Motor Trend Attempts LA-to-Las Vegas Drive in Model S EV on One Charge

Posted on by
Print Friendly

 
Editors at Motor Trend were recently loaned a Tesla electric car to put to the test, so that they could determine whether or not it lives up to the manufacturer’s extraordinary claims. They were allowed to keep it for 3 days, so they attempted an LA-to-Las Vegas drive in the Model S… without recharging it.

Tesla Model S.

The Tesla Model S gets an EPA estimated 265 miles range per charge, and Tesla Motors claims that it travels up to 300 miles.

The test drivers made the trip without air conditioning and at relatively low speeds (as little as 52 mph on the freeway, but they cruised at 65 mph). They made the 211-mile trip from the outskirts of Los Angeles to Las Vegas, realizing before the end that they had a fair bit of range to spare, so they turned the air conditioner on near the end. It was simply too hot! (104°).

Here is a map of the area. The purple line is not necessarily the path chosen by the Motor Trend editors, but it is what Google suggested:


View Larger Map

Factors Affecting Range

In the video, they said the range plummeted as their altitude approached 4,000 feet, but they were going uphill. Driving uphill is not equivalent to driving at a high altitude. Altitude is simply distance from the surface of the earth and doesn’t greatly affect EV range.

Uphill driving certainly will affect range, because energy has to be used the whole time to keep the vehicle moving uphill, unlike a trip on a level surface which enables it to coast (due to its inertia), which actually lets them regain some of the energy that they used to accelerate.

This efficiency rule applies to all types of cars — use it!
 


 
Gasoline-powered cars are affected by altitude because of the fact that air density decreases as altitude increases, and the engines are not able to consume as much air. Electric vehicles don’t need air, so they should not be affected by altitude.

Slow traffic, which was encountered near the end of the trip also affects electric vehicle range, in two ways. 1) The more time the vehicle is at rest with the air conditioner on, the more electricity is wasted. 2) Stop and go traffic allows the regenerative breaking to do its magic. Which trumped the other in this story, I’m not sure.

It would have been much more realistic to make the trip with the air conditioner on, and at a higher speed, but hey, they did accomplish their goal!

Source: Autoblog Green

Nicholas Brown (344 Posts)

I have a keen interest in physics-intensive topics such as electricity generation, refrigeration and air conditioning technology, energy storage, geography, and much more. My website is: Kompulsa.


  • Bob_Wallace

    Here’s the blog of a guy driving his new S cross-country. Interestingly he’s driving a luxury car and camping as he goes. One advantage, in addition to saving money, avoiding hotels and spending some time in nature – campsites with RV facilitation will rent you a charge outlet.

    “After heading out of the Wasatch mountains east of Salt Lake City, we drove ~180 miles to the KOA campground in Rock Springs, WY. Surrounded by mountains, we were able to get a standard 80% charge, do some laundry, replace the ice in our frunk cooler and use their free wi-fi to update the blog, skype with family, etc. They charged us $10 for the electricity used during our 5 hour stay. Awesome!
    Rock Springs, WY has to be one of the driest places I’ve ever been. We hung some laundry out and within a half hour, it was bone dry.”

    http://teslamodelsxc.wordpress.com/

  • Sufiy

    Video: Lithium Jolt: Nobuhiro ‘Monster’ Tajima Meets Electric Tesla Model S – Wants One

    “Monster” charged with Electric Tesla Model S can produce a big Flash – the guy in the passenger seat next to Nobuhiro Tajima was sweating, holding with both hands and praying! Tesla Model S is a serious piece of automotive technology – Lithium powered rocket on the wheels – and it can handle even Monster despite all its designer look and high tech pleasantries. It is a Real “Normal’ Super Car – only better.

    http://sufiy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/lithium-jolt-nobuhiro-monster-tajima.html#

  • EcoVater

    the article implies that stop-and-go traffic increases range by “allowing regenerative breaking to “do it’s magic”. This is misleading because you lose more energy to reaccelerate than you regenerate… Going at one steady speed is always better than stopping and going for maximum range.

  • Anonymous

    Physics, yes. Let’s do some physics.

    Altitude is the distance above sea level, not above the earth’s surface.

    A vehicle traveling on level ground cannot both coast and maintain its speed, because it must overcome rolling resistance and air resistance. You can’t regain energy on flat ground at a constant speed.

    When you’re traveling uphill, it takes more energy than traveling at the same speed on a level surface primarily because you’re doing work against gravity to raise the elevation of the vehicle. The rolling resistance should be about the same. I haven’t done the math for air resistance, but a little web searching results in a ballpark estimate of 3-5% less air resistance at 5,000 feet.

    • http://www.kertongroup.com Derek Kerton

      Good comment. Lots of scientific naivete in this article/video and you fixed lots of it.

      I would like to address the video’s quote “The lower the speed you can go on the uphills, the better. Because it’s all about the rate of energy use…”

      That’s wrong. Lower speed saves energy whether on hills or not. Climbing a hill costs you an energy toll which is unrelated to the speed. The two are mostly unrelated.

  • Anne

    “Gasoline-powered
    cars are affected by altitude because of the fact that air density
    decreases as altitude increases, and the engines are not able to consume
    as much air. Electric vehicles don’t need air, so they should not be
    affected by altitude.”

    The answer is in the first sentence: air density
    decreases as altitude increases. So the EV is affected by altitude. In a
    positive way, as the air resistance is lower at altitude.

    “Slow traffic, which was encountered near the end of the trip also affects electric vehicle range, in two ways”

    Actually in three ways. The most important one is that lower speed means lower aerodynamic drag, hence lower consumption. See: http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/model-s-efficiency-and-range

    C’mon, with a ‘keen interest in physics-intensive topics’ you could have figured those out, coudn’t you? ;-)

    Btw, a fresh owner of a Model S is driving his new car home from the factory and keeping a blog of the journey: http://teslamodelsxc.wordpress.com/