Editor’s Note: Tesla Shuttle (I’m a cofounder), CleanTechnica (I’m the director), and Quriers are going to try to break the record in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned….
Just a few months after a team in Belgium broke the previous record, a team in Italy has now gone and set yet another new record for hypermiling in an electric car. The Tesla Owners Italia team managed to take a Tesla Model S 100D 1078 kilometers (~670 miles) on a single charge … meaning that the record set in Belgium in June 2017 (~560 miles) was surpassed by a margin of around 110 miles. (Editor’s Note: Yeah, these guys just made our plans a lot more challenging. :D)
That’s quite a large margin to beat a record by, but when you look at the approach used by the Italian team to do so, it begins to make sense. (Also noteworthy here is that the Belgium team was a P100D rather than a 100D, which has a lower potential range, helping to explain the disparity.)
The charging port was sealed by the lawyer #teslarecord pic.twitter.com/JBPmiILW9X
— Tesla Owners Italia (@TeslaOwnersIT) August 4, 2017
The Verge provides more: “Hypermiling is a technique used to conserve gas (or in this case, electricity) which involves driving at a low, consistent speed with minimal use of the vehicle’s brakes. Following word of the June record, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that hitting 1000 km on a single charge should be possible.
“The company’s official club in Italy, Tesla Owners Club Italia, took up the challenge. They used a normal production vehicle outfitted with low rolling resistance tires with the air conditioning turned off. Five drivers completed the task in southern Italy in 29 hours, and noted that the drive was made easier with the car’s autopilot turned on, which ‘helped us keep a constant speed in the middle of the lane’.”
The Tesla CEO made note on Twitter of the new record being set:
Officially verified as the first production electric car to exceed 1000km on a single charge! Congratulations Tesla Owners Italia!! https://t.co/r8fFZIFEP2
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2017
I wonder how long the new record will stand?
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