It’s been greater than 2 years since I described right here how I chosen a battery electrical automotive mannequin to satisfy my private wants: a retail worth under €50,000, a type-approval electrical vary of greater than 300 km, and a fast-charging functionality of at the least 150 kW. In just a few weeks, I’ll return my automobile to the supplier because it’s the tip of the 3-year lease interval.
So, how was it? Briefly, fairly uneventful. I by no means suffered from vary anxiousness. More often than not my battery vary was greater than sufficient simply counting on my Wallbox charger at dwelling. And if I actually wanted some additional juice, there was at all times a public charger close by. I’d describe my expertise as certainly one of vary serenity as an alternative of vary anxiousness.
My expertise matches the conclusions of a current ICCT research which discovered {that a} automotive with a battery on the smaller finish of the vary of capacities available on the market is ample for the overwhelming majority of city and rural automotive drivers. I really feel that driving an electrical automotive these days shouldn’t be considerably completely different from driving a standard combustion engine automotive, besides that the electrical automotive is quieter, cleaner, and the exceptionally robust torque is extra enjoyable to drive!
What concerning the real-world power consumption of my electrical automotive? From earlier analyses we all know there’s roughly a 14% hole between official (Worldwide Harmonized Gentle Autos Take a look at Process [WLTP]) values and real-world gasoline consumption and CO2 values for standard gasoline and diesel vehicles. For plug-in hybrids, the distinction is bigger and these usually eat three to 5 occasions extra gasoline than marketed by official take a look at values. Within the European Union, all new combustion engine automobiles should report anonymized real-world consumption values by way of on-board gasoline consumption meters and statistically significant outcomes are accessible to the general public. Battery electrical automobiles are nonetheless exempt, although, and that sadly leaves us with a knowledge and information hole.
I saved observe of my very own real-world consumption values and Determine 1 summarizes my observations. For this chart, I additionally used information from Spritmonitor.de, a free public platform that’s well-known and generally used amongst automobile house owners, particularly in Germany the place I dwell. Based mostly on a complete 13,000 km of driving and a complete of two.4 MWh of electrical energy that I tracked as a part of 50 re-charging occasions over greater than 2 years, my common real-world electrical energy consumption was 18.7 kWh/100 km. The fluctuation all year long is attention-grabbing: In the course of the summer time months, my common consumption was as little as 14 kWh/100 km, and in December the common was almost 26 kWh/100 km. It’s additionally essential to notice that my electrical automobile is provided with a warmth pump that makes use of electrical power extra effectively to warmth the cabin and battery in winter.