Another efficiency topic
Posted: Fri Oct 21, 2022 6:07 pm
I've had my Honda over 2 years & driven almost 18k miles.
I had done a couple of airport runs for my son to/from Gatwick via a couple of routes over the past few months and I have observed the following:
The 'best' route is not that generated by any of the mapping tools: ABRP/ZAP Map/Google/Apple Maps but my own just by looking at a map and using Zap Map to find suitable chargers manually. What I determine as the best route is the one which didn't require a charge and was almost as quick as the quickest route calculated by the above mapping tools.
My last trip was a round trip distance of 97.4 miles at efficiency of 4.7 mile/kWh and that was to arrive at the pickup point at 12:30pm on a Sunday, so gives some indication of traffic conditions and the outside temperature was about 16C.
I decided to drive without Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) off because it wasn't needed and drove reasonably efficiently where I didn't hold anyone behind me and at or very near all 30/40mph limits and 50 in the the 50 & 60 limits and between 60-70 (mainly around 65mph) on the M23 from Crawley to Gatwick.
In conclusion which I always knew was:
I had done a couple of airport runs for my son to/from Gatwick via a couple of routes over the past few months and I have observed the following:
The 'best' route is not that generated by any of the mapping tools: ABRP/ZAP Map/Google/Apple Maps but my own just by looking at a map and using Zap Map to find suitable chargers manually. What I determine as the best route is the one which didn't require a charge and was almost as quick as the quickest route calculated by the above mapping tools.
My last trip was a round trip distance of 97.4 miles at efficiency of 4.7 mile/kWh and that was to arrive at the pickup point at 12:30pm on a Sunday, so gives some indication of traffic conditions and the outside temperature was about 16C.
I decided to drive without Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) off because it wasn't needed and drove reasonably efficiently where I didn't hold anyone behind me and at or very near all 30/40mph limits and 50 in the the 50 & 60 limits and between 60-70 (mainly around 65mph) on the M23 from Crawley to Gatwick.
In conclusion which I always knew was:
- ACC saps energy because it uses the rear brakes unnecessarily (proven by my last service where the rear pads were worn a lot more than the front).
- HVAC saps energy even if it doesn't appear to be heating or cooling even when the energy monitor indicates that it reduces range by a a couple of miles.
- It's very easy to drive efficiently but still quickly (just don't accelerate rapidly and look/plan ahead).