Preparing for road trip

[Firn]

Great advice all around.

Only thing I'll add is to have your passenger learn the tools too. You will need to adapt on the road, having them help is a godsend

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[21st Century Truck]

I have driven to Florida three times from Ottawa, Ontario in my Tesla Y - Long Range. Will be doing same trip in my 2023 Ford Lightning this coming Christmas. From items affecting


Affecting EV range 1. Driver's Speed 2. WEIGHT 3.Elevation Climbs
4. Headwinds

Weight? ...as in "vehicle weight"? Help me understand Your choice of the bolded factor that affects range.

I've driven coast-to-coast and on many other long trips both in my Mach E (just over 75 thousand miles) and now in the Lightning, a very different and much heavier vehicle (now just over 72 thousand miles) and I haven't observed effects of weight on range in these two. Perhaps I don't quite understand Your meaning of "weight"... I'm curious.

 

[Rayden]

Weight? ...as in "vehicle weight"? Help me understand Your choice of the bolded factor that affects range.

I've driven coast-to-coast and on many other long trips both in my Mach E (just over 75 thousand miles) and now in the Lightning, a very different and much heavier vehicle (now just over 72 thousand miles) and I haven't observed effects of weight on range in these two. Perhaps I don't quite understand Your meaning of "weight"... I'm curious.

I took that to mean how much stuff do you have packed in it? Such as, you came back from a tour of the Bourbon Trail and bought 60 cases of EH Taylor, Elijah Craig, and Blanton’s. Now that truck is HEAVY.

 

[21st Century Truck]

I took that to mean how much stuff do you have packed in it? Such as, you came back from a tour of the Bourbon Trail and bought 60 cases of EH Taylor, Elijah Craig, and Blanton’s. Now that truck is HEAVY.

Oooh that wouldn't impact range... that would immediately impact the ability to drive a straight-line

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Weight won’t have much impact on range once you’re up to speed and if you’re basically driving in a straight line. But for start-stop traffic, it’ll matter. For hills it’ll matter. For anything requiring a change in speed, change in elevation, or major change in direction, weight will matter. But speed is much more important.

 

[RickLightning]

Great advice all around.

Only thing I'll add is to have your passenger learn the tools too. You will need to adapt on the road, having them help is a godsend

You clearly haven't met my wife....

I run GoogleMaps with Android Auto on the big screen (previously ran Ford Nav). On my phone, I run ABRP, PlugShare, and CarScanner. My wife pulls in the saved route from Google Drive (where I save the ABRP route from the desktop) into GoogleMaps on her phone because she wants to.

Asking her to lookup anything takes longer than just doing it.

 

[Firn]

You clearly haven't met my wife....

I run GoogleMaps with Android Auto on the big screen (previously ran Ford Nav). On my phone, I run ABRP, PlugShare, and CarScanner. My wife pulls in the saved route from Google Drive (where I save the ABRP route from the desktop) into GoogleMaps on her phone because she wants to.

Asking her to lookup anything takes longer than just doing it.

Sure, but the difference is when I need directions its because I'm involved with the act of driving, and they are literally doing nothing.

 

[Sam_oceans]

Weight? ...as in "vehicle weight"? Help me understand Your choice of the bolded factor that affects range.

I've driven coast-to-coast and on many other long trips both in my Mach E (just over 75 thousand miles) and now in the Lightning, a very different and much heavier vehicle (now just over 72 thousand miles) and I haven't observed effects of weight on range in these two. Perhaps I don't quite understand Your meaning of "weight"... I'm curious.

Added weight to a BEV has a significant impact on distance per kilowatt hour of battery capacity. So much so, that I consider it to be my second most important impact after 'driving speed'. Think about it; wind, hills and AC for example, are temporary occurrences - it is not always windy, nor hilly, nor in need of AC, but when you add weight to the vehicle for a long journey, it is always there during the journey.

