this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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Yeah, and what about mpg on gas cars! or battery life on phones! Or longevity of light bulbs! Or number of prints for ink sources! Or how many miles a tire should last! Or average time to complete a game! Or...
You know what? As long as the measurement is consistently measured between things, the measurements are comparable. A car having X range compared to another car with X range is probably a decent indicator of relative ranges even if it isn't perfect in practice.
Just assume real world ranges are like 80% of whatever is advertised just like mpg estimates.
I get where you’re coming from but two of your examples are agreeing with their point. They’re asking for a better standardization for an electric cars overall efficiency same as ice vehicles using mpg and lightbulbs using number of hours they are expected to last.
By just stating the range of a vehicle they are removing the ability to do a good compare and contrast across all electric vehicle. For example, the electric Hummer has a EPA est. range of 329 miles while CyberTruck has a range 320 miles. By using only range both seem comparable but the Hummer achieves its range with a 212 KWh battery pack vs the CyberTrucks 100 KWh battery pack. It’s the ICE vehicle equivalent of a car stating that it gets 500 miles per gas tank. Yeah sure the vehicle can go 500 miles between fill ups but if the car only gets 10 miles to the gallon that’s going to be one hell of gas bill. The solution here is for all EVs to list their battery size and its Miles per Gallon equivalent (mpge) thus allowing buyers to efficiently compare two vehicles no matter battery pack size difference.
I think the point the previous commenter was getting at was that a car that goes twice as far but takes four times as long to charge from ten to eighty is practically far worse than the first one for long journeys, at least so long as the range covers local trips.
The obsession with range also puts a very wasteful pressure on the market to use bigger and bigger batteries, which add to both their cost and environmental impact, most of which may have not get used a few times in the cars life if at all.