Advertised range should be more in line with real range if based on the WLTP test cycle rather than NEDC.
There is a complication when it comes to really cold/dark/wet climates. The cabin heating in particular then eats quite some batt capacity, and obviously at least heating comes ‘free’ in a petrol car. Hence, another variable to take into account in the estimated range which will come a surprise for some people.
Actually, this worked positive for my wife and me. Our i3’s actually consume less than advertised because of the mild climate. Plus we probably both drive more conservatively than the average driver (the fun of rocket acceleration wore off rapidly), adding to our frugal profile. Some figures: 12.2 kWh/100 km. At 0,15 €/kWh that’s 1,83 €/100 km. So the equivalent of just over 1 litre of petrol/100 km. Not bad. Actually, we are mostly charging from our own solar panels.
As to battery loss, one of the i3’s lost 10%, and the other zero. Both 4 yrs old.. Althought 10% is still way removed from warranty territory, BMW regarded this as unacceptable and treated me very fairly.. I also believe Tesla’s loss of batt is quite minimal..
So, while we still have the excuse of not flying electrically for quite some years, we don’t have that excuse for driving. So come one, you lead-spewing gang, compensate a bit by driving electric! 
You’ll see some very interesting models from a range of companies hitting the streets in the next 2 years. OK, here comes the excuse: “the cars are too expensive”. Nope, battery capacity going up, prices coming down and the manufacturers are passing the advantage on to us. Make your sums.. And don’t forget the maintenance savings. The other day i had my 2-years service done. While the mechanic plugged the car in for a S/W update he was scratching his head what else he could think of doing. Ahh, yes, check the brake fluid! Not even checking the brake pads was needed, still on my first ones with all that regenerative braking..
I do my best to promote e-cars here on the island. Imagine, there is almost no way you can empty a battery here in one day..
So might as well do it on this forum.
Forgot to mention the extreme comfort of driving in almost complete silence, and with one pedal..
The only slightly nagging thing of that silence is that pedestrians and bicycles don’t hear you. Have had my share of people walking/cycling in front of me. And I don’t want to scare them sh*tless with my horn! So I open my window and just say ‘goodday!’ They should put a low noise buzzing-like claxon in really… Anyway, looks like in future there will be some automatic sound generated below a certain speed. Hope it is not nagging inside.
LeSving wrote:
fossil cars
I doubt geologists ever dug one out…. 
The Tesla can be configured to show ‘rated miles’ or ‘average miles’. The average miles is calculated your own driving style, with the mix of roads you take. After a few thousand km, it is very reliable; if in doubt, drive slower and you will gain range. If I take the highway at 120kmh or the old road at 70kmh, the range will almost double if driving slower. If you enter the destination in the navcomputer, then the remaining range at destination will continuously update in function of traffic and average speed.
Degradation of the battery is a question of the battery management system, how the temperature of the batterypack is controlled during cold starts, charging, hot climate etc. The Tesla battery is liquid cooled/heated. Several very-high mileage cars have shown that battery degradation is not a factor except for loss of a couple percent (less than 5% usually).
Yet, this charge/discharge/life performance should be impossible to achieve using any known chemistry, so the manufacturers must be faking it.
The “morally acceptable” way of doing that would be to de-rate the batteries for the spec sheet, and not display the extra capacity for the whole time it remains available. That way, after say a year you can say “my battery has not lost any capacity in the past year”, when actually it has gone down from the original to say 92% of the original, but the charge indicator is set up to show 90% as “maximum” so everybody is happy
This sort of thing is standard in software in user interfaces, for continued customer satisfaction. I have implemented similar stuff in various products
And. let’s face it, as we all know, software cheats are standard stuff in the automotive business.
