When you buy an electric car, are you most worried about the battery life?
With the arrival of winter recently, as the temperature drops, electric vehicles have begun to increase their frequency of being "fathers".
shows that the battery life is 500, but it actually stops after 200.
Not to mention those "electric dads" who have been playing with false marks since the beginning. When winter comes, they start at 50% off and there is no bottom cover.
In the past two years, in response to the battery life anxiety of many car owners, many electric vehicle manufacturers have advertised "ultra-long battery life".
According to advertisements, the cruising range is five to six hundred kilometers:
But when you actually buy a car, you find that the battery life of an electric car seems to be a metaphysics:
Normally running at high speeds and turning on the air conditioner, the loss of battery life makes people tremble. When winter comes, it becomes even more trembling.
Moreover, electric vehicles also have the problem of "virtual electricity".
Some time ago, I drove a high-performance luxury e-mule. As soon as the weather got cold, the battery level started to drop off a cliff with about 20% left, and it even went to bed immediately.
You will find that when actually driving, it is always difficult to reach the cruising range advertised by car companies.
So why is the battery life shrinking? What’s so fishy about car manufacturers’ publicity?
Why is there such a big gap between the actual mileage and the manufacturer’s propaganda?
Hi everyone, I'm Newton, the trolley watcher.
Let us explore the business B-side under the "wave of the times" of new energy.
1
In fact, most of the cruising ranges advertised on the surface are word games played by car companies.
If you look carefully at their promotional pages, more respectable manufacturers will usually mark the words "highest" and "ideal conditions" in an inconspicuous corner:
So how are the numbers of "highest" and "ideal conditions" measured?
There are a lot of tricks here that can be operated. We first need to understand the current mainstream battery life test standards:
NEDC, CLTC, WLTP and EPA.
Generally speaking, they are test standards that simulate the driving conditions of vehicles in cities, suburbs, highways, etc., and comprehensively consider vehicle energy consumption and battery life.
Different standards have different scopes of application. Currently, most domestic new energy vehicle companies use NEDC and CLTC.
NEDC stands for New European Driving Cycle.
Although it has the word "new", it is actually the "old party" of the last century. The last update was in 1997...
and it mainly refers to Europe The driving environment of the Asian city includes four urban driving cycles and one suburban driving cycle:
The whole "theoretical distance" is 10932m, the total test time is 1180s, and the average speed is only 33.35 km/h.
This test speed can be said to be quite friendly for electric vehicles.
plus the standard NEDC test is not a road test, but is conducted on a roller bench:
During the test, the temperature must not only be maintained at 20–30 °C, but “non-essential” auxiliary load equipment such as air conditioning, headlights, and heated seats must also be turned off.
There is still a "billion points" difference between the entire test environment and our actual driving. In this case, the measured cruising range will naturally be artificially high.
Therefore, WLTP and EPA with more stringent standards followed.
However, the battery life data measured under these two standards is far less good-looking than that of NEDC, so naturally many car companies voted with their feet.
And another darling of new energy car companies, CLTC, stands for China light-duty vehicle test cycle.
It is part of CATC (China automotive test cycle: China automobile driving conditions), and is also tested on a bench under standard conditions.
The difference from NEDC is that CLTC is a set of standards tailored based on domestic urban road traffic conditions.
It includes China Passenger Car Driving Conditions (CLTC-P) and China Light Commercial Vehicle Driving Conditions (CLTC-C):
Here we still use the passenger car working condition (CLTC-P) for explanation:
It is divided into three speed ranges: low speed, medium speed and high speed. The total test time is 1800s, and the total mileage has also increased to 14.48km.
And taking into account traffic congestion, CLTC-P has added more idling and acceleration and deceleration tests.
seems to be more reasonable overall.
However, its measured battery life value is even greater.
For example, after changing to CLTC operating conditions for a popular foreign model, the official cruising range increased directly from the original 605km to 675km:
Why?
We know that due to the characteristics of the motor, the overall conversion efficiency of electric vehicles will decrease at high speeds, and more electrical energy will be lost as the speed increases.
CLTC-P simulates the domestic urban road environment, and the maximum speed (114km/h) and average speed (28.96km/h) are both low.
