Just plug it in when you get home and unplug it when you’re leaving. The upside to home charging is that you never have to go to the gas station. Fortunately, most driving is local, which makes things a lot easier when it comes to range. The exception to this is if you’re a used dealer selling older low-range or heavily degraded cars.
CALVARY CHARGE BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III DRIVERS
Charging At Home or Workįor local driving, most drivers on most days will only use a small fraction of the car’s range. It’s not perfect, so you’ll need to advise them to leave some margin, but it’s a whole lot better than assuming you’ll be able to drive the EPA range on any road under all circumstances. It knows that going faster means more energy use, as does colder temperatures, more weight in the car, and other factors.
It knows the terrain, so it’ll know if an EV is going to use more energy going uphill, and factor that in. It can run on your phone (app or website), a tablet, or in the car’s infotainment system if it has a web browser. If you’re selling a vehicle with either no in-dash trip planner or one that’s not very good, It’s best to refer buyers to A Better Routeplanner (ABRP). If a trip planner shows a perfect circle around the car on the map showing its range, that’s a good sign that you’re dealing with a poorly designed planner. By good, I mean a trip planner that factors in not just charging station locations, but also speed limits, terrain, and hopefully temperature, among other factors that affect range. If the car has a good trip planner built in, this is probably the best way to help them out. Unless you want an irate customer demanding you take the car back and talking to the local news, it’s a good idea to make sure they have realistic expectations. Just like gas cars, the EPA numbers don’t give you the mileage you will get in the real world unless you always drive just like the manufacturer’s test drivers. It turns out that EPA range ratings can be very deceptive, as can range estimators in gauge clusters.
But, as you blast down the highway at 80 MPH, you notice the range estimator on the screen dropping like a rock, and before long, it predicts that you aren’t going to have enough miles to make it. So, you pack up the suitcases, load up the family, and take a weekend trip to go show off the new EV. The next town with a rapid charger is 240 miles away, and your parents live there. You buy an EV that says it has 250 miles of range. Picture this: you’re a first-time EV buyer.