Peter wrote:
The “morally acceptable” way of doing that would be to de-rate the batteries for the spec sheet, and not display the extra capacity for the whole time it remains available. That way, after say a year you can say “my battery has not lost any capacity in the past year”, when actually it has gone down from the original to say 92% of the original, but the charge indicator is set up to show 90% as “maximum” so everybody is happy
But this would mean that after a certain number of years suddenly a drop would start to occur. AFAIK that hasn’t happened yet to the Tesla’s and they have been around for 6 years or so? The BMW also has as active cooling and heating system and has a buffer between the total capacity and the available capacity, so it’s never really fully charged nor completely empty and all that supposedly protects the battery quite well from degradation. Anyway, time will tell. The warranty says 80% (of the originally available capacity, so not including the buffer) in 8 years or 180k km.
aart wrote:
The only slightly nagging thing of that silence is that pedestrians and bicycles don’t hear you
Only at low speeds. There are so many Leaves on the road around here that you’d think it were autumn, but I can hear them on my bike from the tyre roar if they are doing more than about 15 mph, and I can also hear the electric motor (I always know when a Nissan Leaf is about to go by). At low speeds they will be very quiet, but many petrol cars are nearly silent at low speed too. (Probably helps that it’s wet here a lot, cars tyres are extremely loud on wet roads)
Peter wrote:
The “morally acceptable” way of doing that would be to de-rate the batteries for the spec sheet, and not display the extra capacity for the whole time it remains available.
The whole clue is to care properly for the battery. You have a min and a max, but you only use from say 20% to 80%. Below 20% will shorten the life, above 80% will shorten the life. Too much power when cold will shorten the life etc. The charger/car takes care of all this, but you still have the advertised numbers so no there is nothing morally wrong.
A battery for an appliance have a terrible life. Fast charging to 100%, then used at full power until it is empty, then charged again. It’s a recipe for minimum life.
All this is common knowledge by now. Car manufacturers were seriously worried about battery life, but all experience show the battery will outlast the car.
But this would mean that after a certain number of years suddenly a drop would start to occur. AFAIK that hasn’t happened yet to the Tesla’s and they have been around for 6 years or so?
True, but what I failed to point out is that this whole argument is a bit circular. The user interface display of the remaining capacity is, ahem, displaying whatever the programmer wants it to display
And there is absolutely no possible way for the owner to spot this – short of disconnecting the battery pack from the car and connecting it to some sort of battery capacity tester… preferably one not made by the same company as the car
The way to account for what energy is going into a battery and what energy is coming out of a battery is done by integrating the volts x amps (i.e. the power) product over time. 30 years ago I was designing 3 phase kWh meters which did this, on mains. What is impossible to tell is what the battery chemistry is actually got stored at any given time. The only way to get a “definitional” result is by charging a battery fully (with “fully” done according to some criteria) and then discharging it fully (again to some criteria), and do this at a given temperature. But you aren’t going to be doing that while driving along. You also aren’t going to be doing it when the car is in the house being charged. So nobody actually knows what extractable energy is in the battery… well not accurately. And to keep the owner happy you just need to periodically tweak the “100%” capacity" down a bit so everybody is happy. And since nobody drives any given route exactly the same way each time, this will never be detected – well not until it is blatently obvious, which is what happens with [insert your favourite piece of consumer equipment with a LIPO battery] and then you chuck the battery in the bin and buy a (fake “genuine” one) on Ebay :smike:
This “not knowing the real capacity unless you fully charge and then fully discharge” issue was present, and was a problem in the display, in the earliest days and all the time batteries use “chemistry” it isn’t going to go away.
Of course we know car manufacturers could not be cheating on such a massive scale
I wouldn’t buy a range limited commuter car because I’m out of space for an extra vehicle, but some of them are getting to be a very good deal in my local market. A friend of ours recently bought a Fiat 500e (fully electric) to supplement his Ford F-350 truck and other gasoline cars. He mainly uses it to drive to work and back. He loves driving it and for the price it was great – $9K USD in perfect condition with 25K miles… That’s 70% depreciation in three years of low mileage use. He’s just found another one for the same $9K and bought it for his teenage daughter. He’ll be driving his to work for years and has saved a lot by letting the original buyer (probably a lease company) pay a huge depreciation cost.
I’m not sure he cares much how long the battery lasts – it’ll be long enough. He’ll drive it until it’s not servicable and then toss it.
