STM317 said:
Keith Tanner said:
STM317 said:
Keith Tanner said:
What's more interesting is "able to charge 93.4 kWh in 23 minutes using a fast charger", but without details that's just handwaving. What kind of charger, and are there any in the wild? Electrify America will be the "home" network for these, as it's a VAG product. It's also interesting that Audi and Porsche are cool with range numbers in the mid-200s. The market is still suffering from range anxiety ("but what if I have to do the Cannonball Run to save my family from terrorists?"), but I suspect that if you pull data on what people are actually doing with modern EVs that's a pretty good number to. aim for.
Also interesting - how to make aerodynamic wheels that look good. Definitely a better looking car overall than the Taycan or any other EV currently for sale.
This Audi and the Taycan are both capable of charging at a rate up to 270kw with EA's latest and greatest fast chargers.
In general, the Taycan on EA's fastest outcharges the Model S on Tesla's fastest chargers
As for range, the Taycan seems to be very competitive to the Model S in the real world, even though the Model S has the much better rating on paper.
These guys got a Taycan S rated for 203miles to drive 278 miles on the highway without any crazy tricks
So how widespread are those 270 kW chargers? That's what I was wondering. Is it a legitimate real-world stat or a "someday" thing, like 5G network speeds. I expect charging rates will keep climbing for everyone, but it's really only useful info if you can actually do it. In reality, the vast majority of charging will be done at home overnight.
As for rated range, I just go with the EPA because nobody else has a standard. Kinda like fuel economy. If the public will accept a published range of mid-200s regardless of what random YouTubers have done, that's actually progress.
The first article indicates that the fastest chargers from both EA and Tesla may be equally hard to come by in the real world:
"we visited each model's quickest charger, which is easier said than done, as both are extremely rare today. Even in the greater Los Angeles area, where we conducted our test, which has more EV density than most American cities, there are only one of each: an Electrify America unit in Burbank, and a V3 Supercharger at Space X's Hawthorne, headquarters." Obviously that's likely to change in the coming years, but right now it's hard to do on either charging network.
Agreed on the single standard thing. It makes things easier. But the whole point is to have a tool for comparison, and when the real world range is vastly different from rated range for different models, it might indicate that the test isn't indicative of the real world, or that certain models may be optimized for the test (in order to gain market advantage) while others are not. Either way, with range (on paper) being a huge point of focus for EV buyers and detractors alike it seems like having some real world data might be helpful for consumers. And there's a lot of real world data that indicates the Taycan (and presumably it's Audi counterpart) frequently see more than their rated range in situations where range is important, like highway driving. That's worth mentioning when lots of detractors will proclaim disappointment with "only" 200-250 miles of rated range.
Note that my post was not intended as a "VAG is so stupid, only Tesla gets it right" post. It was a serious question. I can look up all the V3 superchargers pretty easily And that article is flawed in so many ways - if you're in Hawthorne, there are V3 superchargers available at Manhattan Beach and Torrance. I don't know how big the "greater LA area" is, but do Malibu, Irvine and Anaheim count? EA chargers above 200 kw are a little less common, but there are a handful in the area according to Plugshare (sorry, don't know how to link but go to plugshare.com and filter for CCS, minimum power of 200 kW and EA for the provider). Then there's the testing methodology, where they're starting with cars at different states of charge and trying to jam them all the way to 100%. More realistic would be to test to 80%, as that last 20% is always super-slow.
But it answers my question. The chargers to reach those speeds are available on the market today. Turns out one of them in is my town :)
Manufacturers aren't allowed to advertise fuel economy numbers other than the offical EPA rating. So if the EPA standard for EVs is flawed, then we need to fix the standard instead of coming up with our own numbers based on internet randos or allowing the Germans to "underrate" their cars for some reason. There should be a representative standard test. My point, however, was that if the manufacturers and the marketplace are willing to accept mid-200s for the range, that's GOOD. It means people will hopefully stop focusing on range as the reason not to buy an EV. I think the market's view will shift as more people start to realize that EVs just plain work differently 90% of the time.
There was a recent interview between Sandy Munro and Elon Musk. Not mentioned enough is how that interview came about - the interview was arranged at 11 pm on a Monday for Friday evening. Munro was in Eugene, OR. He had to haul ass from OR to Boca Chica,TX. 2500 miles/40 hours of driving time in 4 days. That's 10 hours a day (moving time) doing an average speed north of 60 mph, which is a pretty respectable way to cross the country without dying. This wasn't a planned publicity stunt or something carefully planned ahead of time, it was the scenario often laid out of "but what if I have to...". And it's possible today with a mass-market EV. So much for road trip anxiety.
