How much will a 2,000 ft hill affect range?

[johnnylingo]

Been looking for an electric commuter car for a couple months now and think the e-Golf has so far been my favorite. Fun and sporty to drive, wonderful interior, good range (better than the Focus), and fair pricing.

My daily commute is Santa Cruz to Campbell on Highway 17, which is 55 miles round trip. However, once a week I make an addition trip to Sunnyvale. This adds about 20 miles around trip so I'm now at 75 miles for the day. Add in a possible detour or grocery store stop and now I'm creeping close to 80.

This is still under the 83 mile range advertised, but Highway 17 is not a typical flat drive. For those unfamiliar, it's essentially a 15 mile hill that's just under 2,000 at the peak. This leaves me with real questions on where I'd come in at on the range scale.

I am planning to go with the SEL Premium so stopping for a fast charge in San Jose is an option, but I'd prefer to save fast charging for trips beyond Silicon Valley.

 

[JoulesThief]

Been looking for an electric commuter car for a couple months now and think the e-Golf has so far been my favorite. Fun and sporty to drive, wonderful interior, good range (better than the Focus), and fair pricing.

My daily commute is Santa Cruz to Campbell on Highway 17, which is 55 miles round trip. However, once a week I make an addition trip to Sunnyvale. This adds about 20 miles around trip so I'm now at 75 miles for the day. Add in a possible detour or grocery store stop and now I'm creeping close to 80.

This is still under the 83 mile range advertised, but Highway 17 is not a typical flat drive. For those unfamiliar, it's essentially a 15 mile hill that's just under 2,000 at the peak. This leaves me with real questions on where I'd come in at on the range scale.

I am planning to go with the SEL Premium so stopping for a fast charge in San Jose is an option, but I'd prefer to save fast charging for trips beyond Silicon Valley.

Anywhere from 6 miles per 1000 feet to 10 miles per 1000 feet climbed, in addition to the horizontal miles traveled. But you get it all back coming back down to original elevation, back at home. 100 mile trips are possible, if you keep it at or below 60 mph for the duration of the trip, and keep the AC off, fan off, and possibly lights off too. But the last 20 miles could be in funky preservation of the battery mode.

 

[bizzle]

It's pretty significant. Someone quoted a loss of 10 miles range per 1000 feet elevation.
When I went up Alpine yesterday I was down to 40 miles range within 20 minutes...and I'd only gone about 30 miles.
It was slightly jarring. I was able to pick it all up, and then even more, on the backside of the mountain dropping into the valley.

I hit the flats with about 60 miles range. I was also traveling at 35 mph for much of the climb, except for the last 10 miles where I was on the 8 and had to bump it up to 50-55 during the climbs. When I could get behind a semi I stayed behind him so I could do around 40-45 until I saw CHP over on the shoulder and decided not to risk getting pulled over for going too slow (legal speed limit is 70 out here in the desert).

I don't know what it would have looked like if I'd been doing 60 and I don't think it would have been pretty.
I also don't know what the backside of your trip is going to be. You should get a SEL fully charged and see if you can take it on a test drive.

You do get complimentary roadside assistance with unlimited tows up to 100 miles per incident to the nearest dealer (and my dealership called and verified they'd take me home if it was a dead battery on my trip back).

I also have AAA and you may find that your region has the new trucks that are equipped to fast charge you, although that wouldn't be practical for my SE.

 

[johnnylingo]

the last 20 miles could be in funky preservation of the battery mode.

Good point. The last 15 miles are downhill, however it's gradual and there's only a couple small stretches where it's natural to brake. The good news is given the very mild weather here, I rarely need AC and most never need heat.

 

[johnnylingo]

I also don't know what the backside of your trip is going to be.

Going northbound, the 6 mile stretch from the summit down to Los Gatos is fairly steep with several tight turns. One could probably ride the brakes all the way down and still keep speed above 55 mph. But I'd rather coast and keep my speed in the 55-65 mph range.

Going southbound, it's a more gradual 12 miles from the summit to Santa Cruz with a 2-mile flat zone at Scotts Valley. I can only think of a few spots where it's natural to brake and essentially wouldn't count on gaining anything from the braking.

So I know I'll get some back from braking, but am not counting on more than gaining 3 miles.

 

[JoulesThief]

I also don't know what the backside of your trip is going to be.

Going northbound, the 6 mile stretch from the summit down to Los Gatos is fairly steep with several tight turns. One could probably ride the brakes all the way down and still keep speed above 55 mph. But I'd rather coast and keep my speed in the 55-65 mph range.

Going southbound, it's a more gradual 12 miles from the summit to Santa Cruz with a 2-mile flat zone at Scotts Valley. I can only think of a few spots where it's natural to brake and essentially wouldn't count on gaining anything from the braking.

