Does the EPA range take into consideration..

..that you have a full tank of gas with 4 adults (~150lb each), or was it tested without a driver on a rolling chassis?

Will be taking 3 other people around socal for roughly 80mi round trip so I was wondering if it's feasible with the EPA's 82mi range or should I just take the monstrosity that is the honda pilot?

I'd say that if you don't have a good sense of the required energy needed to make the trip, then plan on boosting with a partial recharge along the way or just go old school with the Pilot.

Where do you put the tanks of gas?

Seriously, I would think other things would probably as/more important to range as weight. Not saying an additional 500 lbs is irrelevant, but that if you are driving at 30-40 w/o climate control, you are probably fine either way, and if you are driving aggressively at higher speeds you might not be ok, whether or not you have extra passengers.

lude219 said:

..that you have a full tank of gas with 4 adults (~150lb each), or was it tested without a driver on a rolling chassis?

Will be taking 3 other people around socal for roughly 80mi round trip so I was wondering if it's feasible with the EPA's 82mi range or should I just take the monstrosity that is the honda pilot?

Click to expand...

Being from the LA area, I know a lot of your driving probably will be on the freeways and this will gobble some extra range as opposed to driving on the surface streets. I would not be comfortable trying to make an 80 mile trip on a single charge while having 4 adults in the car. You would need to average at least 5 mi / kWh for the entire trip and even then, you would only have about 1.5 kWh left. That is too close to a tow truck call.

I know there is a large number of quick charge stations in the LA area and I am assuming you have a Spark EV with the quick charge option. You can recharge from 30% to 85% in about 10-15 minutes as opposed to 30+ minutes to recharge to 100%. Make sure you understand what payment methods are accepted at the stations along your route. PlugShare.com can help. I have an evGO membership with an RFID card and I do this all of the time. I try to choose locations along my planned routes that have restrooms and places to get something to eat or drink. So far, it has been fun and is working great. My wife and I have boldly ventured out as far as 135 miles from home, quick charging along the route going and returning as needed with no problems.

Homer said:

Where do you put the tanks of gas?

Seriously, I would think other things would probably as/more important to range as weight. Not saying an additional 500 lbs is irrelevant, but that if you are driving at 30-40 w/o climate control, you are probably fine either way, and if you are driving aggressively at higher speeds you might not be ok, whether or not you have extra passengers.

Click to expand...

Heheh force of habit, quickly learning with older folks in the car, I'm driving as sensible as I can with mostly everything off. It's just from cypress up to west Covina area then back, with some short stops along the way which I've mapped out comes to roughly 80mi.

MrDRMorgan said:

lude219 said:

..that you have a full tank of gas with 4 adults (~150lb each), or was it tested without a driver on a rolling chassis?

Will be taking 3 other people around socal for roughly 80mi round trip so I was wondering if it's feasible with the EPA's 82mi range or should I just take the monstrosity that is the honda pilot?

Click to expand...

Being from the LA area, I know a lot of your driving probably will be on the freeways and this will gobble some extra range as opposed to driving on the surface streets. I would not be comfortable trying to make an 80 mile trip on a single charge while having 4 adults in the car. You would need to average at least 5 mi / kWh for the entire trip and even then, you would only have about 1.5 kWh left. That is too close to a tow truck call.

I know there is a large number of quick charge stations in the LA area and I am assuming you have a Spark EV with the quick charge option. You can recharge from 30% to 85% in about 10-15 minutes as opposed to 30+ minutes to recharge to 100%. Make sure you understand what payment methods are accepted at the stations along your route. PlugShare.com can help. I have an evGO membership with an RFID card and I do this all of the time. I try to choose locations along my planned routes that have restrooms and places to get something to eat or drink. So far, it has been fun and is working great. My wife and I have boldly ventured out as far as 135 miles from home, quick charging along the route going and returning as needed with no problems.

Click to expand...

