Effective Strategies to Extend the Driving Range of Your Electric Vehicle (EV).

Going on a long road trip and thinking about the range anxiety, well this is a common doubt which every EV owner goes through, as he wants to churn maximum range & efficiency from his vehicle. While modern electric cars boast impressive numbers on paper to attract people, the real time conditions are very different as the real range depends on the effects of traffic, braking and driving behavior. While observing these factors, here are some strategies which will help to increase the range of your electric cars and will transform your range anxiety into range confidence.

Understanding the Mechanics of Range.

Range is not a fixed number in your car but it varies as how you drive your car and how hard you accelerate or brake, so it boils down to how you are utilising your car’s stored energy.

In easy words, imagine your battery as a resource which decreases and increases by every acceleration, hill climb, and even a tap of it will affect how far you drive.

The relationship between driving behaviour and range is inversely related to each other. The more aggressive acceleration will result in less range and might lessen down your journey time. So to increase the efficiency and healthy range, let’s discuss five key strategies:

Strategy 1: Optimum Tire Pressure

Proper tire pressure plays a crucial role as the foundation of energy storage. While it may seem simple, less inflated tires create more rolling resistance which impacts the driving range of the electric vehicle. Regular tire checks can improve range by up to 3%.

• This will increase not only the efficiency of the car but will also churn out maximum performance from your car from every kWH stored in the battery.

Strategy 2: Climate Control

The batteries in electric cars react differently in extreme weather conditions and may give challenges to varied range, and extreme climate can reduce your range significantly. Thus to prevent this we have suggested some strategies:

• Keep your cabin temperature according to the climatic conditions.
• Take the use of seat heaters instead of cabin heaters, when needed.
• Park your car in a natural shade during extreme summer months.
• Implement your car’s eco-friendly settings as set for the particular weather.

Strategy 3: Adopting Efficient Driving Style

The most important factor in affecting driving range is your driving behavior as how hard or conservatively you drive your car. Driving aggressively will make the motor use more energy from the battery, giving less range. So let us give you a new enhanced driving style to increase your electric car’s efficiency.

• Accelerate slowly, do not push the accelerator hard, instead push the car in gently.
• Follow traffic patterns to save your energy and utilize the power smartly.
• Put your car into a sweet spot or at the meat of the powerband, as maintaining constant speeds at a level when cars are using less energy.
• At highways, let the advanced driver assistance take over your car systems as they are designed by keeping efficiency as the first priority.

Strategy 4: Choose the Shortest yet Smartest Path

Find routes which are shorter and easier to reach with less energy output. Take the use of modern navigation systems as they are designed to optimize your journey for maximum efficiency and range.

• Consider elevation changes, traffic patterns, and charging infrastructure when planning your trips, this can give you a proper idea about the route you are going and how many charging stations are there, so that you can plan accordingly.

Strategy 5: Regenerative Braking: Charge while move

Instead of using traditional braking to reduce your car’s speed, take the use of regenerative braking which uses kinetic energy and return the energy to the batteries.

• Use gradual deceleration and let the system brake your car as it will be doing two works at the same time: reducing your car’s speed and recharging the batteries.

Small Tips To Increase Your Range

• Make the most of your climate control settings
• Adopt fuel-efficient driving habits
• Precondition your vehicle while plugged in
• Lighten your load by removing unnecessary cargo
• Select routes that are mindful of the terrain
• Take advantage of eco-driving options
• Get skilled at regenerative braking
• Control auxiliary power systems wisely
• Drive at consistent speeds on the highway.

Tips for Enhancing Battery Life of your Electric Car Over time

Cold Weather can reduce your car’s range by 30%, while excessive heat can damage your batteries leading to replacement, but strategic charging and proper upkeep makes a difference.

• For everyday Driving, Maintain your battery’s charge at around 80% to keep your battery healthy and improve the performance.
• Caution: Don’t ever use fast charging in hot weather to charge your car’s batteries as it generates additional heat that can damage your batteries.
• Monitor your battery’s temperature and keep the temperature in the required range only, maintain it between 20-35 Degrees.
• Plug your charge before your battery drops below 20%.
• Charge your battery to 100% only when you are travelling long distances as fully charging your batteries can cause battery degradation.

Thus by understanding and implementing these strategies, you will achieve maximum efficiency from your electric cars giving you superior performance and healthy range over a long period of time