Standard Range or Long Range

[Robf]

Just wondering as to which would be the better option, the standard range has a 50kw LFP battery capable of estimated 193m, the long range a 72.6kw battery capable of estimated 273m. However the standard range appears to be a LFP battery that is allegedly much better at resisting degregation amd will happily accept 100% charges without problems. The long range is recommended to charge to 80% (that last 20% takes much longer and is the area that damages the battery... allegedly).
So according to Tesla, they are going over to LFP battries as it allows them to integrate into the chassis, as they expect the battery to last longer than the car.
The standard range does 195 miles, 80% of 273 is 218 a diffrence of 23 miles.

LFP Lithium Batteries Live Longer than NMC

LFP Lithium Batteries Live Longer than NMC

lithiumwerks.com

The question being, is it better to go for the standard range over the long range?

 

[Gadget Geek]

It all depends on your personal use case. The 80% guidance is only for day to day commuting. On a road trip, charge to 100% and off you go. I went from a 170 mile range car to 278 mile range (over 300 in the summer), and had no problems learning where the chargers where on commonly used routes. The larger range is useful for unexpected journeys where you can just get in and go.

 

[neilp7865]

I wondered the same, here’s my logic. 3/4 of my journeys are <10 mi and a daily commute with popping to the shops etc is around 30 miles. Charger at home so frequency of charging isn’t a bother. Key for me is that my parents live 120 mi away (mostly mways) and we don’t normally need to stop. My maths was to assume 70% of the quoted WLTP on cold motorway. SR = 198 x 0.7 = 138. Just about doable, but very tight. Wasn’t worth the hassle so I’ve gone for LR. Also, as EVs are improving all the time, I suspect that a car with <200 mi range in 3y will be considered fairly poor which may then impact on residuals vs LR.

 

[Ron61]

I think in the future the size of the battery will not be so important as the number of rapid charges on our motorways increases. I bought a standard range MG5 which is great for 99% of my driving. The obvious advantage to small batteries is better miles per kWh because the batteries don't weigh as much and the initial purchase cost. Disadvantage is that for the same annual mileage a larger battery will require fewer charge cycles so should have less degradation.

 

[neilp7865]

Agree that chargers should become more commonplace but need to consider that frequent recharging is quite inconvenient and adds delays. As battery tech improves I expect range to improve to a degree with which range anxiety becomes a think of the past. If you can travel a sufficient distance on a charge where you’d need to stop anyway.

 

[dm57]

Coming from a 30kWh leaf with approx 100 mile range on a good day, the LR with approx 250 miles will give us more flexibility. We visit family fairly regularly which is a 500 mile round trip. Done plenty of times in Leaf but more recently rapid charger availability is becoming an issue (queueing etc). Thinking is we can make the one way trip on a charge but when stopping for break halfway a short top up on rapid or AC will get us there with no issues, if charger unavailable then we can still make it but may be squeaky bum time.

 

[hmadsen]

Coming from a 30kWh leaf with approx 100 mile range on a good day, the LR with approx 250 miles will give us more flexibility. We visit family fairly regularly which is a 500 mile round trip. Done plenty of times in Leaf but more recently rapid charger availability is becoming an issue (queueing etc). Thinking is we can make the one way trip on a charge but when stopping for break halfway a short top up on rapid or AC will get us there with no issues, if charger unavailable then we can still make it but may be squeaky bum time.

Looking forward to a bit of summertime, with double digit temperatures.

I just charged the car to 100% to get it balanced, and at 100% it predicted as a Range of 200 miles. (temperature was about 5c)

If you do eco driving and keep to country roads at 50 you might get 250 miles on a summer day, but in winter, and on the motorway, doing 80, i would not be surprised if you were only able to do 150 miles on a charge

 

[MichaelJHunt]

In my humble experience the larger the range the more comfortable a trip you will have on long journeys.