I've struggled with this decision of whether I need the DCFC or not knowing that I've got an ICE car that can go +450mi, so I opted out for it. Also since it's my A to B car, I charge it regularly. In hindsight, that $750 option would've gone a long way for situation like this. I guess I'll play it safe and just take the pilot. Thanks guys!

lude219 said:

Homer said:

Where do you put the tanks of gas?

Seriously, I would think other things would probably as/more important to range as weight. Not saying an additional 500 lbs is irrelevant, but that if you are driving at 30-40 w/o climate control, you are probably fine either way, and if you are driving aggressively at higher speeds you might not be ok, whether or not you have extra passengers.

Click to expand...

Heheh force of habit, quickly learning with older folks in the car, I'm driving as sensible as I can with mostly everything off. It's just from cypress up to west Covina area then back, with some short stops along the way which I've mapped out comes to roughly 80mi.

MrDRMorgan said:

lude219 said:

..that you have a full tank of gas with 4 adults (~150lb each), or was it tested without a driver on a rolling chassis?

Will be taking 3 other people around socal for roughly 80mi round trip so I was wondering if it's feasible with the EPA's 82mi range or should I just take the monstrosity that is the honda pilot?

Click to expand...

Being from the LA area, I know a lot of your driving probably will be on the freeways and this will gobble some extra range as opposed to driving on the surface streets. I would not be comfortable trying to make an 80 mile trip on a single charge while having 4 adults in the car. You would need to average at least 5 mi / kWh for the entire trip and even then, you would only have about 1.5 kWh left. That is too close to a tow truck call.

I know there is a large number of quick charge stations in the LA area and I am assuming you have a Spark EV with the quick charge option. You can recharge from 30% to 85% in about 10-15 minutes as opposed to 30+ minutes to recharge to 100%. Make sure you understand what payment methods are accepted at the stations along your route. PlugShare.com can help. I have an evGO membership with an RFID card and I do this all of the time. I try to choose locations along my planned routes that have restrooms and places to get something to eat or drink. So far, it has been fun and is working great. My wife and I have boldly ventured out as far as 135 miles from home, quick charging along the route going and returning as needed with no problems.

Click to expand...

I've struggled with this decision of whether I need the DCFC or not knowing that I've got an ICE car that can go +450mi, so I opted out for it. Also since it's my A to B car, I charge it regularly. In hindsight, that $750 option would've gone a long way for situation like this. I guess I'll play it safe and just take the pilot. Thanks guys!

Click to expand...

Don't give up too quickly "Sparkie". If you have the time as you are driving around, you could always add charge at many public L2 stations in the LA area. These stations have the standard J1772 plug which fits the Spark EV. The only drawback is you can only add about 3 kWh per hour of charge time. So figure you could add about 15 miles of range per hour of charging. That would allow you to have a nice relaxing lunch while your car is charging. I try to do this even if I am quick charging. I too have an ICE for long range trips - a pickup truck. When the weather cools off after summer, my wife and I are planning to take a Spark EV adventure trip to Los Angeles. We plan to travel to LA from our home near Stockton, CA knowing we will have to make many quick-charge stops as we travel down HWY 101. It looks like a fun adventure to me and it doesn't look like I need a 200 mile range EV (Chevy Bolt) to do it.

Bit late to this thread, but SparkEV is capable of over 100 miles range if driven slow enough (35 MPH or less) and without stopping. Cypress-Covina trip would've been fine if you took the local road and didn't use AC/heat. I did 83 miles with 10 miles remaining with about 350 lb of "cargo" at all freeway 55 MPH, but that was without AC/heat and windows up, something that may not be possible with 4 people in the car in SoCal weather these days.

It's too bad you don't have DCFC. There's DCFC near Covina college that would've allowed you to make the trip without any problem. I thought I'd need to use my gas car often, but with DCFC, I have hard time finding a reason to drive the gas car.

