How well do electric cars do in bumper to bumper traffic like we see in the evacuations in Florida?
In: Technology
In what way? When they are not moving, they are using basically no power unless you are running the air conditioner.
They’re actually very good in bumper to bumper traffic.
Combustion engine cars need to maintain a minimum RPM so the engine doesn’t stall. That means even if they’re not moving, the engine is still running and consuming fuel.
Comparatively, electric cars only use as much energy as needed to spin the tires. There isn’t an idling electric engine.
That said, if you’re running the air conditioner or heater, that will consume energy out of your battery. If you’re stuck in bumper to bumper traffic but running the AC, it will continuously decrease your range.
Combustion cars are pretty bad at very low speeds, fuel efficiency sucks when you’re using the lowest gears. Electric motors don’t have this problem: they are roughly equally efficient at almost all speeds.
In bumper to bumper traffic this means that electric cars are “more efficient” than combustion cars, although the combustion car may be able to run for longer since fuel is very energy dense as opposed to batteries.
At higher speeds, combustion cars improve their fuel consumption because the motor is built for those kinds of situations. EVs, however, last less because, although their motor doesn’t get worse, aerodynamics and rolling resistance get in the way, extracting energy out of the car.
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That’s what EVs do best. If you’re just sitting there, you’re using basically no electricity, and it’s not going to overheat due to lack of airflow over a radiator.
The only thing you need to worry about is if you need to run the AC because it’s too hot otherwise. It will sap a chunk of your range over time.
Electric cars are great in slow traffic.
The biggest hit to electric car battery drain is wind drag at high speed. Electric cars can “run the house”, power the computers, lights, HVAC for literally 24 hours+. Their range suffers as you accelerate, wind resistance increases at the square of velocity, so as you go faster, wind drag increases exponentially, and range suffers.
In traffic, there is little to no wind drag, the cars can run for very long periods of time, significantly longer than idling a gasoline car.
They do great. It’s highway driving they’re not that great at. An electric car doesn’t idle like a gas car, so for bumper to bumper traffic it is actually consuming very little power and it can do it all day. But on the wide open highway it’s burning through a lot of its charge just to keep its speed, unlike a gas car which through a combination of having a gearbox and the nature of how their engines work, it can sit quite comfortably at steady highway speeds with better fuel efficiency than bumper to bumper traffic.
The problem with EV in this scenario is the limited availability of recharge opportunities and an inability to carry additional fuel.
Know what you’re never going to see from an electric sitting in bumper to bumper traffic? Steam pouring out from it’s radiator because either the radiator fan died or you simply couldn’t dump the heat fast enough.
They are absolutely better than gas cars in bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is why a lot of early EVs are commuter cars like sedans and hatchbacks. The range issue is less pronounced since they’re travelling shorter distances, and they’re more efficient, since they don’t consume energy when at a standstill. Not to mention the powerband complexities explained elsewhere in this thread that make EVs effective in situations where they need to accelerate short distances.
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