In addition, when we drive every day, we will also be affected by various aspects such as load, road conditions, temperature, etc.
The first two are easy to understand. The heavier the car, the harder the road, and the greater the rolling resistance, the higher the power consumption of the electric vehicle will naturally be, and the cruising range will be shortened.
The battery life effect is completely different when I usually drive with Aban and Fu.
As for the temperature:
Discounts on the battery life of electric vehicles in winter are a commonplace issue, and those that are outrageous can be directly discounted in half or even more.
On the one hand, because of the "killers" of battery life such as air conditioning and heated seats, the battery has to spend extra energy to heat the car; on the other hand, electric vehicles currently use liquid batteries such as ternary lithium and lithium iron phosphate.
At low temperatures, the electrolyte will become viscous and the chemical activity of lithium ions will decrease, causing the battery's available capacity to decay.
These are the reasons why it is difficult for us to drive the cruising range advertised by car companies every day.
2
Of course, where there are standards, there will be confrontation.
In order to refresh the battery life data and better deceive consumers, many car companies began to understand the wrong ideas:
For example, before entering the NEDC working condition test, they deliberately increased the tire pressure and adjusted the Or disconnect the brakes to reduce friction, or simply glue the gap between the body panel and the window to reduce air resistance. Even outrageous, they will directly remove the rearview mirror...
Some car companies will also play word games on battery life standards and model names.
Those who have been paying attention to electric vehicles for a long time should have the impression:
In the past few years, car companies have used mileage measured under "constant speed conditions" for publicity.
What is the constant velocity condition?
To put it simply, it means turning off "non-essential" electrical equipment such as car lights and air conditioners, and driving at a constant speed as much as possible at the best economic speed of the electric vehicle (usually 40-60km/h) at a very ideal room temperature, and finally achieve an exaggerated battery life data.
Just like the mobile phone industry’s crazy benchmarking in previous years, thief manufacturers use this standard to beat their friends everywhere.
I still remember hearing from friends in the industry that some respectable manufacturers directly froze mobile phones in the refrigerator to test them.
Many times, you have to admire these people.
What’s even more outrageous is that some car companies will directly turn these inflated battery life data into vehicle models and stick them on the butt of the car.
I’m afraid you don’t know.
For example, a certain model XX530 has a maximum cruising range of 530 kilometers advertised online:
However, this is under "constant speed operating conditions", and its cruising range under NEDC comprehensive operating conditions is only 410 kilometers.
If it really runs, it may only have a range of more than 300 kilometers...
3
Having said so much, everyone must do their homework before buying an electric car.
When buying a car, don’t just look at the battery life data advertised by the manufacturer, let alone be fooled by the vehicle model, but look at the specific test standards.
Generally speaking, among the above endurance standards, the endurance data under constant speed conditions are the most unreliable, CLTC numbers are relatively large, and NEDC is relatively more realistic.
If you roughly rank their reliability, it would probably be:
EPAWLTPNEDCCLTC constant speed working condition.
Of course, battery life itself has a lot to do with driving habits and driving conditions, and it is difficult to measure accurately.
Therefore, this standard still provides a relative reference between different models, and horizontal comparison is of greater significance.
For example, compare the cruising ranges of different brands of electric vehicles under CLTC standards.
absolute values are for reference only.
Moreover, you must be mentally prepared before buying. The actual cruising range will most likely be lower than advertised.
It is best to first read the relevant reviews online or go to the forum to determine the specific "battery life discount", and then decide whether to buy it based on your own needs.
Nowadays, if you search on the Internet, there are a lot of complaints about the shrinking battery life of electric vehicles:
This is actually very detrimental to the development of the entire new energy market.
Of course, this content is not intended to deny or badmouth new energy vehicles.
Every technical attempt is worthwhile, but if we want to develop the automobile industry and achieve overtaking in corners, we still have a long way to go, and more regulations and unified standards are needed.
Here I also want to popularize some standards and common sense in this industry.
If you find it helpful, you are welcome to forward it to the people around you.
I am Newton Dundun who is full of industry insiders. Remember to follow me and let’s take off the disguise of this world together.
