from the my-friends-all-drive-Teslas-I-must-make-amends dept.
We test an electric Mercedes that can go 747 miles on a single charge:
Mercedes wouldn't tell us the program's exact budget, simply warning us that the sole EQXX should be considered priceless [...]
[T]he aim was to build an electric vehicle capable of at least 621 miles (1,000km) on a single charge. Also like the Bugatti, it's road-legal: In April of this year, less than two years after the project was given the green light, the team drove the EV 625 miles (1,006 km) from Sindelfingen in Germany to Cassis, France, arriving with 15 percent state of charge in the battery.
Two months later, the team followed that up with a longer drive that involved descending down fewer mountains, driving from Stuttgart, Germany, to the Silverstone racetrack in the UK, where reigning Formula E champion Nyck de Vries then used the remaining charge to drive some hot laps. The car eventually completed 747 miles (1,202 km) before coming to a halt in the pit lane.
[...] The Vision EQXX is a one-off, a concept car come to life, but it's more fully realized than any other concept I've yet encountered. A pure engineering exercise or world record breaker wouldn't bother with a functional infotainment system that uses a single 44-inch 8K display, nor a completely trimmed interior, even if it's one that uses a cactus fiber fabric instead of leather, bamboo fiber carpets, and a biotech-derived silk, among other innovations.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @07:48PM
I bet Elon wants it, and for the right price (including royalties on all the innovations that might later appear in a Tesla), I bet Mercedes would sell.
It's better deal than Twitter for sure!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @07:48PM
If you could afford this, you're on the menu.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Tuesday July 26 2022, @08:52PM (7 children)
"If you have to ask the price, it's too expensive for you".
Quite frankly, building a car that has an arbitrary range is trivial. Make it a truck and fill the trailer with batteries, presto 2000 miles range. Granted, you need to have a permit for heavy loads and can't drive it on most roads because they won't support the weight, but if all you need is that "TWO THOUSAND MILES RANGE" ad blurb...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday July 26 2022, @08:59PM (2 children)
Plus, an arbitrary range isn't that useful. A car with a 16-hour continuous driving range at highway speeds between recharges, though ... as long as you have to stop to recharge before it does, that's a very good milestone for a range that most people will consider the maximum they need. It's not like you're going to switch drivers and keep going without at least getting out to stretch.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @09:18PM (1 child)
I've never had a vehicle that could do more than about half that range, so the range is fine. The issue will be how long it takes to recharge it after such a drive. An ICE vehicle can be "recharged" (in the U.S. at least) at over 100,000 stations in about 5-10 minutes. That's the part that still needs a lot of work before EVs become practical for most people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Wednesday July 27 2022, @03:16AM
Electricity is using a container called battery that weights half of the car, costs a fortune, and does not lose weight as I drive.
Meantime I have a few devices called canisters in the back of my truck at $20 each that I fill with fuel whenever I want to double the range of my truck.
Until an empty battery weights and costs in the same range, don't even suggest it.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday July 26 2022, @09:10PM (2 children)
Quite frankly, I drive 99.9% of the time less than 10 miles a day. Had my knees not given out 20 years ago I'd be riding my bike most times. That, and traffic that IMHO cuts my life expectancy by 20 years.
2-3 times a year I go maybe 100 miles in a day. Once a year I want to go 300+ miles.
1) I live in an apartment. Give me somewhere to charge it and I'll scrounge the couch cushions for those extra bux. Too bad the bux ain't there...
2) EVs are expensive, I need to buy a gas car that gets 30 MPG (cuz I'm not settling on those wimpy shits that get more MPG with a 30+ second - 0 to 60 time)
3) 5 hours is a good drive for me. Toss in a recharger with a place to eat something that takes 20 minutes and I'm good.
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 4, Informative) by xorsyst on Wednesday July 27 2022, @02:21PM
There are cars coming next year that have solar panels on them capable of charging about 20 miles per day. That will cover you for all but 3-4 times a year without any faff at all!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 28 2022, @12:46PM
For an EV, that's still a challenge. Electric bikes? No problem. The delivery guys in NYC all have those after-market kits you attach to a bike, and none of them have palatial homes where they have their own charging points. But if they mandate rechargers at places like parking garages and malls, then EV owners could park in them and recharge there while they shop or have coffee. If you're only driving a few miles a day then 350 miles of range will last you a while.
A big chunk of that expense is the battery pack, and a big chunk of that expense is the elements that go into current battery chemistries. But they're working on that and making progress. Tesla bought a battery tech startup a while back and are bringing cars with that new chemistry off the production line in Austin now, I believe. But their strategy was always to start with the most expensive models first to fund the production of more mass-market cars. At the moment they're at the mid-range models like the Model 3 and the Model Y and are about to go for the compact models. Other car makers are getting in on that, too. Hyundai Ioniqs are on the road, as are Volvo Polestars, and others.
Regular stops like that have always been recommended by groups like AAA, but now with EVs there's additional reason to do that. Though, ironically, if battery energy densities and recharge times improve, then with self-driving long journeys would become less physically taxing and regular stops would feel less necessary.
Anyway, taking long road trips across the US is quite feasible now if you're taking an interstate highway. East to West, that is. North to South can still be pesky if you're in certain regions. The superchargers don't seem to have spread that way yet. In the Dakotas you can cross laterally on the interstates fine, but North or South can be difficult when major communities like Williston or Minot have no chargers.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @10:02PM
> "If you have to ask the price, it's too expensive for you".
Sure, but that's not the point. This is a prototype, all the engineering costs are spread across the production of one (1) vehicle.
The interesting point is that this car has about the same amount of battery as a full-boat Tesla, yet goes nearly 2x further. It's more efficient than the Tesla by a healthy margin, not just an incremental gain. That may not be important to you, but it will be for anyone in a cold climate--it means that this Merc will still have a good long range, even with the heater running (Tesla's don't).
One side effect you can bet on: At Tesla and every other e-car company, the beatings (of the engineers) will continue until morale (range) improves.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday July 26 2022, @11:59PM
BEVs are great for local trips-- anything that you can do as a round trip without having to recharge enroute. Long ones, not so much. EV range comes with a lot of caveats, and is good reason why the public is still wary. Like every other EV, this Mercedes experimental prototype can't fast charge to 100%, only 80%. In ordinary usage, no one purposely runs a car completely out of power, you always leave a reserve. This range is so large, you could get away with as little as a 5% reserve. However, the article does say fast charging takes it from 10%. So, don't run it below 15%. So there, the usable range for a road trip is already just 65% of the total range. Still, I must admit this range is so large it's approaching another convenient limit, that being that one driver can't drive very much farther in one day. In that case, you could recharge from 5% to 100% overnight, rather than try to recharge from 15% to only 80% in the middle of the day. Gain back 30%. But, but, but ... recharging to 100% may degrade the batteries faster.
Typically, the range figures are overly optimistic. I mean, yeah, auto manufacturers have always stretched the numbers. If you use A/C, take another 20% off. Have to drive 80 mph, to go with the flow? The range figures were likely calculated for 60 mph/100 kph. Knock off another 20%.
Now this car, they seem to have finally picked some of that low hanging aerodynamic fruit. So, maybe, 80 mph driving doesn't take 20% off the range, maybe it's, I don't know, 15%? 10%? Anyway, they still haven't picked it all. No dimples or other vortex generators on the trailing edges. No wheel covers over the rear wheels. They have done a great job of smoothing the surface about the wheels, but I suspect wheel covers are still better.