From the July/August 2023 issue of Car and Driver.
To add real-world context to our 75-mph highway range and DC fast-charging test results, we’ve calculated how much distance each EV of the Year entry could cover in 10 hours. Okay, so our figures are highly theoretical, as we assumed there is a functioning and available charger capable of delivering the maximum juice the car can handle at optimal stopping points, which is currently far from the norm. We also assumed each vehicle starts with a 100 percent charge and drives until the battery reaches 10 percent—figuring no reasonable driver will push all the way to zero—then pauses for the time required to charge from 10 to 80 percent. Charging higher is typically unproductive, as the pumping rate tends to slow dramatically in the battery’s upper reaches. Subsequent driving legs are from 80 percent back down to 10 percent. However, we optimized each vehicle’s last charging/driving stints to maximize the distance covered in the allotted time, rather than, say, having a vehicle spend its last available minutes parked for charging.
A massive battery, such as the Hummer EV’s, can help with the range on the first stint, but a vehicle needs to be both efficient and quick to recharge to do well. For those reasons, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 narrowly emerged as the distance champ, requiring 58 minutes of charging over three stops to go 678 miles, with the BMW i7 and Lucid Air Pure a mere five miles behind. On the other end of the spectrum, the Lexus RZ450e has the least highway range (120 miles) and isn’t particularly quick to recharge, so it’s plugged in for just over three hours in five stops and makes it only 515 miles in 10 hours. While the Ioniq 6’s result is certainly impressive, a BMW M340i xDrive sipping dino juice at a rate of 33 mpg could go 747 miles in 10 hours with a single fuel stop of just over a minute.
Director, Vehicle Testing
Dave VanderWerp has spent more than 20 years in the automotive industry, in varied roles from engineering to product consulting, and now leading Car and Driver‘s vehicle-testing efforts. Dave got his very lucky start at C/D by happening to submit an unsolicited resume at just the right time to land a part-time road warrior job when he was a student at the University of Michigan, where he immediately became enthralled with the world of automotive journalism.
