Haha. Agree entirely! As above, my car is a long range model 3. This is my missus new car…
General 500e Claimed Range
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General 500e Claimed Range
Haha. Agree entirely! As above, my car is a long range model 3. This is my missus new car…
Thanks. Not stupid at all. It does come with 2 options, but this is the La Prima, with the bigger battery.
Yes, definitely the bigger battery. So, cannot understand why the display isn’t showing the 199 miles the brochure shows. Nor why the European models are showing 320km. Really strange.
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That looks very nice! Haven’t seen the white version before! Thought they only did the unusual paint finishes. Mine is the Ocean Green, which can look Deep Sea Blue or really green depending on the angle. Very unusual.
Again, interesting to see the consistently lower range. Yours is slight higher than mine but that’s because yours is hard top and mine cabrio, which are advertised with a slightly lower range, so to be expected.
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Dont know if this is of any interest but the fully charged lot did a review.
https://uk.motor1.com/news/402147/new-fiat-500e-debuts/
https://uk.motor1.com/news/402147/new-fiat-500e-debuts/
I'm just doodling with some of the numbers behind this technology.
The raw energy content of petrol is about 9.7kWh/l, so the raw energy content of a 42kWh battery is broadly equivalent to the raw energy content of 4.33 litres of petrol. Obviously the EV will convert that energy much more efficiently than the ICE one; at a guess, I'd say 90% for the EV and 25% for the ICE. At those conversion efficiencies, a 42kWh battery gives you 37.8 kWh at the wheels; the ICE vehicle will burn about 15.6l of petrol to achieve the same output. The official economy figures for a petrol 500 have fluctuated a little over the car's lifetime, but 58mpg is probably a reasonable figure to use for the purposes of this calculation. At 58mpg, 15.6l of petrol will take you around 198.9 miles; surprisingly close to the claimed range for the EV.
A claimed 199 miles from a 500e with a 42kWh battery seems about right, given the known science behind the technology and some basic math.
To get that in the real world, you'll likely have to drive as carefully as you'd have to drive a petrol 500 to see a genuine 58mpg. It can be done, but most won't get anywhere near it.
The raw energy content of petrol is about 9.7kWh/l, so the raw energy content of a 42kWh battery is broadly equivalent to the raw energy content of 4.33 litres of petrol. Obviously the EV will convert that energy much more efficiently than the ICE one; at a guess, I'd say 90% for the EV and 25% for the ICE. At those conversion efficiencies, a 42kWh battery gives you 37.8 kWh at the wheels; the ICE vehicle will burn about 15.6l of petrol to achieve the same output. The official economy figures for a petrol 500 have fluctuated a little over the car's lifetime, but 58mpg is probably a reasonable figure to use for the purposes of this calculation. At 58mpg, 15.6l of petrol will take you around 198.9 miles; surprisingly close to the claimed range for the EV.
A claimed 199 miles from a 500e with a 42kWh battery seems about right, given the known science behind the technology and some basic math.
To get that in the real world, you'll likely have to drive as carefully as you'd have to drive a petrol 500 to see a genuine 58mpg. It can be done, but most won't get anywhere near it.
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Thaidai
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Would be really interested to know the real world range of these as a potential buyer. What Car magazine got 140 miles from a full charge to stopped from the 42kWh motor earlier this year. I could live with around 200 miles but definitely not 140.....
To continue with the analysis, and comparing claimed figures with real world results, 140 miles from a full charge would be the equivalent of getting 41mpg from a petrol 500; not that far short of what folks here have reported.
On an EV, turning the heater on will have a significant impact on range (a serious consideration for UK users); at least with an ICE vehicle, running the heater doesn't have much effect on range, as the heat would otherwise just be wasted.
vexorg
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Not all electric cars are equal, I know a few people with them and there is a noticable difference. The Tesla gets over 4miles per kwh, the Leaf gets under 3miles per kwh. I was quite surprised by that and thought electric cars would all be more similar in efficiency.
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As with petrol cars, it would seem to depend on which reviewer you choose to believe.
Some interesting basic stats below (taken from ev.database.uk) for the 500e, Leaf and Tesla (click to enlarge).
My guess is that Fiat's claimed 199 mile range is about as achievable in the real world as the claimed mpg figures for the TA. Whatcar's experience of 140 miles from full charge to stopped is probably right on the money; reviewers on test generally return figures at the lower end of the real world results range.
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The 199 miles of claimed range actually showing on the dash will have been calculated from a number of different things previous driving style as well as the temperature of the battery.
