'Range' isn't really that important - most people don't drive that far every day. What you need on a long run is fast charging so they don't take forever to charge back up. Make the vehicles super efficient and that is possible and the battery can be usefully smaller and lighter too.
The question is why no Kia? I have a Kia Soul Ev. Official range of 280 miles. I easily get 200 miles in below 0 degrees temperatures and averaging 3.7 miles/kWh overall. Pretty good for a boxy shape and air conditioning set to 22 degrees C!
The absence of cheaper cars like the LEAF and Zoe from this test, (that can be bought for nearly half the price of the Model Y) is a shame. Including the Corsa/208 would have been useful too. £35k+ for a car is not an option for many people.
Apart from the fact they had a mini which starts at 29K, the MG is 32.5K and the Ora 32K which are all a similar size/price range as both the Zoe and the Leaf. I'd say they had a reasonable spectrum of sizes and costs of cars present
My Zoe which is really just driven around town and occasionally dual carriageway gets around 150 miles in winter ( according to the car instrumentation) and around 200 miles in the summer. Although I have never run it down to zero it does seem to be somewhat pessimistic on range during a journey so probably do a little bit more ( say 160 winter and 210 summer)
Whilst they happened to use the MG4 Trophy model, the same battery is also used in the £28k SE Long Range version which, since it has slightly better aerodynamics by not having the rear spoilers, actually could've given a better final range. When a 1.0i petrol, manual gearbox, base-level Ford Focus / Vauxhall Astra cost £25k-ish, the MG4 starts to look pretty impressively priced
6:02 That makes sense with your driving pattern. Smaller Wheels is probably better for stop and start traffic while bigger ones is better for high speed driving...
I think you should have included mention of heat pumps in this test. Heat pumps improve efficiency when cabin heating is on so it would have been good to know which cars have one. Otherwise, an excellent comparison. As an aside, I have an MG4 Standard Range with an LFP battery and my actual predicted range in these temperatures is at least 180-190 miles with a 50kWhr battery, temperature set to 19C.
2 months of Born V3 77kw driving which has just , as a whole, winter cold driving and my long term is 3.6 miles per kw. That's in comfort mode , with heater on although I have avoided electric seats and steering wheel as the seats stay quite toasty , quite quickly. But includes more than not pre- heating to defrost and also 'giggle miles' showing friends how nippy it is. I am sure I will get close to 4miles per kw when it warms up. First EV and other than the infotainment is great.
Great video and I hope more people begin to look at miles per kWh as a measure, more so than just the number of miles. If you need a huge battery to get those extra miles, you're paying more than someone with a smaller battery and needing to charge more frequently. Plus if you're charging at home with an off-peak rate of just 4 or 5 hours per night, a smaller battery in a more efficient car is better than a huge battery you can't fully charge in one or two nights. There's still a lot of education to be done with EVs to the wider public, especially with so much disinformation from people funded by the oil industry lobbyists.
Great to see this test, my kia E Niro 4+ can easily do over 210 miles at worst case, boot fully loaded, 3 adults and left standing for 2 weeks. Journies were completed with temps around 2 to 3c. Still had range left when arrived home and turtle mode had just appeared another 15 miles range. Obviously used heating as it was cold. In summer, 270 miles is possible and I have done this a couple of times!
It would be interesting to see the cost (at the domestic 'capped' rate of 34p/kWh?) of running each of the cars too - the difference between the most efficient Mini and Model Y and the Jaguar is close to DOUBLE the cost per mile! 😯 I would love to see a standard Model 3 on that test - I think it should have been in the mid 4's mi/kWh and gone further (and the original, 6 year old design, Ioniq 28 would have been the way most efficient EV.)
Been freezing today. Heating full blast. I've been ragging the s### out of my v6. Driven like I stole the f##$$'x.. still managed over 300 miles... 😂😂😂
Really interesting article. My Q4 has dropped performance in the winter but the nothing that causes a problem. The lack of battery preconditioning and the impact on the charging curve is much more important. Be good to see a winter charging challenge.
Anything over 3.5 miles / kWh is optimum adding a bigger battery to compensate for poor efficiency is never going to work well as that adds weight which lowers efficiency and costs more time and money to charge up. The Mini is very impressive in that regard.
Where are Kia/Hyundai? I have a Niro EV.. it gets about 3.6 miles per kWh in similar winter conditions.. got that driving on a mixed motorway 90 mile trip yesterday.
