Every online shopper has faced the Amazon dilemma.
After 10 minutes of scrolling, you’ll find the perfect item that meets all your needs and looks amazing. You can even check reviews to make sure the community is happy with their purchase.
However, when you receive the item, it looks different than the item online and doesn’t perform as you expected. (By the way, Wired has helpful tips on spotting fake reviews.)
As frustrating as this is for an off-brand video game controller or a $45 stainless steel cooking pot, imagine how frustrating it is to spend tens of thousands of dollars on an electric car when its range per charge is more than 50 miles lower than advertised.
But every now and then, our online shopping goals perform even better than we expected, and some vehicles exceed their EPA-estimated mileage.
The federal government strictly regulates motor vehicle fuel efficiency standards. For electric vehicles, the Environmental Protection Agency range is the official estimate of how far an electric vehicle can travel on a single charge. The EPA estimates that one gallon of gasoline has the equivalent of 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity.
In other words, driving 100 miles on a 33.7-kilowatt-hour plug-in car uses the equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. Or at least that should be the standard.
Many electric vehicles perform much worse on the highway than their advertised EPA ranges suggest, according to a new study from Consumer Reports.
But many vehicles also outperformed EPA estimates, leaving owners with 10 or 20 more miles than expected.
The EPA says its testing takes charging losses into account as small amounts of energy are lost through energy conversion and heat. But some real-world results in the Consumer Reports study can’t be explained by spillover.
Alex Knizek, director of automotive testing development at Consumer Reports, explained that the discrepancy is not unexpected because the EPA conducts testing in the lab using a standardized combination of highway and city driving, while Consumer Reports uses a real-world highway range.
However, he admitted it was an unfair dilemma for car buyers.
“When comparing cars, buyers need to know what range of cars they’re getting for their money,” Knizek said. “If you run out of battery on the highway, you may need to be towed, which is inconvenient and expensive.”
Founded in 1936 by a group of laid-off employees from Consumers’ Research, Consumer Reports is a diverse, nonprofit organization that educates consumers about products and helps them make informed buying decisions.
