My lifetime average average is 4.7 m/kWh. It is 15 miles into town with several hills (we live in the mountains of AZ during summer). We also drive the car in Phoenix for 1/2 the year (we have a car trailer). I nearly always drive in ECO. If I need full power I still can get it in ECO, I just need to "floor" the accelerator. The advantage to ECO is that you get more regeneration than you do in drive.
To maximize the "regen", I anticipate traffic lights. I look for the crosswalk signs that in our area often show the amount of time that pedestrians have to cross the side street. I then can better judge when the light will turn to yellow. If it is getting close I may speed up a little. I believe that a little extra use of electricity is probably better than having to stop and restart because even "regen" is not 100% efficient. Usually at the end of any stopping experience, I am using the actual binders.
Another trait is when I see that I will have to stop, I start slowing down and try to make sure that I stop just before the light turns green or before. This is because I don't want to irritate drivers behind me who like to rush up to the light and jam on the brakes. This way they aren't impeded anymore than they would if they were controlling the stopping. I look at the "regen" dots and lightly start applying the brakes. As I come to a stop I apply slightly more pressure to keep the maximum "regen" dots that I can before the actual binders come on. I've gotten so that I think I can actually detect when the actual brakes come on.
Another trait that I do is when I pull out into traffic from a feeder road or a driveway. In some situations if I can see traffic is coming, I will let it pass so I don't have to pull out and accelerate quickly. When oncoming traffic is clear I can pull out and accelerate more gradually. In some highway instances when the speed limit is 65mph and I pull out when it is clear, I'll remain at 55 mph until I see some traffic coming up on me. Then, I will speed up to the speed limit so as not to give EVs a bad name.
Another thing I do is to use the cruise control in many situations to ensure that my speed does not creep up. For example, if the speed limit is 35 mph, I will set my cruise control at 38 mph. Many times traffic will speed at least 10 miles over the speed limit. My thought is that if I am going the speed limit or slightly over, then a speeder is in the wrong, not I. Also, this allows me to speed up a little, as mentioned before, without tripping any speeding cameras.
I rarely use the heater. I do use the A/C when necessary because the A/C only uses about 500W once the cabin is cool but the heater uses more like 3,000W. However, most of my temperature control is through cracking a window or just letting outside air in with use of the fan. When I park I pay attention to sun angle and if the day is hot I use a reflective windshield screen with the windows down and inch or two. We intentionally did not get any extra window tinting. This way in the winter we can get more thermal heating in winter and in the summer we can control the temperature by using windshield shades and looking for shade or at least parking the car in an orientation that minimizes the amount of sun entering the car.
Another trait is to use surface streets on some occasions rather than the freeways. This of course cannot apply to all who use the car for commuting, but the point is to plan your route to balance the speeds on the freeways with the stop and go of the surface streets. The reason is that the amount of energy required to propel the car increases exponentially with the speed. Thus, if takes four times the energy for the car to go twice as fast. For example, if we compare 60 mph versus 70 mph, take the square of 70 mph (4,900) and divide it by the square of 60 mph (3,600). The result is 1.36, or it takes over 1/3 more energy just to go an additional 10 mph.
What I've tried to do with these traits is to maximize my m/kWh while at the same time not aggravating other drivers and giving EVs a bad name. It seems to work, but of course all of these things may not work for you depending on your location. Try some of these and see what the difference is in your travel time. I have found that it costs me very little in extra time.