@@Ben.Royals same corporation.. but the Hyundai and Kias have the models with the highest range for the price. They have been the best value ranged vehicles on the market for a number of years. The Soul EV, Niro, Kona.. all 60+ KWh and top efficiency. The Niro was 3rd best selling EV in the UK for 2022 after Tesla. It’s odd it’s not included in this test.
What wasn't mentioned in this review is that Tesla automatically preconditions the battery in cold conditions when plugged in. Were the other cars having that setting for preconditioning on for optimal battery conditions before setting off on the trial. Unfair to compare without mentioning this setting of used in all the cars
Yes and no. The Tesla will condition the battery for optimal charging performance at the chargers rated output. But not for optimal driving performance. You have to go through the app to precondition the car.
The MG4 seems like a cracking car for the price. Close to the i-pace on range and a 1/3 of the price. Looks quite good too. Will be keeping an eye out for this on the second hand market in a couple of year's time.
I like your approach to detail, but one additional step would be to messure recharged kWh after testing since the WLTP rating is including charging losses and "official" and usable battery sizes might differ. Nevertheless Tesla is certainly one step ahead when it comes to heat management (octovalve) and is quite aggresivly using excess heat from all components incl motors and the battery pack. VW recently announced inhouse developement of thermo components. BMW and Mercedes will also catch up with their MMA and Neue Klasse over the next years, so we probably see 20%-30%+ more range over the next years in winter tests.
The car first in the convoy will not benefit from the lower drag resulting from the car in front. You should space your cars further apart during the test.
Great video, thank you for your effort. I'm no expert and can't say what is the best technology for the future, but the EV's short comings are way to many for me to replace my ICE car. Price, charging, range, insurance etc. EV's are very expensive - can't afford one; I can't charge at home or work(own a flat), so only public charging - expensive and time consuming; range in winter is a joke - just commute to work is 45 miles roundtrip for me, add shopping, dropping of kid at school, travel in days off with the family here and there. I'll have to charge the car every 2-3 days for an hour. Insurance in often more expensive. There is no affordable estate EV's on the market, zero. The range anxiety alone will drive me crazy. Currently I drive an estate diesel car, giving me 800+ motorway miles per fuel tank and refuelling takes 4 may be 5 min.
My BMW i4 e40 msport just passed 6,000 miles. Driving about 70% highway in Eco mode and averaging 5-7 mph over the limit, it routinely gets 4.0 mi/kWh in mild weather (temps mid-40s to 60s F). The worst efficiency so far was 3.0 mi/kWh with temp 4 F. In less severe winter weather (high 20s to high 30s) it averages about 3.5 mi/kW). I usually set the cabin to 64 F, the seat heater to low, and use the steering wheel heater. So far I’m impressed with the car and happy that it can do my once weekly 150 mile round trip commute in the worst conditions while keeping the state of charge between 20-80%. We have only had the car since October, so no data for very hot days.
I've just ordered a BMW i4 E Drive 40 M Sport Pro. We seldom get weather that cold in winter in the UK, so to see that you get this efficiently in -20 degrees C is fairly impressive. Mine is due at the dealership in a month, looking forward to it.
@@kliment75better quality? Unlikely. It's a decent EV, but it is definitely not better quality. The materials and finish of the car are on a much higher level in the BMW and whilst looks are subjective, the i4 looks much more sleak and upmarket. Efficiency and sell price are not the only selling point. Driving dynamics and overall appeal are paramount for me as a daily hack.
@Michael they will but it's also being built as an EV from the start as appose to a electrified ICE car and I'm pretty sure mini said these new models are slightly shorter and the 40 kwh being lighter
I would love them to test my Hyundai Ioniq Electric 38kwh. I regularly get 4.5 m/kWh and even driving very 'normal' on the motorway over 150 miles in the winter. Really struggling to change it for the larger battery newer cars.
I was thinking that my Ioniq 28 would probably have beaten the all of them on efficiency (my 'winter' average at the moment is 4.8 mi/kWh) and would have bettered the Mini's range before going flat and possibly even beaten the Ora Funky Cat.
@@FFVoyager I swapped the 28 kWh for the 38. Both are incredible cars to say it was Hyundai's first electric car attempt. I do miss the charging speeds of the 28 too.