Remember for longer journeys you will normally try and recharge when the battery is around 20% and charge to 80%. This means that once you have used up your first 100% charge (actually 80% of it because you are looking for a charger), your range for subsequent stops on a long journey will only be about 60% to 65% of the maximum range. In saying that, you would still probably get 2 hours of driving between stops in the SR ZS EV, I know that’s enough for me

Does depend on your annual journey profile. If you don’t regularly do journeys that are outside the range of the SR, then the choice becomes easier.

Also, as mentioned earlier, battery life is to be considered if the car is yours and not a rental (Lease, PCP).

For same annual distance driven:

Smaller battery = more charge cycles

More charge cycles = shorter life.

 

[rbpasapera]

But LFP batteries have a longer lifespan / cycle life.

Also, with LFP batteries you could use 100% battery capacity, because you don't need to keep the SOC between 20%-80%.

 

[MichaelJHunt]

But LFP batteries have a longer lifespan / cycle life.

Also, with LFP batteries you could use 100% battery capacity, because you don't need to keep the SOC between 20%-80%.

When charging at a Rapid Charger it is best to stop charging at around 80% as the charging power falls off a cliff with the ZS EV and you will be hogging the charger which is a sparse commodity at the moment.

Letting the charge go much below 20% is tempting fate of the charger not working when you get to it and you not having enough charge for to reach plan B, or even plan C.

On long trips that need several stops, the 20% to 80% rule keeps you sane.

LFP battery positives ( as per SR ZS EV)
Increased cycle life

Negatives:
Low energy density hence heavy
Poor performance in cold conditions

All my opinion and others may differ

 

[JodyS21]

Remember to allow for battery degradation in your figures. Assuming 70% of WLTP is probably just about ok for those cold winter days, but based on the gen1 SoH is about 95% after 25k miles.
So if you're keeping the car for several years after say 3years/50k miles your battery could have dropped to 90%, your range in winter is therefore 70% of 90% (63%).
Also, this is from "100%" fully charged to totally empty - which you'd never do, don't forget about the (potentially dangerous) reduced power when you're at a really low of charge.

Assuming using from 100% to 10% left, on a 3year old/50k mile SR car, you're probably looking worst case (cold winter days)..... 198 x 0.9 x 0.7 x 0.9 = 112 miles.

You should be able to charge to about 90% on a rapid before it becomes slow enough that you'd stop charging (not really at 80%).


In my eyes, with a decent rapid charging infrastructure in the future, 250 miles WLTP will be enough for any car probably.

 

[MichaelJHunt]

Charge Curves for smaller and larger batteries. Will search out the LPF battery

More info available on the Fastned website here..

Charging with a MG ZS EV

If you drive a MG ZS EV, then you use the CCS connector. It could be that there is a plastic cover, covering the bottom part of the charge port. If so, this plastic cover needs to be removed in ord...

support.fastned.nl

 

[Hobbyist]

I think in the future the size of the battery will not be so important as the number of rapid charges on our motorways increases. I bought a standard range MG5 which is great for 99% of my driving. The obvious advantage to small batteries is better miles per kWh because the batteries don't weigh as much and the initial purchase cost. Disadvantage is that for the same annual mileage a larger battery will require fewer charge cycles so should have less degradation.

Actually it's the opposite. In the UK alone you'd need x22 number of rapids by 2030. That's almost a 70% growth every year.

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/energy-resources/deloitte-uk-Electric-Vehicles-uk.pdf

How likely this is, I'm not sure. Having a longer range car means less relying on public charging, which is a better strategy against this uncertain future. Range anxiety will be completely replaced by charger anxiety, and I'd rather charge at home with 100% certainty. This is not possible for a huge swath of people but if you have a home charger getting a longer range car makes more sense.

 

[Ron61]

Actually it's the opposite. In the UK alone you'd need x22 number of rapids by 2030. That's almost a 70% growth every year.

https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/energy-resources/deloitte-uk-Electric-Vehicles-uk.pdf

How likely this is, I'm not sure. Having a longer range car means less relying on public charging, which is a better strategy against this uncertain future. Range anxiety will be completely replaced by charger anxiety, and I'd rather charge at home with 100% certainty. This is not possible for a huge swath of people but if you have a home charger getting a longer range car makes more sense.

