Has anyone made a trip to Lake Arrowhead in their E-Golf? I am trying to find the best route, either Rim or the World, charging first at the bottom on Hallmark PKWY or City Creek rd charging at Highland ave beforehand. I did manage to make a trip to big bear but had to charge at a private residence near the top in order to make it. But Lake arrowhead is 1000’ lower than Big Bear so I am hoping I can make it the whole way. Any advice?
Lake arrowhead
- Thread starter P3ters
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JoulesThief
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P3ters said:
Really not good for the battery, discharigng it as such a hard rate climbing 4000 to 5000 feet in elevation. Would really suggest you ride a bike up that grade, like I have on my mountain bike, to get a better feel for how much energy it takes to climb, and how much heat you would generate, gaining that much vertical feet.
Take a regular petroleum powered car instead, if you have the option, you won't kill the battery on your e-Golf. It has no Liquid cooling capacity, it's passively cooled. It's really not designed or engineered for that kind of usage. It's more a city and or an urban dweller type of vehicle.
If you drive the car to a high elevation, the ambient temperatures will be relatively cool, so it's less stress on the battery than driving at 70 mph on a road in the valley where the temps are in the 90's or 100's. Also, since mountain roads generally don't allow for high speed, you are probably drawing less power (and thus generating less heat) than when driving at high speed on the flats. If you do the math, you'll find that lifting the car 5000 feet is equal to about 6.5 kWh. On a 2017 e-Golf, that's about 1/5 of the usable battery capacity, so you should go for it.
f1geek said:
Anecdotally I see a 1.7 miles/kWh consumption rate when I drive 4.5 miles with a 1,000' elevation gain to the park where I frequently hike with my dog. That works out to around 2.6 kWh for the trip. Assuming that 4.5 miles on level ground takes 1 kWh then 1.6 kWh was used for the 1,000' climb.
For a 23 mile, 5,000' climb:
Elevation gain: 5 * 1.6 = 8 kWh
Distance: 23 / 4.5 = 5.1 kWh
Total: 13 kWh
Still, it should be doable if starting at the bottom with a nearly full charge since a lot of energy will be recuperated on the way down. In my case the 9 mile, 1,000' up/down round trip from home to the park nets ~4.4 miles/kWh.
Edit:
I checked a route from Highland to Lake Arrowhead on evtripplanner.com. There isn't a choice for the e-Golf but using "Nissan Leaf (beta)" its calculation is very close to my back of the envelope math:
Distance 21.3 miles
Total Energy Used 11.1 kWh
Average Efficiency 520 Wh/mile
Net Elevation Change 3897 feet
If it is really only 23 miles each way and 5000' of climbing total I am guessing you should be fine based on our experience driving from Santa Cruz to San Jose and back a number of times now in our 2015. The summit of Hwy 17 is a little over 1800' and our round trip miles are usually 50-60 with 3600' of climbing (have to climb the hill twice for the round trip). We get a lot of regen coming down the hill (using D1, D2, D3) and pretty much never touching the brakes. Typically we have around 25-33% battery and ~35 miles on the GOM when we get home. Not an exact comparison, but similar enough. As far as energy use going up the hill, we seldom are out of the blue range all the way up the hill easily maintaining the 50mph speed limit. I can not imagine that being too bad for the car. They have hills in Germany too.
Really high SoCal temperatures while climbing the grade could knock your range down to the point of becoming a problem. Most of our round trips over the hill have been in cooler weather. Below 80-90 probably okay, over 100 probably not.
Another data point is my work. I live at sea level and work on a hill at 860 feet. The climb itself is only 3 miles so it is a pretty steep climb. Category 4 in the cycling world (lowest "rated" climb). This was my daily bicycle commute before doctors told me I couldn't ride anymore (go figure) so I am well aware of the energy it takes to get up the hill. This past week I returned to work after ankle surgery and I am still only partial weight bearing so my wife has been driving me in the e-Golf. Even with the two trips up the hill (so around 1600 feet and ~30 miles for the two round trips) combined with her usual 30+ miles per day she has been averaging around 4.4kw/mi this week.
Really high SoCal temperatures while climbing the grade could knock your range down to the point of becoming a problem. Most of our round trips over the hill have been in cooler weather. Below 80-90 probably okay, over 100 probably not.
Another data point is my work. I live at sea level and work on a hill at 860 feet. The climb itself is only 3 miles so it is a pretty steep climb. Category 4 in the cycling world (lowest "rated" climb). This was my daily bicycle commute before doctors told me I couldn't ride anymore (go figure) so I am well aware of the energy it takes to get up the hill. This past week I returned to work after ankle surgery and I am still only partial weight bearing so my wife has been driving me in the e-Golf. Even with the two trips up the hill (so around 1600 feet and ~30 miles for the two round trips) combined with her usual 30+ miles per day she has been averaging around 4.4kw/mi this week.
I just made the drive up to Big Bear Lake from the Highland charging station at Walmart. Started with an 83 percent charge, made the 29 mile drive up to Big Bear and still had about 40 percent left. That was driving on Eco or Eco+, and I do have the newer (2017) e-Golf. I did read that one post about such a drive (with the intense elevation gain) not being good on the battery, though others disagreed with that person. I do know that when I drove the e-Golf up to Big Bear this past weekend I drove more conservatively than I would have if I had taken our Subaru Outback, often times pulling in to turnouts to let others pass. I really didn't feel like I was straining the battery, esp. since I was using either the Eco or Eco+ mode which really limits the torque (but was still adequate for getting me up the mountain without annoying drivers behind me).
I think what I have learned over the six months or so of driving my 2017 e-Golf is that I don't have to just use it for a daily commuter around the city. The car is such a great car to drive that I would like to enjoy it on longer trips as well. As long as I know I can get a charge somewhere at my destination or on the way, it's worth at least taking the car on short-duration trips, which for me means driving from the Los Angeles area 100 miles or so up to Big Bear Lake.
JoulesThief
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On 6-29-18, I drove from Atlantic City, WY to Los Angeles,CA in my 2015 Passat SEL TDI. Filled up in Salt Lake City and next fill up was this morning. Left at 8:15 AM and arrived home at 12:30 AM on 6-30-18. About 935 miles, as I also stopped in at the VW dealership in Salt Lake City.
The e-Golf, for me is for local stuff, only. Not going to take it if I have to recharge at the destination. I've grown to distrust public charging stations as being grossly abused. My e-Golf, will be almost exclusively recharged at home in my garage, from here on out. I'll gladly pay at the pump for diesel fuel, for what my spare time is worth. Not going to wait at a public recharge facility where a kWh is $0.33
The e-Golf, for me is for local stuff, only. Not going to take it if I have to recharge at the destination. I've grown to distrust public charging stations as being grossly abused. My e-Golf, will be almost exclusively recharged at home in my garage, from here on out. I'll gladly pay at the pump for diesel fuel, for what my spare time is worth. Not going to wait at a public recharge facility where a kWh is $0.33
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