Impact of cruising speed on range

[dbsb3233]

Altitude differences does have quite an impact (daily school run up and down the hill). More so, driving style. On a 10 miles city drive home from dealer I managed significantly less than 3 (excited, new car) whereas technician collecting car (red circle of death) managed 4.0 on way back.

Oh yeah, local driving is totally different than road trip cruising for 1000's of miles. Locally we hit 4 or even 5 MPK on occasion. But that's short little legs (like <10 miles). Can't really tell anything by that since it's heavily skewed by little things (fast/slow starts, lots of stopping/slowing regen, etc). Long road trips are dominated by cruise control at steady speeds. Jackrabbit starts and lots of regen stopping get mostly removed from that equation. It's average speed and temperature that determine most of the outcome there. And net elevation gain/loss, but over 1000+ miles that tends to mostly flatten out from start to end (depending on the route). There's ups/downs in between, but those mostly even out (although not 100% since regen isn't 100% efficient). Still though, it mostly evens out. Our drives through the Colorado mountains, for instance, actually get better MPK than our drives through flatter Utah, because the mountain drives avg ~70 MPH while the Utah drives avg ~80 MPH. Speed is a much bigger factor than going up+down a mountain (with little net elevation difference).

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[dbsb3233]

In the comments on the State of Charge YouTube video, I posted:

”It’s physics. The drag force is the square of velocity, all else being equal. So take the ratio of the increase in speed, 80/70 =1.1429. And square it, 1.1429 x 1.1429 =1.306. So 345 miles (@70) theoretically should give 345/1.306=264 miles range at 80. The fact it did better than 264 likely is due to other, real world factors of the design or driving conditions that might have reduced drag a bit vs theory (% of time vehicle was in a draft and effect of any draft, position of rear spoiler, consistency of holding speed, differences in winds, etc.).”

After a year with the Macan, I ignore driving slower to save enery and just plan my stops accordingly.

Yes, although air drag is only part of what determines vehicle mileage at various speeds. It's a big factor but only one factor. Rolling resistance of the tires is another factor, for example, that varies with speed.

 

[CHP]

Porsche DNA doesn’t mix well with EV on long distance drives. There is a reason why some EV manufacturers limit top speed. Not really a problem in UK and USA as the government nannies your driving. Back in Germany I probably wouldn’t buy an electric Porsche but here in UK advantages outweigh shortcomings. Looking at other car manufacturers (EQS, 7 series), Panamera would have been possibly the best platform to start electrification but it’s made for high speed long distance drives. We are discussing 200-250 miles highway range which translates to around 3h drive stints (which is absolutely fine with me when travelling with family) but look at first gen Taycan users, they are in the range of 2h or less. Battery technology is assumed to evolve fast in the next decade (solid state for example) with negative correlation between range increase and resell value of current cars. Government incentives are just softening the blow.

 

[Fly4ever]

Battery technology is assumed to evolve fast in the next decade (solid state for example) with negative correlation between range increase and resell value of current cars.

Will come way sooner than most of the people think.Next decade?? Everything points before the next decade starts instead.A look at what happened at CES 2026 in Vegas may give us a clue and it's nothing more than a glimpse of the near (probably very near) feature and the things to come.Most likely next gen Macan EV - as well as all other electric Porsche models - will be equipped with this or similar technology batteries and the debate EV vs ICE will come to an end once and for all.

 

[CHP]

Will come way sooner than most of the people think.Next decade?? Everything points before the next decade starts instead.A look at what happened at CES 2026 in Vegas may give us a clue and it's nothing more than a glimpse of the near (probably very near) feature and the things to come.Most likely next gen Macan EV - as well as all other electric Porsche models - will be equipped with this or similar technology batteries and the debate EV vs ICE will come to an end once and for all.

There is an EQS prototype running since a couple of months but it’s a new technology with some challenges. I expect first to come out in 28/29. It‘s a little like PC‘s in early years, not doubling range every 2 years but 1/3 range increase every 2-4 years seems realistic. Eventually they will start reducing battery size to save costs and weight with current exponential range increase going more flat. Everybody has different needs, but 300 miles on 80% battery would be good enough for me.

 

[CHP]

In UK the debate will start again when majority is driving EVs. Current Uk government is slowing down new builds of charging stations and I don’t think current grid would be able to handle charging load over night. On top of that, some countries will have increased their renewable energy dependence and outsourced gas heating in favour of heat pumps. What can go possibly wrong

 

[USMA81]

Pedantic response here. Yes, I was simplifying the whole discussion of energy expenditure by focusing only on aerodynamic drag. I knew about rolling resistance, but thought it was trivial in relationship to aerodynamic drag (turns out, not so). I believed that rolling resistance changes little with speed (and, yes, some simple models assume it to be constant), but it changes proportionally with speed. It also is a greater percentage of energy expenditure than I thought, accounting for about 20% of the total. The percentage of energy expended overcoming rolling resistance, while the actual quantity goes up a small amount with speed, it becomes less of the total percentage because aerodynamic drag increases exponentially.

Bottom line, just slow down if you are worried about making the next charging station. As som above stated, speed is the major controllable factor in EV driving efficiency.

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