Last month, Car Magazine did a similar but longer test with a wider range of cars on public roads. The results showed much worse results. For example, the iD Buzz achieved a paltry 164 miles on a charge. The figures in the test are hardly representative because of the short duration and 'sterile' conditions. At least it highlights the limitations of these 'cars' but lets them off very lightly imho.
it’s great compilation. About the Megan and the MG4 claims 270miles it’s kind of nonsense. Could be only possible if you Sunday drive them at slow speed in summer. I have Model S 70 rwd which has a 75kwt battery limited to 69kw. The rated range was 276 mile while the typical range was 221 miles when was new. Usually the truth is in between these two numbers 310kw/h worst case scenario vs. 245kw/h best case scenario. I have 13% degradation over 6.5 years now 60KW available. I have around 190 miles (typical) winter range which is 314wh/miles and 240 summer range which is 250wh/miles. So when you drive a car which has only 60KW and aerodynamically worst, on motorway speed you may have 220miles of range at the best. I think the mini is a fantastic car for shorter journeys! Very very efficient, I want to buy one for my wife one day!
Great review and confirms my resistance to spend 30 or 40 k on a car that will only do on average 200 miles in winter and not much more in summer. There is clearly a lot of people with a lot of spare money if they buy these things. I have a self charging hybrid Lexus that is far superior to your test cars.
So glad you took the time to normalize the temperature settings. Thats something thats been bothering me for ages on tests. I've driven many cars including a lot of ev's and some are obviously set to make you feel like they are better than they are by pulling tricks like that.
Could you add info about whether the cars tested had heat pumps when its an optional extra. e.g. Cupra Born and ID Buzz as it can make quite a difference
My BMW I4 e drive is getting 3.4 most weeks during the winter in city driving conditions. I drive it in eco mode and turn off all climate controls if not needed to get more range. Definitely feel good about the range as I have getting 3.7 since charging so not too much loss in cold weather.
so did you conduct the test with all the cars in line like the video shows? what about the drafting advantage for each car behind the lead car? Maybe that's just B roll footage.
The mini EV is only efficient per mile because the battery is 1/3 the size of the Ariya battery. Any of these cars could make their EV much more efficient by leaving out most of the battery. But the car wouldn't be very useable then.
This a very good comparison, brilliant. It would be great to see the charging speeds achieved after the test. I am struggling to get my car to achieve even 50% of the claimed fast charging speed the manufacturer promised in their brochure, which was a key reason why I bought my car. I agree the inaccurate stated consumption figures are disappointing in my car too, i am in discussions with the manufacturer.
I notice that you m/kwh figure is carefully worded as miles per kwh stored in the battery. What this neglects to mention is there can be big differences in the charging efficiency of an EV based on rate of charge and ambient temperature. I've found in the winter 20% or more can be lost at low charge rates. eg a car with a 58kwh battery might take as much as 70kwh to charge it up from the grid or from solar panels during winter. In the summer much less lost. Which magazine does factor this into their measure of economy for EVs. This doesn't affect the range of the car though and your test is excellent for this.
It's just not worth it to me, the anxiety to tip toe over having the heater on, or the music too loud, or an interior light taking too long to auto off when closing the door, otherwise I might be left stranded in the worse case or in the best case spend 30 minutes charging the thing. Hard pass.
wait for better EVs closer to 2030, it's simply not worth it at this time specially if you can't charge at home. when it's -10C my i3S 2022 takes almost 40 minutes charging from 15-85%, unless my battery AND the charger is freezing cold at -20C then i'm closer to 50 minutes... i'm going back to petrol power in 2 weeks time then I dump my EV. since they increased the prices here for electricity it's now even more expensive to drive than any hatchback sipping about 5L/100km. In short, more expensive to drive, hassle with public charging since I can't charge at home nor work since I moved to another city makes it a no brainer just to sell the damn thing and sit it out for better EVs and better infrastructure 👍🏻 edit: with here i'm referring to Sweden
Allowing the cars to continue on limp and not doing 70mph means it's failed and should be stopped there, what's the point of that comparison for the nissan??
2.5 miles/kw for ID buzz is awful I’m going to cancel mine I get 4.9 miles/kw in my yorkshire ( eUP! ) but that’s never putting on heating only screen heater and seat heating & keeping below 60 mph in B mode & eco plus
Thank you for such an informative comparison. I would be interested in knowing how much energy was used in heating the car to what seems an extravagant 21C. Was I to need to extend my range, I would be happy to put on warmer clothes and limit the temperature to sixteen or less. Would that make much difference? I rarely set the temperature in my ICE car at 21C in the winter. How about a comparison using the same car with different heating modes, if it would make a significant difference?
