Tuesday, March 12, 2024

The Eco-Piety That Gets One Nowhere

Indeed:

Tests to find out the range of electric cars are flawed andgive a misleading indication of battery life, motorists have been warned.

Steve Huntingford, the editor of What Car? magazine, said official laboratory tests have “inadequacies” and need overhauling so that drivers have “realistic information and won’t be left disappointed” after buying an electric vehicle (EV).

In real-world winter conditions, EV ranges have been found to fall by more than a third compared with official test results.

Car manufacturers are legally required to lab-test the range of new electric cars under the worldwide harmonised light vehicle test procedure (WLTP). It measures battery life travelling at an average speed of 28.8 mph in 23C summer temperatures from 100 per cent charge to zero.

“When they test the cars it’s quite warm, which is good for the battery,” Huntingford said. “At the same time, it’s also quite a weak test that doesn’t ask that much of the car. They don’t drive at a particularly high speed and they accelerate very slowly. It’s the kind of acceleration that would get you in trouble if you drove that way on the road.”

Huntingford and his team now regularly test the most popular EVs in a real-world driving environment during both summer and winter. They have found there is, on average, an 18 per cent difference in battery life between summer and winter, with charge draining faster in colder temperatures.

“What it highlights is the inadequacies of the official test,” Huntingford said. “Manufacturers are not conning people — they have no choice but to use those figures. It just shows how poor the test is and how unreflective it is of real-world conditions.”

 

These vehicles are meant to be the answer to fuel-driven vehicles. the praises of which one cannot sing:

 

 


 

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