In this case just because the car is fully charged doesn’t mean it will always show 199 miles range when fully charged. Same as a phone battery normally only ever tells you a percentage and doesn’t tell you how many minutes of phone calls you can make, despite all the years of phones being sold on talk time.
As shown by the maths comparing it to a petrol car, the actual “MPG” figures of you like are not all that much down on what you’d expect on a petrol car. Maybe something that can be improved with a change in driving style.
The main thing with these small battery electric cars is that if charging them at home and only ever commuting back and forth to work. Even a 120mile range is plenty for most people.
In this case just because the car is fully charged doesn’t mean it will always show 199 miles range when fully charged. Same as a phone battery normally only ever tells you a percentage and doesn’t tell you how many minutes of phone calls you can make, despite all the years of phones being sold on talk time.
As shown by the maths comparing it to a petrol car, the actual “MPG” figures of you like are not all that much down on what you’d expect on a petrol car. Maybe something that can be improved with a change in driving style.
The main thing with these small battery electric cars is that if charging them at home and only ever commuting back and forth to work. Even a 120mile range is plenty for most people.
It's more than plenty for most people, most of the time, but it's not nearly enough for most of the people, occasionally.
The majority of us don't often drive more than 60 miles in a single day - if you did that every day, that's almost 22000 miles a year. But occasionally we drive much further than that; 300 miles, and sometimes even more. And on those occasional longer journeys, we quite often won't be leaving the car at home overnight, we won't have the guaranteed availability of low cost charging, and we might be doing the same thing the next day.
It's relatively easy to design an EV capable of directly replacing a petrol car most of the time, but incredibly hard to design one that can replace it all of the time; even a 400 mile range is probably not enough for that. The much lower energy density of a battery means an extended range EV is carrying a lot of weight all the time, when most of the time, most of the capacity isn't needed. It's like trying to fly from the UK to Australia in one hop; the amount of fuel you need is substatially greater than you'd need if you stopped halfway, because you need a lot more fuel to carry the extra fuel.
To make EV technology work for the masses, I'd suggest we need to rethink our approach to personal transportation. A fully electric car can be part of the solution, but we have to stop thinking of it as a direct replacement for what we've done in the past with an ICE vehicle and adopt a different strategy for making longer journeys. For example, the NC500 would be an absolute nightmare in an EV; so instead of heading north on the M1, you head to the airport, fly to Inverness and hire an ICE car. You don't buy a Tesla Long Range for a journey you're maybe only going to make once in a lifetime (and even that won't cut it on the NC500).
I'm starting to think that having a small city EV and a nice classic car could make a lot of sense. Pity that neither of these is getting any cheaper.
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vexorg
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That really depends on where you live. I dont stay in a particularly rural area compared to most of scotland, but it's still 55 miles per day, I'd need to be charging every night to feel comfortable, compared to filling up every 3 weeks or so.
It's a bit like the argument that everyone should just use public transport, it's really not practical for a large propotion of scotland.
Or if everyone plugs there car in at night then local street fuses are going to pop since the system is not designed for the combined load of all the charging cars.
Developing an effective charging infrastructure is essential if EV's are to replace ICE vehicles on the scale envisaged by government. Installing home chargers is the easy part; what about all those folks who don't have a private parking space adjacent to their home electricity supply? I don't think I'd be considering an EV if I didn't have the ability to charge it using my own metered power.
I'm sure this will happen; I'm less sure about when.
I wonder if horse owners in 1905 were saying that ICE cars will never catch on because there are far too few places to buy petrol and oil for them?
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Mostly a EV would be fine for us, but even though the car would be parked right outside, there's a public footpath between the house and parking area.
We don't go far but recently popped down to see my brother, 220 miles no problem in our 14 year old 2l Mazda at a constant 70 AC on all the time didn't even need to fill up to come back, "could" get a plane then hire a car but for two people the price would be nuts.
We don't go far but recently popped down to see my brother, 220 miles no problem in our 14 year old 2l Mazda at a constant 70 AC on all the time didn't even need to fill up to come back, "could" get a plane then hire a car but for two people the price would be nuts.
And so the arguments cycle again.
If you do 55 miles a day, and you have the ability to charge at home, then to charge the car with a real world 100+ mile range every night is no hardship and certainly easier than making a special trip to the petrol station.
If you’re the only electric car in the street the local substation is not going to burst into flames just yet, but if more and more people bought electric cars in your street, behind the scenes the supply to your street would get upgraded. This is happening every day and people don’t know it’s going on because they are not disturbed by it.