I think you are ignoring the effect of pricing. At current rates I'd be happy to pay £2 per kWh on rapid chargers on long journeys. lets assume I do 13,000 a year in total. 95% of my mileage is done locally ay 25p per kWh at 4 miles per kWh = 13,000 x .95 = 12,3500/4 = 3087 x 0.25 = £771 per annum. 5% of my mileage (650 miles is done at £2 per kWh) 650/4 = 162.5 x £2 = £325. Total cost per annum £771 + £325 = £1,096.

ICE (Diesel equivalent 13000/45 = 288 gallons x 4.5 = 1,296 liters x £1.75 = £2,268.

Even at £4 per kWh on rapid chargers I'd still be up on the deal compared to ICE powered cars.

Obviously it depends on the amount of mileage you need to do on rapid chargers but I think the ratios above are pretty typical for most drivers.

Even In the above examples I do not think it justifies the longer range larger battery capacity cars because of the price you have to pay up front for them.

 

[Tmap]

It depends on when you travel as well as how far. We got the MG recognising that in the near-ish future we will have the luxury of being able to pick when we travel unconstrained by school holidays. The world is a really long way away from reliable charging on a really busy day. On French autoroutes on a busy day, even the petrol/diesel supply can barely supply enough and it's common to have a 20 minute wait to fill up, and sensible to go cross-country to find it. One interesting point is that Ionity charge per minute rather than per kwh (at least in France), encouraging cars with fast charging, I suspect because they can see throughput becoming a much bigger issue.

In our 30kw Leaf, we've done trips of 170 miles and those have become less nail biting as chargers have got better. With a better cooled battery I can see that longer trips would be feasible even with that, but I still wouldn't try it on a busy Saturday morning in football season.

Hyundai are betting big with their Ioniq 5 and its astonishing 17 minutes to 80% charge. When cars can all do that (and when there are massive supercharger stops every 100 miles), it's true that range won't matter so much but it will still matter on a Saturday in July.

So it was the LR for us but I can see our needs (fairly regular 600 mile drives) are a little unusual.

 

[Robf]

Thanks all for your views, really interesting. I have ordered the long range, this will be my 3rd EV (started with a Zoe, then a 30kw Leaf which I shall be keeping). Both cars have been charged to generally 100% through our 7kw home charger, and neither have shown any signs of battery degredation so far (the leaf is 5 years old and still shows 100%). I have read that charging at 7kw is the best process for battery health, although the occasional supercharger charge is meant to be helpfull to battery health too.
For me I intend to charge from when the car reaches just under 100 miles for 4 hours (Octopus Go from 12.30 to 4.30), which should bring it up to 200 miles (in the summer, I shall see how it goes in the winter) and full charge if going on a long trip.
Incidently, Octopus can connect to most SMETS1 meters with a small over the air update, they did ours when we moved so its worth asking them if you are having to wait for a SMETS2.

 

[Bryan Flanagan]

It would be nice to have the greater range potential of the NMC version but MG are not bringing them into New Zealand at this stage so LFP it is, hopefully about August this year.

However I don't think that's much of an issue if we take the recommended charge cycles of 80% for NMC vs 100% for LFP, giving them both about 200 miles day to day.

MG's battery technology and their battery management systems seem to be first class so the fire question probably isn't a real issue at all, in fact I suspect that fire is more a risk in an MG (or any other) ICE than it is in an MG EV of either chemistry (as a matter of interest has anybody ever heard of an MG EV lighting up?) However readings that I have done indicate that in case of battery management failure the greatest temp that LFP can reach is about 60 degrees celcius, about half that of NMC which influences me slightly.

As for range anxiety, I've spent a lifetime riding about on motorbikes which typically have a range between refuelings of about 120 miles. I also had a Toyota MR2 Turbo for quite some time which gave a bit over 200 miles on a tank so my brain is still somewhat calibrated to regard this as "normal". 200 miles on a tank of electrons is not at all daunting.