So I know I'll get some back from braking, but am not counting on more than gaining 3 miles.

Try Plugshare.com and plan a route, with search radius set to 3 miles, or 2 miles, and set up with "Level 2 J-1772" and "DC Combo DCFC" in the settings cog. That will show you where you can get a slow charge or a quick charge, during a meal or a break.

Do your Sunnyvale trip, and then hit the ChargePoint headquarters for a 20 minute level 3 recharge on the way back home in Campbell, if you have the SEL model, which allows Level 3 charging rates.

 

[Frank3]

I have an 800 ft climb home (which is as 1400 feet in Oakland) I can definitely tell you that you will lose substantial range going up the hill. At the same time, the "range" display going up (and down) a hill gets really wonky as it tries to forecast range base in recent traveling. How much range you really lose can vary based on traffic, slope, road resistance based on how "curvy" the road is, etc. Also, contrary to what was posted earlier, you do not regain the range you lost going up a hill by going down that same hill. If that were true, you'd have a perpetual motion machine! Well, maybe VW modified the range calculated software to make it appear so

 

[miimura]

Highway 17 is not a problem as long as you stay off the friction brakes. I don't have the exact numbers for the e-Golf but one rule of thumb for another EV is that you use 7 miles of range per 1,000 feet climbing and gain 6 miles per 1,000 feed descending. So, going up and down 2,000 feet only has a 2 mile penalty compared to flat roads as long as you don't burn up energy in the disc brakes. Use the D / D1 / D2 / D3 to control your speed on descent. Don't try to keep up with traffic downhill, people drive that damn road like a racetrack.

I used to reverse commute from Cupertino to Scotts Valley before I had electric cars, but have driven my RAV4 EV over highway 17 several times.

 

[ulrichw]

It's pretty significant. Someone quoted a loss of 10 miles range per 1000 feet elevation.

This estimate only makes sense if you end your drive at an elevation 1000 feet higher than you started it.

Johnny's drive goes from sea level to 1800 feet and back to sea level and since we're counting round-trip anyway, there's no net elevation gain.

Sure, you'll "lose" range on the uphill, but you'll "gain" that range right back on the downhill. I'm putting the "gain" and "lose" in quotes because really it's just the fact that the algorithm VW uses to predict your range is imperfect, and only takes into account your recent driving in predicting the distance you'll actually get.

The real physics way of thinking about this is that in driving up the hill at 50 mph, you're first consuming the amount of energy required to overcome wind resistance at 50mph, and then adding to that the energy to climb 1800 feet.

The energy that goes into wind resistance is lost, but the energy put into climbing the hill is actually stored in the car in the form of potential energy. This potential energy is recovered on the way back down the hill.

This is where the following quote comes in:

I can only think of a few spots where it's natural to brake and essentially wouldn't count on gaining anything from the braking.

This is slightly off - the potential energy in the car is recovered, regardless of whether you're braking or not.

On a gradual hill, the potential energy will mostly be used to overcome the wind resistance as you're going downhill. You'll find (as I'm sure you know intuitively) that you'll use much less throttle on the downhill than you did on the uphill, thus consuming less of whatever energy source you use to power your vehicle.

Where regenerative braking comes in is when the rate of recovery of potential energy is so large (because of the steepness of the road) that you exceed your desired speed.

In the case of an ICE vehicle with no regenerative braking, you'll be forced to use the brakes - turning that valuable energy into heat that gets dissipated uselessly into the atmosphere.

In your electric car, you'll instead get to use regenerative braking to transfer some of that energy back into the battery (I couldn't find a very reliable source for regenerative system efficiency, but found an old Tesla blog that suggested it might be around 80%). So you won't get exactly all of your potential energy back, but you'll at least get most of it back.

The real thing that will make the difference is the average speed you travel, whether uphill or downhill. Because the wind resistance is unrecoverable energy, and the energy required to overcome wind resistance goes up as the square of speed, you really want to try to keep your speeds as low as practical (or hone your drafting skills).

 

[johnnylingo]

you can get a slow charge or a quick charge, during a meal or a break.

Unfortunately there are no chargers right around where I work, so getting a charge means going a bit out of my way and waiting around for 30 minutes. I don't mind having to do that once a month, but having to do it once a week might give me buyer's remorse.

While I do prefer the e-Golf the most overall, the Soul, Volt, and i3 are on the map as well, and I know all those should go over 80 miles even with hill.

 

[JoulesThief]

you can get a slow charge or a quick charge, during a meal or a break.

Unfortunately there are no chargers right around where I work, so getting a charge means going a bit out of my way and waiting around for 30 minutes. I don't mind having to do that once a month, but having to do it once a week might give me buyer's remorse.

