Inflated my tires to 46 psi and drove 80 miles with the cruise control set to 70 mph.. 40 miles in one directions and 40 miles back. No AC. Temperature was mid 70's and and at times, a few drops of rain. Mostly flat road. I averaged 4.0 mi/kwh which means that theoretically, I could make 256 miles @ 70 mph with 46 psi in the tires.. That's pretty impressive.. With slightly lower tire pressure, I would only get 3.7 to 3.8 mi/kwh. The test was performed with 2 adults in the car and on the trip back, I also had about over 100 lbs worth of purchases in the back..
Is this on the stock tires? Now that the weather is getting warmer I've been thinking about raising tire pressure for this reason (no ice & snow to worry about for a while) so I'm curious how the difference compares between the stock "low rolling resistance" tires and "normal" tires.
I'm on my 2nd set of Nexens.. I went with them again for the best efficiency for a reasonable price. Not going to pay twice as much for the Michelins
Switched at about 31000 miles... Had about 20% - 30% remaining tread. However, 2 of my tires had repaired damage and one was still leaking after the repair, so I decided to swap all 4 of them early.. Tire Kingdom had a great deal on the Nexens if you bought all 4.. Costco has Michelin Primacy for about $200 per tire... Paid about $100 per tire for the Nexens..
Very interesting, I have been wondering about this. Question - did you actually test it at the lower pressure under the same conditions?
Yes, it was actually hotter when I originally tested my 70 mph consumption.. Hotter usually means more efficient.. Have to try 80 mph which usually yields 3.2 to 3.3 mi/kwh
Thanks, good to know. I bought a used set of Nexens that are basically like new. The owner wanted different tires on her car and changed them shortly after purchasing the car. I got them for $80, for the whole set, and was just wondering how long they last. I only have 32K kms on the car, and would say they are no more than 50% worn. So that sounds about right.
What was your battery temp? I’ve gotten really good efficiency (~3.7 miles per kw at 77mph) with it’s 20-21C/70F outside but my battery is at 25-30/80-90F from fast charging.
After yesterday's Kona tour, I am impressed by her low energy consumption. So far, I have rather not gone below 19 kWh / 100 km (3.27 mi / kWh), but I was driving with heating and on winter tires. Yesterday the car was already on the summer Michelin Primacy 4 (factory assembly) and it was warm enough that I could do without heating and air conditioning. Effect? With a slow, but not sluggish drive, with a few sharp jerks when overtaking, on a 70 km route (including 1/3 city), with an average speed of approx. 90-110 km / h (56-62 mph), I managed to descend to 12.8 kWh / 100km (4.82 mi / kWh). It's much better than expected.
In addition: yesterday, doing the same route, I was able to achieve an even better result - 11.8 kWh / 100km, or 5.26 mi / kWh. This gives a theoretical range of just over 500 km (300 miles). Difficult to maintain in the long time, but still pretty nice
I'm getting 5.7 mi/kwh around town like clock work with 46 psi.. Once I'll start using AC (soon), it will be more like 5.0 to 5.2 mi/kwh
So I have to pump up to 46 psi and check the consumption, because now I only have 37. But it will probably lose driving comfort.
I can recommend one thing for sure - Michelin Primacy 4 tires. They are factory fitted, but they are simply amazing. I haven't had a chance to check the behavior in deep water, but according to press tests, their only weak point is the average aquaplaning result. However, when driving on dry and wet surfaces, they behave perfectly, and at the same time allow for very low energy consumption. I have ridden various tires in my life, summer and winter, most often Goodyear, Bridgestone, Pirelli, Nokian or Kumho, many of them were really good (and a few hopeless), but I haven't had such great tires as the Primacy 4. We'll see if they will keep performance with use.
I'm sure they are great tires... but twice the price of the Nexens.. At the number of miles I'm driving, I need a set of tires almost every year.. $900 per year for tires with install.. That's quite an expense..
This early morning (3:15 AM), I drove 200 mile round trip from my home in Lakeland/FL to Titusville/FL to watch the SpaceX Crew-2 launch.. I drove on average 75 mph.. some stretches at 70mph and others at 80+ mph, so on average 75 mph.. My average ended up being 3.7 mi/kwh for the trip.. That's pretty good for driving at highway speeds..
