Have any EV makers been open about how they calculate estimated range?

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Mark W

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Hi all,

For many EV drivers(especially newer ones), that estimated range number on the dash is looked at with great anticipation. Having driven EVs for a while, I know to not pay too much attention to it and just understand the efficiency of the car in different situations to know how much real range I should expect.

We know that the estimate the car gives is based on past driving that has been done. I have heard that some automakers take into account the current temperature and if navigation is being used, elevation changes too. Has anyone ever heard of any automakers that have opened up about how much previous driving is looked at and what other elements are taken into account? If I remember correctly, Tesla did not originally take temperature into account, but now they do.

Or has any enthusiast ever taken on reverse engineering things to come up with a rough formula of what's being used for a particular car? Thanks.
 
You also have to ask the company's lawyers how they advised the GOM-coders. They certainly advised conservative estimates to avoid lawsuits.

Plaintiff: "The GOM said we would make it to the hospital, but I had to deliver my baby in the back seat after the battery died!"
 
MINI stated clearly that the GOM in the SE only takes into account the previous single trip when calculating range. There's clearly more going on, such as current weather conditions, but it's pessimistic which I think is better than other EV makers who have optimistic GOMs. Better to charge sooner than needed than to run out of power unexpectedly before you can get to a charger.

We SE drivers have a MINI Range Calculator that is useful for compiling real-world numbers and those of us who use it consistently see much better range than the car's official calculation.
 
As another SE owner, my GOM is so pessimistic, that I just go by battery % instead. If it was consistent, it would be vaguely useable, but it isn't. There have been times when the first leg of a trip is 50% further than the car thinks that I can go. I usually have to deal with insufficient range warnings. I'd like to turn it off and just have a battery % display there, instead.
 
As another Mini SE owner here, I think most other cars have a big enough battery/range that keeping tabs on how the car calculates things isn’t that big of a deal. Odds are you are going to recharge before you hit 20%. The minis range is so small that we have to be vigilant about how it calculates things, and how WE calculate it.

I’m also interested how other Mfgs calculate things…


Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
 
Hyundai Kona (first generation) owner here. My GOM has been pretty accurate the relative handful of times I've checked it against real-world distance traveled/remaining battery %. The manual does give some guidance as to how the figure is calculated, but it's frustratingly vague. The explanation puts most emphasis on "previous driving patterns," but without specifying how far back it looks. It also indicates that indicated range can be impacted by HVAC use, outside temperature, "geographical features" (with no further explanation of what that means or how it works) and "durability of the battery." That last one might imply that it some how adjusts for degradation of an aging battery, but again there aren't enough details to really understand what's going on.
 
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