Remember, the actual temperature want 21°, but 19.5. I agree, in those cars with heated seats, using them would have provided a more realistic, informative test. However, probably harder to compare accurately across cars.
Also this test isn’t actually fair or realistic. Given the fact that you have removed all real world factors . These tests often don’t account for “fair” being subjective.
will you re-do the test but this time where possible with battery pre-conditioning (ie, with the MG4 you can turn on the battery heating prior to your journey) .. in theory it should make your battery more efficient ..
The range is important but knowing what it's actually like to travel those distances in the u.k I would be more interested in actually knowing the length of time that the vehicle could actually travel in that time ,say you have 4 people with luggage on board, its a extremely cold day ,your travelling at night and your using the radio the sat nav the kids have phones and I pads on charge ,how far short of the claimed range and what shortness of time will I be forced to stop and recharge my vehicle. Only last week I drove from hainalt in Essex to john o'groats in Scotland. I went up in my brand new volkswagan t6.1 204 dsg camper van .this journey was over 640 miles in total and 13.5 hours door to door ,only stopped for fuel and toilet breaks and no switching of drivers as I was on my own. I would be keen to see how long that journey would have taken in a new ID BUZZ .maybe this is something you could consider in one of your next long range videos 👍
I guess that all depends on how many times you stopped or fuel & toilet breaks...? The difference with an EV is that, when you stop for a comfort break, instead of your car being sat idle in the services car park, it's plugged in to a rapid charger being 're-fueled' for the next leg of your journey. Based on the iD.Buzz's 192 miles recorded on this test, at an average UK journey speed of about 59mph (last recorded back in 2016) you'd be able to drive around 3 hours before needing to stop for 30 minutes or so to recharge the car. If that's how long you drove each time before the kids need to pee, then you'd have still done the trip in 13.5 hours...
I’ve BMW i4 e40 M Sport and I’m getting consistently around 260 miles range during winter while driving in comfort mode. If temperature is moderate it climbs very close to 300. Good test 👏It matches my experience of ownership of the vehicle over last 6 months.
Where are the most efficient cars and Korean manufacturers??? How about Hyunday Kona, ionic 5, ionic 6 or Kia nero, and EV 6!? This video sounds like advertisements for german evs, which are not that good at all.
The Jaguar I Pace could easily go 40-50 more miles on 20 inch alloys (this test had them on the inefficient 22's) and if the battery was preconditioned (heated) over night and not cold soaked like this test showed. Basically this is worst case scenario
I have an ioniq 38kwh and judging by the mi/kwh of othwr cars i dont think its worth me upgrading yet. I am yet to see under 4.3 mi/kwh and routinely get 5.5-7 which means my tiny 38/kWh battery punches well above its weight for range. Is this test just harsh and i would expect more in the real world?
@@piglet5287 If you want to increase range when the techno you have isn’t good enough, use any outside the box thinking you can employ. Much cheaper than upgrading a car, if the inconvenience is only occasional. And, smaller cars and batteries are more environmentally friendly. And, aren’t the moderns still using the wheel? Wheels invented from 4,000 - 2,000 BCE. Hot water bottles were first patented in 1903. Therefore much more modern than the wheel. Wheels were invented at the end of the Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age. The hot water bottles in the post industrial age. So, although your mention of the Stone Age was apposite, it was wrongly assigned. My suggested use of not the most modern techno to support modern techno is in essence 6,000 years more modern than the Stone Age wheel being used in electric cars. John Dunlop invented the pneumatic tyre in 1888, so that too is older than the hot water bottle. And, electric cars were first built in 1891, which means that hot water bottles are more modern than the concept of the electric car. People should be better informed, don’t you think?
It is not the winter time who kills the battery but it is heating the car using the AirCon. It just sucks the battery which on the ICE cars, it is basically free heating. But, I don't know why it is not mentioned that it is using AirCon in the winter and not the winter itself. Specially for short distances, using AirCon just kills the efficiency because the first few minutes of using AirCon is using a lot and then it uses less when the temp increases. But in short distances, you just warm up the car for nothing and kill the battery. So I use seat heating and steering heating, which by far use less battery for short distances. And if you have charger at home, it makes good sense to precondition the car before the leave while it is plugged in. Then the consumption will greatly improved in the winter. My car winter consumption in the city on average is 16 Kwh/ 100 km and if I use heatting with 21 C, it increases to 23 to 28, depends on the journy distance.
