Hypermiling Volkswagen ID.3 makes 531 km journey on a single charge
26 August 2020
The new Volkswagen ID.3 has set its first range record—the electric car covered the 531 kilometers (330 miles) from Zwickau to Schaffhausen (Switzerland) on a single charge. Officially, the model has a range of up to 420 kilometers (261 miles) (WLTP). This mark was topped by more than 100 kilometers—an increase of 26%.
The vehicle was a series-production ID.3 1st Pro Performance with a 58 kWh battery built at the Zwickau electric car factory. The route to Switzerland consisted entirely of public roads and highways, passing cities such as Bayreuth and Ulm. The record-breaking vehicle was driven by hypermiler Felix Egolf, a native of Switzerland.
Apart from the technology,the race to break records depends above all on an economical driving style. Felix Egolf constantly lifted off the accelerator and let the ID.3 coast. On the highway sections of the journey, he sometimes used the slipstream of trucks traveling in front of him.
The weight, on the other hand, was not ideal: The additional weight of the cameraman plus technical equipment took the total payload to around 250 kilos (772 lbs). In addition, auxiliary consumers such as navigation, daytime running lights, radio and ventilation were either temporarily or permanently in operation.
Nevertheless, power consumption was a low 10.9 kWh/100 km. The standardized consumption rating of the ID.3 is 15.4-14.5 kWh/100 km.
44% of the record journey was on highways and 56% on country roads. Average speed was 56 km/h (35 mph). Felix Egolf completed the journey from Zwickau to Schaffhausen in roughly nine hours.
The ID.3 is built at the Zwickau electric car factory and is the first member of Volkswagen’s all-electric ID. family. The plant in Saxony plays a key role in the system changeover to e-mobility: For the first time, a large car manufacturing plant is being entirely converted to e-mobility, with investments running at some €1.2 billion. All conversion work will be completed as scheduled this year.
In 2021, the first full production year as an EV factory, some 300,000 electric vehicles based on the modular electric drive matrix (MEB) will leave the Zwickau plant. The site will therefore become the largest and most efficient EV factory in Europe.
The key number here is the average speed of 56 kph which is laughable.
Power increases with the cube of the speed, so you can easily see how he did it.
Try doing the whole run at an average of 100 kph (or 120) and see how you get on.
You should be able to do 330 miles in 6 hours of sedate driving, not 9 as described,
(excuse mixed units).
I am sure it is a good car, but not a magic one.
Posted by: mahonj | 26 August 2020 at 03:04 AM
I don't know what went wrong here but either this was not a good Hypermiling effort or ID.3 is just not an efficient EV.
Hypermiling Kona EV resulted in consumption of just 6.3 kWh/100 km (1026 km), and Model 3 someone managed to do 7 kWh/100 km (975 km).
Posted by: GasperG | 26 August 2020 at 06:21 AM
Back in 1996, a record of 604 km was established hypermiling a Solectria Sunrise.
Using just a 25 kwh battery.
That was a design which I would by in a blink, unfortunately it was to soon for EVs.
Posted by: peskanov | 26 August 2020 at 12:24 PM
In my normal driving which is decided not hypermiling, I have averaged about 14.4 kWh in the first 25,000 miles of driving my Bolt EV. About half of my driving in on Interstate with speeds regularly exceeding 80 mph. The speed limit is 70 mph but traffic typically is faster than that. On the morning news, I have seen average commuting speeds of 75 and even 77 mph in Salt Lake. (Eat you heart out, LA)
Posted by: sd | 26 August 2020 at 06:36 PM
Low speed hypermiling in EVs is kind of pointless, IMO.
All they demonstrate is that if you drop your speed and turn the AC off, you can get greater mileage, but this is not practical in most public road settings.
I don't think pulse and glide is much use in an EV, the engines are already very efficient.
Posted by: mahonj | 27 August 2020 at 07:02 AM
Hypermiling can actually be great fun! I do it all the time in my range challenged 2013 Nissan Leaf (44 miles range, though <$0 purchase cost). Coasting down hills, no braking requires handling skills. However, it can be challenging for passengers.
Posted by: Account Deleted | 27 August 2020 at 09:01 AM