If you don’t have the ability to charge at home and you need to drive 50 miles every day then you are not going to be buying a 100mile range electric car. There are 300+ mile range cars about which might be more practical for a once a week charge, but ultimately if it’s not practical at the moment you’re unlikely to buy one. There will come a time that people will have to change to electric as they phase out ice cars but for now you still have a choice, so it doesn’t really matter !
Also side point but once people own electric cars they become very used to running the range right down rather than what we do with petrol and top up as soon as the light comes on, when you might have another 50+ miles to go
If you do 55 miles a day, and you have the ability to charge at home, then to charge the car with a real world 100+ mile range every night is no hardship and certainly easier than making a special trip to the petrol station.
If you’re the only electric car in the street the local substation is not going to burst into flames just yet, but if more and more people bought electric cars in your street, behind the scenes the supply to your street would get upgraded. This is happening every day and people don’t know it’s going on because they are not disturbed by it.
If you don’t have the ability to charge at home and you need to drive 50 miles every day then you are not going to be buying a 100mile range electric car. There are 300+ mile range cars about which might be more practical for a once a week charge, but ultimately if it’s not practical at the moment you’re unlikely to buy one. There will come a time that people will have to change to electric as they phase out ice cars but for now you still have a choice, so it doesn’t really matter !
Also side point but once people own electric cars they become very used to running the range right down rather than what we do with petrol and top up as soon as the light comes on, when you might have another 50+ miles to go
Andy hit the nail on the head about the algorithm that determines range. I also have a petrol car with a theoretical range of 500 miles. I filled it up today and the predicted range was 400 miles because of consumption analysis on how it has been driven previously.
Range reduces in colder weather but you can pre-condition the car whilst charging with no effect on range unlike defrosting a combustion-engined vehicle with the engine running.
I fortunately live in an area where the local authority leads the UK in EV facilities. We have more EV charge points than petrol pumps, resident charging discounts, city centre parking is free (£8 a day for polluters) and the big seller in our case is that my wife's employer provides free EV charging. These really swing the balance, and on a 14 mile return commute or a trip into the city centre, range anxiety isn't a concern.
I wouldn't choose to drive more than an hour or two in a 500 so EV range doesn't have a drawback. Neither car has the boot space for a shopping spree at Ikea so I would still be committed to hiring a van. The 500e fits about our required usage in pretty much the same way as a petrol 500 does.
Range reduces in colder weather but you can pre-condition the car whilst charging with no effect on range unlike defrosting a combustion-engined vehicle with the engine running.
I fortunately live in an area where the local authority leads the UK in EV facilities. We have more EV charge points than petrol pumps, resident charging discounts, city centre parking is free (£8 a day for polluters) and the big seller in our case is that my wife's employer provides free EV charging. These really swing the balance, and on a 14 mile return commute or a trip into the city centre, range anxiety isn't a concern.
I wouldn't choose to drive more than an hour or two in a 500 so EV range doesn't have a drawback. Neither car has the boot space for a shopping spree at Ikea so I would still be committed to hiring a van. The 500e fits about our required usage in pretty much the same way as a petrol 500 does.
I’m not sure that is enough to explain the difference between Fiat and the European models showing 199 miles and all the UK ones only showing 161. I bought mine in the summer and it always showed 161 at full charge and it has been showing the same this colder week too.
Similarly my Tesla always shows the same range at full charge. Admittedly, the actual range you get is less and varies, but the suggested range at full is pretty consistent.
It seems to be something else and can only assume Fiat has made changes to reduce the range, maybe only in the UK?
It is a massive difference between them claiming over 200 miles and then the car only showing 161 in Sherpa and 143 in normal. When you consider in normal mode you will probably only actually get about 80% of those miles, so a realistic 115 miles is a shocking difference when they claim over 200 is achievable!
I'd agree, though in percentage terms, the difference is no worse than the difference between the official economy figures for the TA at launch, and what most owners actually achieved.
As an 'outsider looking in'
The UK usually get models 6 to 9 months after Europe..
Any chance that issues were found early on and the Battery is being 'saved' by software keeping the extremes of charge unavailable.
Thinking to hassles my wife had with phone charging.. is there a difference in our Charging network..?
Most respondents are not long term forum posters..so may not remember all of the
'I can only get 32 litres in my 38 litre FIAT tank' threads.
The UK usually get models 6 to 9 months after Europe..
Any chance that issues were found early on and the Battery is being 'saved' by software keeping the extremes of charge unavailable.
Thinking to hassles my wife had with phone charging.. is there a difference in our Charging network..?
Most respondents are not long term forum posters..so may not remember all of the
'I can only get 32 litres in my 38 litre FIAT tank' threads.
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