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what affects the range of an electric car

hey guys I'm Brett the nerdy engineer I'm currently at a supercharger and it got me thinking about range and the different things that impact your range in electric vehicle now when you drive the gasoline car very few people ever care about range you know most people don't know how far they can go on a single tank of gas with their car but with an electric vehicle range is pretty important there's a lot of different things that affect range the first ones are obvious even to most people that drive a gasoline car speed and acceleration if you're driving on the interstate at 80 miles an hour versus 70 your car is not gonna go as far on a tank of gas and the same thing holds true for an electric vehicle you're not gonna have as much range and likewise if you're accelerating really hard in an electric car that's really gonna impact your range so those are two main things that you have control over with an electric vehicle you can always go a little slower and not accelerate as hard and that's really gonna help out your range the other things that affect your range you don't really have control over and those are weather-related the first weather related one is the wind if you're driving into a strong headwind you know 10 20 miles an hour that's effectively like driving an extra 10 or 20 miles an hour faster when you're at high speeds the biggest impact of range is the wind resistance so when you're driving into a strong headwind it's basically the same as driving that much faster the other one is precipitation if the roads are wet from snow or rain then your wheels are gonna have as much traction and that's gonna negatively impact your range the last environmental impact is just temperature to maintain the battery life Tesla's have active thermal management and that means that they'll heat or cool the battery to keep it within the ideal range when it's really hot out or it's really cold then your car has to work that much harder to keep the battery inside that range likewise when it's really cold or hot out then you're gonna either crank the the heat or the AC to stay more comfortable but those things have a noticeable impact on your range so that's something to consider if you're on a road trip and you're concerned with having enough range to make it to the next charger the biggest thing you can do is just slow down if you slow down about ten miles an hour that'll greatly increase the amount of range that you have the other thing you can do is turn on range mode and range mode does a couple of things the biggest thing it does is reduces the climate control so the car is not going to cool as much or heat as much but it also reduces the torque to the wheels to make them more efficient most people when they drive on the interstate they're just trying to get to their destination as fast as they can which means driving as fast as they can that same logic doesn't hold true for an electric vehicle if you're gonna have to stop and charge along your route then it really doesn't make any sense to drive faster because you're just kind of to charge for longer so superchargers are fast but they're not really fast enough to where it makes sense to to speed to the next supercharger you're just gonna be sitting there longer when you're super charging it's best to only charge enough to get to your destination plus a buffer super charging is the fastest when you're around the middle ranges your battery so if you have the really low end then it's gonna charge little slower to front damage to the battery same thing at the high end once you get above eighty it starts tapering and then once you get above 90 it goes really slow so it doesn't really make sense to charge at the really extreme ends of the range I also want to clear up a couple misconceptions about other things that impact range I've seen some people that think that charging their phones gonna hurt their range or listen to the radio things like that and those things they really don't have any measurable impact when you think about the size of the battery in your phone it's you know might be about a third of the size of your phone so the batteries on the Tesla they're about the size of a double a battery they're a little bit fatter and they stretch from the front wheels to the back wheels and there's over 7,000 of them in the car so you think about that much of massive battery the size of your phone battery is very minuscule it's like a rounding error so don't be concerned about charging devices you can charge everything you want to you're not going to have any noticeable impact on your range same thing with radio and all that stuff it's really not going to affect anything the the biggest drivers of range are speed and your climate control so in summary if you find yourself on a road trip where you're running into wind and rain or snow the biggest thing you could do to make sure you'll have enough range to get your destination or the next charger is just slow down you can also turn on range mode you know use your seat warmers instead of cranking the AC or the heat I mean those little things will help also in the winter just you know dress warm don't don't wear a t-shirt and shorts when it's zero degrees outside and crank your heat up because that's really gonna affect your range well that's it for this video I hope you guys found it useful and if you're ever out there driving and you run into some bad weather now you know just to try to slow down to offset that range loss if you're you know concerned about making it to your destination don't forget to Like and subscribe to my channel and that way you can see my upcoming videos if you're considering buying a Tesla if you use my referral link and I'll put it in description down below then you can save $1,000 off the purchase price it's a little thing Tesla's doing right now they're trying to encourage word-of-mouth marketing instead of having to pay for a traditional advertising campaign feel free to use my link or if you know somebody you've got a friend that owns a Tesla then ask them for their referral link before you place an order for a Tesla that way you save a thousand bucks well thank you guys for watching I appreciate it and I'll see you in the next video.

Renault ZOE - 245 miles

Audi e-tron - 248 miles

Mercedes EQC - 259 miles

Hyundai Kona Electric - 279 miles

Kia Soul EV - 280 miles

Kia e-Niro - 282 miles

Jaguar I-Pace - 292 miles

Tesla Model X Long Range - 314 miles

Tesla Model 3 Long Range - 348 miles

Tesla Model S Long Range - 379 miles