was going for a 1hr+ drive.
Winter driving local roads, below-25mph stop&go, 2-5mi trips running errands..
Could see some really crazy consumption numbers pop up like 500-800Wh/mi+ versus the rated 250Wh/mi. Now it doesn't necessarily amount to much because it's on short single-digit mile trips, but it does happen. This stacks with the general cold weather efficiency losses of EVs..
Gasoline is rather energy dense, but the ICE is rather wasteful. There is a certain base load of energy being generated by an ICE engine, regardless of if you are moving or how slow you go. This is why carmakers experimented with things like rapid stop/start engines, regen batteries&motors, etc.
ICE becomes more efficient as you reach highway speeds, which is why highway mpg is better than city mpg.
Batteries by contrast are not very energy dense, while EV motors are extremely efficient. The only energy being consumed is that which is needed to move the car, plus fight rolling & wind resistance, and power AC/heat. Wind resistance increases with the square of speed.
EVs as a result are most efficient at low speed, and at highway speeds become noticeably less efficient as you go from 55->65->75mph. This is also why running AC/heat has a noticeable impact on range in EVs.