Summer is coming, and it promises to be a hot one. As a general rule, machines run better when they run cool, but that’s not really an option for your car in the summer, when the sun tries to bake you like a thin crust pizza. Here are a few ideas for keeping your EV efficient under the glare of the dead of summer.
Cars with gas engines are designed to run cool at all times, with a big radiator and a water pump to keep the engine block from warping under the heat. The engine directly powers the water pump, so it’s constantly running. This is slightly taxing for the engine. In fact, many gas-powered drag racing cars use electric water pumps powered directly from the battery, saving the engine’s power for speed.
An electric vehicle is also designed to run cool at all times. It uses a system of water pumps to run coolant through the drive electric motor and the battery pack, but like everything else on the car, they’re electrically powered. These pumps can drain the battery, reducing your range. So anything you can do externally to keep the car cool will improve range.
Tips on maintaining your electric car's peak performance:
1. Park your electric vehicle in the shade.
Your EV, like any other car, is designed to be ready at a moment's notice. That means it has to keep the battery ready to respond to your needs, even if you need to get going after having left it in the baking sun for 10 hours. So it will use its cooling system to keep the batteries at operable temp, even when the car is parked and off. This costs energy.
Parking in the shade can keep your battery cooler, so there's less need for the car to spend power cooling it. Parking garages, especially underground units, are ideal, but even finding a big tree to park under can help keep your car cool.
2. Charge to 80%
Whether you own an EV or just a cell phone, you probably know that modern batteries charge fastest from about 20% to about 80%. Above 80%, it takes more work for the battery to charge, rather like packing a suitcase. This work generates heat, causing the issues mentioned above.
So if you won't need the extra miles for your daily commute, don't charge above 80%. And you won't have to go outside to keep checking it. Most EVs have charge settings so you can designate a limit. Once the car hits the desired limit, it will send a message to the charger to stop charging.
Obviously this works against the original goal of improving range. However, it will keep the battery cooler, which will aid your car with efficiency for the miles you do have to cover. You might free up a little more power to use more of your car’s accessories, which brings us to our next two points.
3. Lay off the AC.
If you've ever run an AC-on road trip in a gas-powered car, you'll know that the refreshing blast of cool air reduces fuel efficiency by causing drag on the engine. An electric car, lacking an engine, has an independently-powered air conditioning system. It feeds directly from battery power. So running the air conditioner will reduce your overall range per charge.
Yet driving in the summer without AC can be miserable, depending on your area. Perhaps the advice here is to keep an eye on the weather and plan your charges accordingly. Maybe if it’s going to be especially hot and you have a long way to go, ignore point 2.
4. Turn down the summer jams while cruising in your electric vehicles
Aren't Bluetooth speakers great? They can produce more sound on a single charge than the best shoulder-mounted boom boxes ever did back in the '80s. So car speakers should be better about energy use, too, right?
Unfortunately, a car sound system has to be much more powerful than a simple Bluetooth speaker, because it has much more noise to overcome. Even EVs, lacking noisy gas engines, create a massive amount of noise through tire friction. Plus, they tend to be light on sound-deadening materials to save weight. The Tesla Model 3 goes as far as to have sound-deadening tires to help counteract this, but stereos still draw plenty of power. Cutting the jams for a while could boost your range.
5. Use slow charging when possible.
Fast charging has become the major selling point for many EVs. Manufacturers want your electric car to be your only car, but, of course, this presents the problem of range for long trips. So the faster the charge, the more appealing the car.
Yet fast charging generates more heat, and heat costs energy to dissipate via the cooling system. So slow charging is recommended during the summer. You’ll want to plan for this. For example, rather than just filling the battery quickly before you leave work, you might charge overnight when you're at home.
EV ownership gets easier with every new technological advancement, but there are still plenty of practical steps you can take to improve your ownership experience, even in the dead of summer.
Happy cruising.
Fleet Services that Come to You | Zohr
