Petrol/diesel cars do dramatically different MPG at various speeds, probably mostly due to aerodynamic drag going up steeply. No reason why EVs should be different.
At 45mph my diesel VW does about 70mpg, reducing to 45mpg at 75mph.
But also the mfgs are allowed to cheat. They are allowed to remove mirrors, windscreen wiper, and tape up gaps around doors etc. Use special thin engine oil… Apart from the engine oil, they are likely to be using the same tricks in EVs. And nobody will verify it for sure because while you can drive a normal car with a jerrycan of fuel in it (in case you run out) you can’t do that with an EV. I am sure the range data presented is partly faked; for example the battery capacity will be downgraded when the car is new otherwise you would see a continual degradation over the years which would be bad marketing. This sort of thing is normal in electrical appliances, where one rounds numbers off to look good. I’ve done this, on customer instructions…
I see that we don’t have the same understanding of a “family car”.
Which brings to mind…
Peter wrote:
But also the mfgs are allowed to cheat.
Not anymore. the old NEDC test did not prohibit it, so it was “allowed”, and shenanigans were common. To add to your list, disconnected or even removed accessories including the alternator, special components (tiny battery, special air filters, custom bearings), special “straight” wheel alignment, special tyres and over-inflation to reduce rolling resistance etc. And that doesn’t even include outright fraud like the test cycle detecting ECUs.
It was replaced by WLTP which must be done “as sold”, includes a tester actually driving a car on a real road in real traffic, and includes surveillance of cars actually sold and driven for a few thousand miles.
I am sure they will do what they can, but the scope is much reduced.
We had a discussion here about modern cars being nannies to guide our driving. We might as well cover this:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260513-your-car-is-spying-on-you-its-about-to-get-worse
Interestingly, this seems to be a big thing in the ‘country of the free’. So stand by to receive a bill from your insurance company after a one-day road trip of 1.100 km if you’re more than 65 YO or the like.
I can imagine people sticking to their old cars or opting out of data gathering. Or hacking their way out of it. Nice business opportunity for good nerds.
Interesting article. I found this especially amusing:
Kia spokesperson James Bell says the company has never actually collected data on drivers’ sex lives or health.
Just as well there was no telemetry when “we” were at university 
Disabling telemetry should be easy. The problem is if the car shuts itself down, because it cannot do software updates or whatever.
Pretty obviously OTA (over the air) updates are a huge business risk; you can never be 100% sure you won’t brick the product. The phone manufacturers risk this with every update but a) they do very careful testing b) they roll out updates to 3rd World countries first c) the economic loss of a bricked phone is probably tiny so litigation would be limited. With a car the risk is a lot bigger. I do a product which could have OTA updates but it isn’t enabled (except for downloading a TLS certificate file) and would never be used with large customers because they can sue you out of business.
Peter wrote:
Kia spokesperson James Bell says the company has never actually collected data on drivers’ sex lives or health.
That statement could by taken to imply that collecting such data would be possible. I wonder how… 
Cars have for ages had sensors in the seats which detect if a person is sitting there – for seat belt warnings. So you could detect “certain activities” from the, ahem, frequency spectrum. An FFT is no problem these days
That inevitably leads to a well known Fiat Panda commercial, which would need a different method to detect
alioth wrote:
On the way home, all the petrol stations had shut for the night
Where is that? Around here, every station is open 24/7. The shop may be closed, but no one use the shops anyway these days for other than getting a hot dog, an ice cream or empty some “waste”
Regarding EVs there’s substantial lobbying against it in EU. This is caused by Chinese manufacturers taking over the EV market. They are at the front now, and European manufacturers limping after. The only thing they can come up with is nostalgia, but the cars themselves and the technology, even the experience in everyday use, is inferior. Tesla is still the one that offers most bang for the buck, which is rather remarkable after all these years.
Having rented a BYD recently, I remain to be convinced Chinese cars are any more fun to drive than one of these
Are there ANY modern cars that are fun to drive (excluding exotica like Ferrari etc)?
My Dacia Duster certainly isn’t. But it does an excellent job of getting me where I want to go, at low cost. I think that’s all you can hope for. and preferably without too many beeps. (A friend just bought a brand-new Duster, which apparently has a single button you press at startup to remove all the beeps and boops you’ve said you don’t want. Sounds fantastic to me.)