While I do prefer the e-Golf the most overall, the Soul, Volt, and i3 are on the map as well, and I know all those should go over 80 miles even with hill.

VW guarantees 83 miles, worst case conditions. Turn off the AC, pay attention, don't push it hard, and you will see 100- 110 miles between recharges, or a bit more. It's in how your thrash it, drive it, or conserve it, your battery charge.

 

[johnnylingo]

one rule of thumb for another EV is that you use 7 miles of range per 1,000 feet climbing and gain 6 miles per 1,000 feed descending. So, going up and down 2,000 feet only has a 2 mile penalty compared to flat roads

Yeah, I found similar reports from a Kia Soul driver who does San Jose / Santa Cruz. He reported a slight net loss on range, but said it's essentially negligible, like 2% drop in range overall for the round trip.

Don't try to keep up with traffic downhill, people drive that damn road like a racetrack.

Yes, what you're saying makes complete sense - letting the controls handle the descent to gain back charge should work well. I was able to test drive the i3 on a major hill and saw for myself how riding that system during the descent actually gained a couple miles.

The bummer about 17 is it's often a two speed road, even when I come over in the late morning. I'll take the downhill curves at 60mph and will still get someone riding up behind me on occasion. Then in the right lane you've got trucks doing 45. Kind of a no-win situation, but I'd rather take the extra 2 minutes on the commute than stop for charging.

 

[miimura]

The bummer about 17 is it's often a two speed road, even when I come over in the late morning. I'll take the downhill curves at 60mph and will still get someone riding up behind me on occasion. Then in the right lane you've got trucks doing 45. Kind of a no-win situation, but I'd rather take the extra 2 minutes on the commute than stop for charging.

Exactly. Driving a little slower in an EV makes a big difference. Sometimes enough of a difference that you won't have to charge at all on the trip. If you count the total time on a trip that requires charging, you will find that unless you have DC Fast Charge, driving slower will reduce the total trip time because of the reduced charging time required. This is especially true if you have a car with a low power L2 charger on board like the 2016 e-Golf SE.

 

[mfennell]

I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to any commute unless I could make it with 70% of original battery capacity, since VW will backstop you at that point.

 

[bizzle]

I don't understand "backstop" in that context. Can you explain what you meant, please?

 

[mfennell]

I don't understand "backstop" in that context. Can you explain what you meant, please?

The 8yr/100k mile battery warranty is for 70% capacity. The car should have at least that capacity for the period under warranty.

 

[johnnylingo]

I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to any commute unless I could make it with 70% of original battery capacity, since VW will backstop you at that point.

Note that my "typical" commute is 55 miles round trip, so I could still make that with a 70% capacity scenario. The additional runs to Sunnyvale will become less frequent starting mid-2016, so unless I have battery troubles during the first year (highly unlikely) I'll be fine.

Also I'll be leasing, so not too worried about battery range drop long term.

 

[JoulesThief]

I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to any commute unless I could make it with 70% of original battery capacity, since VW will backstop you at that point.

Note that my "typical" commute is 55 miles round trip, so I could still make that with a 70% capacity scenario. The additional runs to Sunnyvale will become less frequent starting mid-2016, so unless I have battery troubles during the first year (highly unlikely) I'll be fine.

Also I'll be leasing, so not too worried about battery range drop long term.

It is with this type of mentality, that I would never, ever even consider buying a used leased car. The driver takes no pride in ownership, since they don't own the car, they do nothing more than rent it and abuse it, it's not theirs. There are gonna be a lot of crappy e-Golfs showing up in 2018, off lease, for sale.

 

[bizzle]

I wouldn't feel comfortable committing to any commute unless I could make it with 70% of original battery capacity, since VW will backstop you at that point.

Note that my "typical" commute is 55 miles round trip, so I could still make that with a 70% capacity scenario. The additional runs to Sunnyvale will become less frequent starting mid-2016, so unless I have battery troubles during the first year (highly unlikely) I'll be fine.

Also I'll be leasing, so not too worried about battery range drop long term.

It is with this type of mentality, that I would never, ever even consider buying a used leased car. The driver takes no pride in ownership, since they don't own the car, they do nothing more than rent it and abuse it, it's not theirs. There are gonna be a lot of crappy e-Golfs showing up in 2018, off lease, for sale.

That's not what he said.

I also lease and I also take care of the leased vehicle. I don't abuse it but I also don't care what the long term usability of the car is going to be after 6 or 8 years. I don't think it's wise to buy an electric vehicle just yet because of those concerns. But there's nothing in my feelings or behavior that should lead anyone to think that I am going to abuse the vehicle that I'm leasing. That's not a fair or accurate assessment.

 

[mfennell]

Well stated. The lease is a hedge against the unknown. I'm fairly certain there are a number of Leaf owners in the southwest who wished they had leased.