EV range (autonomía del coche eléctrico)

What EV range is

Range (autonomía in Spanish) is how many kilometres an electric car can cover from a full battery until it runs out. It is the figure buyers worry about most, although in daily use it matters less than it seems if you charge at home.

Official and real range

The range a manufacturer advertises is measured with the WLTP approval cycle, a standard laboratory test route. In real life it is usually somewhat lower, and it varies a lot with how and where you drive.

What reduces range

• Speed: motorway (highway) driving at high speed uses far more than town driving.
• Temperature: cold reduces usable battery capacity, and the extreme heat of a Seville summer means running the air conditioning hard.
• Heating and cooling: both draw on the same battery.
• Driving style: hard acceleration uses more; in town, regenerative braking recovers energy.
• Load and tyres (tires): weight, roof boxes or underinflated tyres.

How to work out yours

Divide the usable battery capacity by the consumption. As a rough calculation, 60 kWh usable and consumption of about 17 kWh per 100 km give about 350 km (around 220 miles). Your car’s trip computer shows its real consumption.

What you really need

If you drive 40 km a day, you recover that energy in an hour of charging at 7.4 kW. With a charger at home you leave every morning with the battery at the level you choose, and range only matters on long trips. See home EV charger for a house or EV charger in a communal garage in Seville, Spain.