Hey all, I commute about 55 miles in hot humid Florida weather so 8 months out of the year im always using AC on atleast one trip. I also cruise around 80 mph the whole way. How much lower would this lower my electric range? I've seen some people say 60 miles of range on a full charge but is that because they are driving ~55 mph without the AC?
Yeah, it is. You won't get 60. But it is rated for 47 anyway. I would expect you would get around that number, maybe a little less, although the AC doesn't suck the juice as bad as the heater does.
I find that my electric range on the highway (60-65 mph) is about 20-30% lower than just driving around town. I get more miles than the estimated EV range around town and less on the highway. This has been consistent over the last two months. It makes sense because the faster the car goes, the greater the wind resistance and the electric motor has a single gear. With regular gasoline engines, there's the same problem except that the gearing makes it far more efficient on the highway so that wins out over wind resistance but only to a certain point. That's why your gasoline mileage is best at about 55 mph and drops off the faster you drive.
AC uses around 1.5 to 3 kw of power. Let's pretend it averages 2 kw. This means that for every hour you drive with AC on it would draw 2 kwh from the battery. The PHEV version has about 12 kwh usable, not sure what BEV version is, maybe 20 kwh usable. Take how long your commute is in minutes divide by 60 and multiply by 2, this is the approximate kwh used by the AC. For example, if you had a 45 minute commute you would use roughly 45/60*2 kw or 1.5 kwh running the AC. Power draw due to AC or heat (I think the heater is just the AC run in heat pump mode) will be a larger percent of the total at lower speeds as it is based on how long you run, not how far you go.