During my Tesla trips between Ottawa and Naples (2,900 kilometres) our carry load above our normal day to day use was 650 pounds. That 650 pounds is added to that vehicle for the total trip. This causes a drop from 5.5 kilometres per 1% of range to slightly lower than 4 kilometres per 1% of range. Range on the Tesla is well established at 530 kilometres per 100% battery range. When added to random winds and hilly terrain and some misguided speed gain, one can easily experience a 30-40% drop in efficiency for this added 650 pounds of weight.

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Naples this winter, I have experimented with weight impact on my 2023 Ford Lightning over a number of 100 to 300 kilometer trips. I found that the normal day to day driving efficiency for this vehicle to be 22 kwh per 100 kilometres (62.5 miles) of distance. When I add 250 pounds of weight, this efficiency drops consistently to 27 kwh per 100 kilometres of distance. This is a 20% drop in efficiency. 250 pounds is just adding one adult, one child, and a dog.

One other important matter for long distance travel; establish the percentage of battery capacity as your reference measure, as this seems to be more consistently (accurately) presented than using the distance measurement as reference.

 

[Rice_classic]

IMHO, wind is a bigger factor to efficiency at speed compared to weight. Whether you’re driving faster, into a headwind or towing something with significant drag.

I have documented as such over several vehicles, laden, unladen and towing.

But it’s still hard to assess the airspeed velocity of an unladed swallow.

 

[21st Century Truck]

IMHO, wind is a bigger factor to efficiency at speed compared to weight. Whether you’re driving faster, into a headwind or towing something with significant drag.

I have documented as such over several vehicles, laden, unladen and towing.

But it’s still hard to assess the airspeed velocity of an unladed swallow.

Agree.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

IMHO, wind is a bigger factor to efficiency at speed compared to weight. Whether you’re driving faster, into a headwind or towing something with significant drag.

I have documented as such over several vehicles, laden, unladen and towing.

But it’s still hard to assess the airspeed velocity of an unladed swallow.

Physics agrees with you.

 

[21st Century Truck]

Added weight to a BEV has a significant impact on distance per kilowatt hour of battery capacity. So much so, that I consider it to be my second most important impact after 'driving speed'. Think about it; wind, hills and AC for example, are temporary occurrences - it is not always windy, nor hilly, nor in need of AC, but when you add weight to the vehicle for a long journey, it is always there during the journey.

During my Tesla trips between Ottawa and Naples (2,900 kilometres) our carry load above our normal day to day use was 650 pounds. That 650 pounds is added to that vehicle for the total trip. This causes a drop from 5.5 kilometres per 1% of range to slightly lower than 4 kilometres per 1% of range. Range on the Tesla is well established at 530 kilometres per 100% battery range. When added to random winds and hilly terrain and some misguided speed gain, one can easily experience a 30-40% drop in efficiency for this added 650 pounds of weight.

In preparation for my upcoming trip to Naples this winter, I have experimented with weight impact on my 2023 Ford Lightning over a number of 100 to 300 kilometer trips. I found that the normal day to day driving efficiency for this vehicle to be 22 kwh per 100 kilometres (62.5 miles) of distance. When I add 250 pounds of weight, this efficiency drops consistently to 27 kwh per 100 kilometres of distance. This is a 20% drop in efficiency. 250 pounds is just adding one adult, one child, and a dog.

One other important matter for long distance travel; establish the percentage of battery capacity as your reference measure, as this seems to be more consistently (accurately) presented than using the distance measurement as reference.

Weight and Mass are different things. Witness the historic experiment on the Leaning Tower of Pisa with two cannonballs of different diameters.

 

[Firn]

Speed
Exterior temp (which includes air density AND heater usage)
Wind

All have a greater effect than weight. The change on rolling resistance is minimal due to weight, but more than that, aerodynamic effects increase exponentially (things like rolling resistance only increase linearly).

If Chat GPT can be trusted I had it gen up some plots.

60mph baseline, effects of temp, air pressure, and humidity (the big impactors of air density) mapped to equivalent speed. Roughly speaking a 10% change in air density (humid 80 degree day to a dry 50 degree one) is about the same as 3 5mph.

And the effects of payload.

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