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Different EV route planners (e.g., Google Maps, Cadillac's built-in planner) provide significantly different range predictions for the same route, leading to uncertainty and anxiety for drivers. Planners need to improve consistency and accuracy, especially considering factors like temperature.
Our giant family car is a PHEV and was the gateway drug to the world of EVs…when my commuter car got totaled, the replacement was a Cadillac Optiq. Famous last words: “it’s a little bit smaller than the CR-V was, but not like we’ll be taking it out of town for Christmas or anything.” One rear-ending later and the giant Volvo is in the shop and we’re off to drive 400 miles through Midwest winter with two kids, a dog, and every nook and cranny crammed full. TL;dr it was no big deal. We brought the car from 80% to 100% right before we left and preconditioned. Google Maps said we’d make it to the kids’ favorite truck stop 150 miles away with 30%, while the Cadillac route planner said 12%. We split the difference and got there at 18%. Good news: they had a DCFC. Bad news: it was rated at 80 kW. Ugly news: $5 connection fee and $.60/minute. Fortunately, between dinner/potty/dessert, the car was at 80% when we got done an hour later. Over a $50 bill. Yikes. Our favorite hotel for an overnight on the way was another 130 miles down the road. Even with temperatures approaching 0 or -18 depending on your unit of preference, we made it there with 25% driving like normal. We looked at the energy consumption, and even with the cabin temperature where we normally keep it and heated seats and steering wheel all on it never got higher than 7% of energy consumption. The heat pump is a huge improvement from our Volvo’s unreliable (on our 4th in 3 years) and energy hogging resistive coolant heater. We plugged into the Tesla Level 2 charger at the hotel with one of our adapters and called it a night. The next day the goal was to drive non-stop to our in-laws. Only 150 miles, but it was even colder than the day before. We preconditioned and hopped in. The car initially told us we’d arrive at 26%, but as it got colder that estimate kept going down. We were looking at 15% when the infamous “I need the potty” came from the back seat. One gas station with DCFC later, we added around 10% and kept the peace. Made it into town and plugged into the 240 volt welder outlet at the in-laws with around 40 miles range showing. Before the YOU MUST HARDWIRE crowd chimes in, we don’t ever go higher than 16 amps on a 50 amp breaker/outlet and our Volvo’s spent many a night there with the same EVSE 😝 So if you made it to the end…absolutely no difference in how we’d drive compared to our PHEV. Cost is about the same as gas thanks to the expensive DCFC and free level 2 hotel charging balancing out. Our XC90’s a road tripping machine and definitely far more comfortable for a long drive, but Super Cruise on the Optiq is awesome…I touched the steering wheel maybe for 10 minutes of the 6ish hours on the interstate. I hope our XC90’s around for a long time (the Optiq replaced a car we bought new and put 180k+ on over 13 years), but it’ll be replaced with a BEV.