To extend the range, drive slower but above 25 MPH, and avoid slowing down including regen. If you're curious, I wrote a set of blog posts to explore the range.

http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2016/01/sparkev-range.html
http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2016/03/range-polynomial.html
http://sparkev.blogspot.com/2016/03/range-polynomial-climbing-hill.html

Just please don't be like my LEAF-owning friend and routinely drive 55 on a 65 mph highway, especially in LA. That's a hazard to everyone.

Thanks guys for all your input!

So good news and bad news...bad news is that i decided not to take the pilot after all

Start out with about 98mi on the GOM and got to west covina with about 60mi left, going 65mph with all the windows opening about an inch to let some air in. Only thing on was the radio. I was afraid that we didnt have enough juice on the way back but the funny thing was, on our way back, it only went down by 25mi on the GOM!! So we got home with 35mi left, driving with the same condition as we did going there. I don't know if it takes some time for the battery to reach its peak operating temperature or not, but the Sparkie definitely exceeds my expectation. Looks like weight didn't really play too much of a factor on our trip and knowing what we know now, i could probably have all the windows up and turn on the AC at the first fan level on my next OC to LA trip with the same etiquette and driving condition as a convention ICE car and wouldn't suffer any consequences!

lude219 said:

Thanks guys for all your input!

So good news and bad news...bad news is that i decided not to take the pilot after all

Start out with about 98mi on the GOM and got to west covina with about 60mi left, going 65mph with all the windows opening about an inch to let some air in. Only thing on was the radio. I was afraid that we didnt have enough juice on the way back but the funny thing was, on our way back, it only went down by 25mi on the GOM!! So we got home with 35mi left, driving with the same condition as we did going there. I don't know if it takes some time for the battery to reach its peak operating temperature or not, but the Sparkie definitely exceeds my expectation. Looks like weight didn't really play too much of a factor on our trip and knowing what we know now, i could probably have all the windows up and turn on the AC at the first fan level on my next OC to LA trip with the same etiquette and driving condition as a convention ICE car and wouldn't suffer any consequences!

Click to expand...

Congratulations! You have completed your first class in Sparkie Range 101 and, in my opinion, you did what is needed to be done by every new Spark EV driver - test the car under various weather, road and load conditions until you have a good idea of what to expect for each condition. Pay specific attention to the air conditioner and the heater. Both run off of the HV battery and have a heavy impact on range. I find I get my best results by setting the cabin temperature to 73-75 deg. F and using the AUTO climate button to control the cabin temperature in both summer and winter. Best of all, today you stuck it to "BIG OIL" by not purchasing gasoline for your trip. And, by so doing, you helped make the air in the Los Angeles basin a little bit cleaner. Well done!

lude219 said:

...going 65mph with all the windows opening about an inch to let some air in.

//cut//

I don't know if it takes some time for the battery to reach its peak operating temperature or not,

//cut //

Looks like weight didn't really play too much of a factor on our trip and knowing what we know now, i could probably have all the windows up and turn on the AC at the first fan level on my next OC to LA trip with the same etiquette and driving condition as a convention ICE car and wouldn't suffer any consequences!

Click to expand...

Congrats on the trip!

I'm not sure if you're aware, but you can turn off the temperature control and just use the fan to move air through the cabin, instead of opening the windows. It doesn't take much energy at all. You can experiment with the settings on the climate control page and see how much energy it's using. It's the percentage in the lower left corner and I think 100% is about 4kW. If you turn off the temperature control you can use the fan at settings 2-4 and not use more than about 10% (0.4kW). 0.4kW over an hour drive is 0.4kWh (tricky math I know), which is only about 2 miles of range. It's hard to say how this compares to the extra drag by having slightly open windows, but the quieter environment without the wind noise makes the fan a very good trade in my book.

If you use any temperature control, either heating or cooling as indicated by the red light on the left rotary dial being illuminated, it will extract much more energy even if the interior and exterior temperatures are the same. So if you turned on the A/C and set the fan to 1, it still would use about 40% of the climate control power. You wouldn't get much cooling, but if you set the fan to 3-4, or auto, it would take a little more energy but it will actually cool the cabin and you'll get the benefit of the energy being used by the A/C.

