I hear this a lot for those resisting the change to EV’s
The normal counter-argument is that 99% of the journey’s in the UK are less than 5 miles or some such figure. Or, as according to the DoT, the average car journey distance is a mere 8.4 miles.
This is all fine, but there is a good argument that sometimes, we need to make longer journeys. Obviously as an early adopter and EV advocate, I am prepared to deal with the planning and inconvenience of mid-journey charging to undertake longer journeys. You only have to read our post on the trip to France to see this.
However, the need to do a long journey without the inconvenience (and cost) of charging en-route, should not be discounted. In fact, we considered this when looking at replacing our second vehicle with an EV and have factored in an essential long journey into the range of the vehicle.
In acquiring this 2nd EV, it has also highlighted to me, the difference that an efficient EV can make to the possibilities of longer travel. The I-Pace isn’t, as is well known, the most efficient EV on the market and when compared to the Soul EV, which goes further on a smaller battery, it demonstrates the significant differences efficiency can make.
So, purely for the readers of this blog, I undertook a fictitious long journey in the Jaguar I-Pace, Kia Soul EV and a random petrol car.
First off, what would be a fair test? Well, to properly show the differences, let's look at a distance that most petrol cars will be able to cover on a single tank and an EV definitely can’t. Funnily enough, that’s about 500 miles. So, a 500-mile round trip, that’s either Manchester to Brighton AND BACK or Leeds to Loch Lomond AND BACK. Both of those journeys are a significant undertaking in the UK and would be a mixture of Motorway, A-Road and some city orbital traffic. Only for the purposes of time I, therefore, picked an average speed of 56 mph. The speed having no bearing on the efficiency as I’ve used real-world averages for that purpose.
The rules:
The EV’s would use 50kWh chargers on the route
The EV’s would maximise charge rate and minimise dwell time by charging from 20-80% at each stop
The Petrol car would not drive for more than 3 hours without a 20minute (comfort) stop. The mid-point destination counting as a stop but not adding to the elapsed time
All 3 vehicles would start with a full battery or tank and return with more than 10% remaining to allow contingency.
So, if all 3 vehicles left at the same time. The Petrol would return to the start after 9hrs and 40 minutes. The Soul would arrive 1hr later at 10hrs 40 minutes and the Jag a further 1 hr down the road at 11hrs 40 minutes. That means it would take you 2 hours longer in the Jag than the Petrol car. Or, an extra 21%. The Soul only 10% more.
What we see from this graph is the percentage of capacity over time. The Jag depleting its battery to 20% in just under 3 hours while at the same time the Soul EV is only down to 30% and remember, the Soul has a smaller battery. The petrol car has a quick comfort stop at this point and then is on its way again. The Jag then needing to stop for another fill up just 30 miles after the return journey began and by the time it gets going again, the petrol car is almost 100 miles further up the road. The graph below showing the distances against time.
Some people are going to argue that the EV's could use a destination charger to top up while they are there but we didn't specify how long they were stopped for. I'll also no doubt get comments that the petrol driver could go longer and stop for less without a comfort stop. However, this is an optimal distance for maintaining good physical and mental wellbeing.
This is no way s saying that the Jaguar I-Pace is a viable alternative to the petrol car for this type of journey but more that the Soul EV takes only an hour longer on a 10+ hour journey and would do so at considerably less cost than the petrol car.
is it really worth persevering with a petrol car and the costs when you could be using an EV every day without any need to visit a Petrol Station and then take a little longer when you have a long journey to do?
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