Drive up Hurricane Ridge in my Leaf

[bobkart]

https://youtu.be/HyL7ejyjrLo

This is about an 18-mile drive (one way) from near sea level to almost exactly one mile up.

I started with 98% charge and got to the top with 34% charge, using about 2/3 of a 'tank'.

The drive down started at 33% and ended at 56%, gaining nearly a quarter of a tank and 36% of the energy used to go up.

Here's the resulting GOM reading after that long descent. This is a 24 kWh battery.

[Tortoisehead77]

When I bought my Leaf I thought it could be a ski vehicle. But, there is no way it could make it, as your video demonstrates, unfortunately . Factor in cold weather too.

[LeftieBiker]

I started with 98% charge and got to the top with 34% charge, about 2/3 of a 'tank'.

I think that you mean either that you used 2/3 of a "tank" or that you had 1/3 left.

[bobkart]

I started with 98% charge and got to the top with 34% charge, about 2/3 of a 'tank'.

I think that you mean either that you used 2/3 of a "tank" or that you had 1/3 left.

Corrected; thanks.

[jjeff]

So my take-a-way is your total 18 mile trip took roughly 40% of your battery which would mean on a full battery you would have had a 45 mile range, IMO not too bad considering the elevation change. I'd like to see any ICE vehicle suffer an only ~35% MPG reduction for such a change in elevation.
On your way back(downhill) were you forced to use your friction brakes much? or was B or ECO mode enough to slow down your decent enough to keep from crashing? Sure regen isn't as efficient as coasting but it's sure a hell of a lot better than brakes or even ICE engine breaking.
I've also noticed with our old Prius and it's tiny battery that hills seem to affect it much less than a straight ICE vehicle where hills can really kill MPG.

[bobkart]

So my take-a-way is your total 18 mile trip took roughly 40% of your battery which would mean on a full battery you would have had a 45 mile range, IMO not too bad considering the elevation change. I'd like to see any ICE vehicle suffer an only ~35% MPG reduction for such a change in elevation.
On your way back(downhill) were you forced to use your friction brakes much? or was B or ECO mode enough to slow down your decent enough to keep from crashing? Sure regen isn't as efficient as coasting but it's sure a hell of a lot better than brakes or even ICE engine breaking.
I've also noticed with our old Prius and it's tiny battery that hills seem to affect it much less than a straight ICE vehicle where hills can really kill MPG.

It's 18 miles each way, so 36 miles round trip, for 42% of a tank. This is right on par with a level 36-mile drive.

I felt like B mode was enough to avoid most if not all actual friction braking. I.e. it wasn't so steep that regen couldn't slow me down enough.

[bobkart]

I clarified in the first post that the 18 miles is just one way.

Regarding the EV-versus-ICE efficiency on ascents/descents, one way to look at it is that it took (in this instance) about 3.5x more energy to make the ascent than the same distance on flat ground. Such a factor would seem to apply regardless of EV or ICE.

Of course on the descent, the best an ICE can hope for is zero fuel burned; realistically there will be *some*, maybe 0.1x of the flat ground cost (wild guess there).

So the ICE total/average comes to 1.8x for the round trip. For the EV, the descent 'cost' -1.25x the flat ground cost (i.e. negative cost), so add that to the 3.5x for the ascent and divide by two to get just 1.125x for the round trip (a 38% improvement over 1.8x).