Personally, I find this is very frustrating since you can't just leave it on one temperature and forget about it without it waisting gobs of energy. It is automatic climate control but you can't use it "automatically" without taking the range hit.

Also, the battery doesn't need any time to warm up.

Zoomit said:

lude219 said:

....If you use any temperature control, either heating or cooling as indicated by the red light on the left rotary dial being illuminated, it will extract much more energy even if the interior and exterior temperatures are the same. ...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Why would this be? I have not experienced this.
Where would this energy go if the AC compressor (small) or the Resistive Heat (large) is not running?
For instance; if I'm sitting at a stop light I'll see '0 kW' on the driver's display, if I crank the climate temp control up to make heat I'll see it run up to 4-6 kW just sitting there. It pulses but it shows the energy consumption. Do the same with the AC and doesn't show much because the AC compressor is not a large consumer.

So, you can see this climate control energy usage in the kW display on the main display (at rest), along with the summary of energy usage on the 'Leaf' page.

Good questions. It does warrant some specific experimentation! I based my assumption that it's consuming energy on the climate settings percentage display. I don't know where that energy would be going, if it actually is indeed being dissipated.

I think you're right that the kW display on the main display represents what the high voltage battery is doing, but it may be that the heating/cooling vampire usage is on the 12V side, like the fans, and doesn't show up as an immediate discharge of the big battery.

NORTON said:

For instance; if I'm sitting at a stop light I'll see '0 kW' on the driver's display, if I crank the climate temp control up to make heat I'll see it run up to 4-6 kW just sitting there. It pulses but it show the energy consumption. Do the same with the AC doesn't show much because the AC compressor is not a large consumer.

So, you can see this climate control energy usage in the kW display on the main display (at rest), along with the summary of energy usage on the 'Leaf' page.

Click to expand...

I was not aware of this piece of information nor have I ever seen it appear on my driver's display (the one with the odometer). I just went outside and cranked up my heater and did not see any indication on my driver's display of the power being consumed. Does it appear on all driver's display screen options or only on one particular screen? What am I missing?

You need to be on this page, to see the data in blue circle on the right:


Not this page:

Zoomit said:

You need to be on this page, to see the data in blue circle on the right:

Not this page:

Click to expand...

Thanks for this bit of info. I switched screens to the top screen you showed, turned on the heater and cranked up the temp to about 90 deg. F. The right-hand blue ball in the display showed the power being used by the heater. The kWh being used varied as I increased or decreased the temperature setting. I normally use the second screen you showed and that is why I couldn't figure out what I was missing.
Dennis

The test that I want to do is put the car in the shade, set the temp to the outdoor temperature and see how much energy it uses just sitting there over 30 or 60 minutes. It may not register any Kw used in the blue circle on the instrument cluster, but if it's using energy it'll eventually be indicated in the Leaf page as a percentage of the battery.

The car may automatically turn off, IIRC, which would complicate the test. It may be necessary to fiddle with a setting every 10 minutes to reset a timer.

The lengths we go to find out more about our cars! I doubt anyone here would do that with a gas car.

btw, why does your display say "service air bag"?

We have to go to these lengths because most manufacturers don't make this data readily available (Tesla is the most forthcoming).

The pictures aren't mine. They're just from a google search.

Zoomit said:

You need to be on this page, to see the data in blue circle on the right:

Not this page:

Click to expand...

Good point, zoomit.

Now the only question is...what's the net energy consumption with fan-only setting vs. rolling down the window at x-inch of height over say a distance of 5mi? lol

On one end, you eliminate drag by using the fan to push air through, conversely, you can roll down the windows (and create some drag) and not use any energy. We need an energy/battery engineer and an aerodynamics engineer to sort this stuff out. There's just so many variables out there to take into consideration (fan speed, windows height, amount of windows to be rolled down, what's the ideal speed where these two factors reach their level of energy equilibrium?, etc) :lol: