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Electric Range

7K views 23 replies 18 participants last post by  Smart car 
#1 ·
Why does smart advertise 160 km (100 miles) of range on electricity, but when I google the range it says 58 miles?
 
#2 ·
Where does it say 100 miles? Even the window stickers show much less, i.e. around 60 to 70 depending on what model you're looking at. I typically get up to 80 in the summer and 65 or so in the winter.

Len
2014 EV Coupe 17,500 miles
2014 EV Cabriolet 9,500 miles
 
#7 ·
Living in the Pacific Northwest and driving a 453 ED we are getting 76 mile range
right now where the temperature in the low 30s at night and high in the upper 40s
during the day.
During the summer the range increases into the mid 90 mile range.
In the US the range is determined by the EPA...
 
#8 ·
US EPA range is officially 58 miles per one charge but the EPA got a maximum distance of 104.x miles in their lab tests under ideal conditions with ECO mode OFF, so they could have done more with ECO on. (My personal best was about 112-114 in summer with city driving, no A/C, lots of regen braking. Day to day range is ~80 in summer, ~55 in winter for me in Boston)

NEDC (new European Driving Cycle) lists it as 160km/100 mi but that test is known for being very optimistic.

I'm very curious what a smart EQ Fortwo would do for range in a place like Chicago today with in -30F weather. I messaged the smart brand manager in Chicago to see if they're willing to test it out. no reply yet.
 
#14 ·
I picked up a 2015 ED that came off of a 3 year lease. So far it gets around 70 mile a charge in nice weather and around 45 miles when I have to run the heater a lot. Plenty for my around town driving.


We have been able to tweak out 80 miles on nice days that don’t require a/c on our 2015 and as little as 30 on those 0F days with full time heater running


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#16 ·
I get 80 miles on days above 50' generally. It's whenever the temp gets close to 32' that there's a good drop. That onboard battery heater really burns through the watts I guess.
When I see the estimated over 60 I get really cheery. I know it's a great day before I even pull outta the garage.
 
#18 ·
I have only had my 2016 smart ed for a few weeks. I live in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, just two miles from the Mexican border. The summers are usually around 100 everyday so I have to use my air conditioner all the time. It seems like the air conditioning almost sucks more juice than the traction motor itself. Just wondering with air on all the time what kind of mileage do you guys get. I have never ran battery super low but it gets pretty low, like around 20% after driving only 25 to 30 miles. Yikes. Car only has 4700 miles on it. Is that normal or do I have a problem?
 
#19 ·
Ricky - so are you saying it goes down to about 20% from a full charge or from the 80% charge that you have talked about before? I almost never turn my AC on and I get about 80 miles in the summer on a full charge. When I do turn it on, the estimated miles left drops by about 10 miles and pretty much stays there. Hopefully others who use their AC like you do will chime in with their experiences. However, if you are only charging to 80%, take it up to 100%. You're not going to hurt anything.

Len
2014 EV Coupe 18,000 miles
2014 EV Cabriolet 12,000 miles
 
#20 ·
Yes I do only charged 80%. I guess I’ve been so paranoid about battery life and battery failure. I’m an old guy and this will be the last car I buy so I’m just hopping in the last few years. I guess I should just do what you say and charge it to 100%. I figured since I live in such an extremely hot climate in the summer charging 100% might be a bad idea.
 
#21 ·
I have logged each of my last 441 days using an app called My EV App, I’ve attached some pics of my results but most notable is that spring and fall are almost identical at 114 kilometres while winter at 69 kilometres and summer at 141 kilometres are almost 50% difference of each other. I live in Canada and get some pretty interesting weather throughout the year. I track the temperature in the app so I can quickly graphically see the lows and highs based on the temperatures. The app also tracks what accessories I turn on such as the ac or heater, radio etc so I can see their impact on my range. From my experience with my 2017 ED, road conditions, breaking and take off speed has huge impacts along with of course the normal ac and heater. When I hypermile it I’ve gotten 165 kilometres but you’ll notice that my average across all months is just 1.06 kilometres for each 1% of battery which equals 106 kilometres total range, this is in line with the EPA as long as it’s based on life averages because seasonally that goes up and down substantially..
 
#22 ·
I'll chime in from Phoenix AZ.
Winter time here= No climate control needed and 80 mile range driving easy, 75 mile range flooring it off lights beating everyone!
Summer time here = A/C all the time, 65 mile range driving easy, 53 mile range driving hard but trying to conserve range.

After driving my 2017 Chevy Volt for 2 years and my 2015 Smart ED I find that taking off fast and then cruising extends range.
Taking off fast pulls max amps for only 5 seconds and then single digit KW to cruise
Taking off slow and average pulls a steady medium load for a 1/4 mile and drains more.
 
#23 ·
"Taking off fast pulls max amps for only 5 seconds and then single digit KW to cruise
Taking off slow and average pulls a steady medium load for a 1/4 mile and drains more."

!WOW! I'd love to hear other's to agree with this. This may sound too good to be true, but with peak torque at initial start, this could be true for electrics. Just the opposite of ICE engines.

(My physics is pretty rusty, so if others could jump in I'd appreciate it.)
 
#24 ·
This may not be entirely accurate across all driving but in my 2017 Chevy Volt it has a digital KW usage display.

When I am first at the light, I take off with around 75 to 80 KW for just 3 seconds and I'm up to 45MPH and then let up to around 7 to 9 KW to maintain 45 to 50MPH.

When stuck in traffic I take off with the ICE cars pace and see the KW at 32 to 35 for a long duration as it takes the traffic 1/4 mile to get up to 45MPH.

My 2015 Smart ED gauge is harder to accurately depict but follows the same trend ( Floor it to max for 4 seconds to 45MPH then the width of the needle to maintain, VS almost a 25 to 45% pull behind traffic)

If I made a chart graph with the 1/4 mile broken down in time it shows the hard take off/cruise KW/time 15% less than the constant pull.


I'm sure someone with Quantum Physics could elaborate further on this though.
 
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