Partly agree to the logic but not in my case. I get cheap overnight electricity between 12:30 and 4:30 @ 7.5p per kWh. If I preheated the car using home electricity at 8am it would cost me near 40p per kWh. So in my case and a lot of others I would have thought, it makes more sense to preheat the car using its own batteries rather than the grid. Yes, the car is less efficient but it will save money overall. In saying this, I don't use public chargers because I don't do very long distances. If I did, perhaps pre-charging at home might make sense, because 40p per kWh is cheaper than most public chargers.
@@buncho64 For economic point of view, it really depends on the time and yes if it is much expensive during the depart time compared to charge time, it makes sense to use the battery for heating But, before I bought my EV, I thought that it is the cold weather, which has the negative impact on the battery because almost all reviewes that I checked before didn't clearly mention that it is the heating not the cold temp. And the difference using aircon or not is huge :)
Depends on the car. Typically my Model Y uses about 1% energy of a journey of any long trip. Then again, Tesla do less in thermal management. As for "free heat" in ICE, I know what you mean but it's far from free. Yes you get to utilise waste but for every mile, more than 65% of money is going to waste, every day. Winter and summer.
Everybody will want their own car included, but I do think it's a shame you included two Méganes, but only the long range MG. With the short range model hosting a different battery chemistry, it's results would likely have been quite different.
Is that cheating plugging them in in.the morning to check it also warms the battery to make them go further i dont top my diesel up in the morning to make sure its not evaporated during the night
My EV also exhibits the same shortfall in winter. Having driven one for the past 3 years, I am now totally convinced that full EVs is not the answer to our quest for zero emissions. We do need to reset our thinking about EVs and delay the ban on ICE cars by at least 10 years for new and better technology to be developed. In addition, the UK simply do not have the proper electricity infrastructure and the national grid is seriously deficient too.
Having driven 4 EV'S over the last 4 years I am convinced they are one of the answers to the net zero target. The 2030 ban is imperative to focus minds on solving the issues that do exist, for example DNOs being far too slow to provide supply to new chargers. The Grid will actually be strengthened by the huge battery capacity that will be available from parked EV'S.
Fair point Michael. My take is that there are 7 years to go and change is accelerating, I hope you won’t feel the same way by 2025, when you see more cars, cheaper cars, better infrastructure; all with 5 years still to go.
Driven EVs for 6 years, two leafs and a Kia Niro. They work fine in the winter. I can drive the Kia for well over 200 miles in the winter no problem. That’s 4+ hours of driving between stops. Plenty. The lower capacity leafs are a thing of the past and I never had an issue doing a few more stops with those.
Regarding the ban.. it’s a conservative date picked by the government and means nothing. They moved the date forward from 2035 because it makes them look better. The reason it doesn’t matter is because it’s YEARS past the date any major car manufacturer already stated they won’t be making any ICE vehicles. So if those companies already aren’t making ICE cars, there’s nothing that needs to be banned in 2030 anyway. Any existing ICE car will still be able to be sold for at least another decade, long past the lifespan of many of them. Also.. the UK doesn’t own any car companies, and the EU is a bigger market, so if the EU has banned them, then they are effectively banned from the UK.
The national grid have stated they can cope, from the 1970s how did we cope with TVs in every room, computers, mobile phones ,dish washers etc all with a increase in population ?? In reality you're talking about another 10+ years before we see the majority of cars being electric . 10 years ago there was only really Tesla making a car that could go more than a 100 miles, now there were plenty in this test that even in winter can do 250+ miles ( more than enough for the majority) so in ten years its easy to see 400-500 mile cars with faster charging times will be available. My main issue is the charging infrastructure needs to improve, Tesla have proved it can be done .
You should not fast charge the batteries when it is -10C or lower as it can permanently damage the batteries! Slow charge when inside a garage is the best policy.
Where's the World Car of the Year, Hyundai Ioniq? Kia EV6? Kia Niro or Kia Soul EV? Missing more affordable and desirable vehicles is such a glaring oversight... Decent, but still disappointing..
Toyota Lexus hybrid is much better range winter or summer. My new Toyota hybrid has a 470 miles ranges Now worries for a long travel. EV is good only for short travel(cities) Home to supermarket only.😅