Featured Edmunds Test BZ4X Real World Range

I don’t place much weight behind Edmund comparing the results of their “real world test” to thhe official EPA numbers.
However, comparisons of how different cars did in the same test hold some value.

Best of all, I love they byline.
“Late to the party, brought fruitcake”. That is awesome

 

i thought it was a poor article. half of it on what it costs to drive, the other half nonsense about toyota history, or other talks about 'other points against it', but never articulates them in detail

 

Then there is this:

Bob Wilson

 

Hmmm, I once again have difficulty with outlets that do their own testing using different parameters.
However, the calculated battery capacity and charge rate, I would think, are much more straightforward.
As such, those results bother me more than the range.

I wonder if firmware/software is limiting the available battery capacity more than it should? If that is true, a simple software update could fix both the range and usable battery capacity.

If not, what the h@#( was Toyota thinking??

 

Many EVs don’t meet the highway metric, especially during “weather”

That is why it would be helpful to make the city and highway metrics more prominent .

Highway crossover speed , AKA the max speed you can drive steady state no wind and achieve the epa rating
is also very important since on some cars it’s fairly high (70MPH) but on others it can be as low as 45mph

Sadly a cold weather operation (no warmup allowed) should exist since even Antiques like my Dodge get half the gas mpg in winter but no real testing happens in 0F weather

 

True for all cars. The weather part that is. For the other, the EVs may not have a problem meeting. It is just that the test highway test is much slower than what people think of as highway today. The WLTP is better than the EPA in that regard; the average speed for the high speed cycle is like 10mph higher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldwide_Harmonised_Light_Vehicles_Test_Procedure
https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fe_test_schedules.shtml

Greed. They should also a city:highway ratio closer to what most drivers see. The EPA's GREET model uses one shifted a little more to highway.

An accessible chart of constant speed vs economy would be even better. Gerdes(Cleanmpg) will do this with cars he gets to test. I don't know of any others.

There is a cold version of the city test. 20F isn't 0F though. There is probably practical considerations for the temperature choice. Its probably just what the lab HVAC can handle. To get lower would entail building a lab within a freezer.

It would be easier and cheaper to publish the 3 extra test cycle results. The real hurdle is that aren't mandatory now.

 

A graph of steady state over the typical speed range of a car would be an eye opener for many drivers who think every car does best at 85mph, could also remove some of the BS in terms of cars that beat or barely meet the highway metric

 

The old GreenHybrid.com where Wayne started, eventually got sold to a car reseller. I remember my efforts to tune the Prius got some pushback by Wayne. He ran off to form CleanMPG that looked like a bowling tipsy case. After the sale Wayne’s followers had done everything they could to recruit and drive off ordinary members.

Eventually I moved to PriusChat and ECOmodder. Making a car more efficient is makes it the default regardless of the driver.

Bob Wilson

 

Was there a conspiracy to falsify the results of that Passat trip, with Guinness World Records in on it? Did Gerdes know VW was cheating on emissions when he did that trip?

Gerdes should have fully disclosed the payments in the first post for the attempt. There may have been a general disclosure on funding on the Cleanmpg site. This is what the about link for the site takes you too, "CleanMPG is written, edited and published by Wayne Gerdes. CleanMPG accepts forms of paid advertising through Google Ads and event drives. Additionally, vehicles reviewed on CleanMPG are provided by the manufacturer, for a period of between one day and 6 weeks, with a full tank of fuel. Compensation received will not influence the content, topics or posts made on CleanMPG as most here already know.

All advertising is in the form of advertisements generated by Google. These advertisements are not included within editorial content and are visually identifiable as advertising.

CleanMPG members and I are not compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and/or various other topics although I do accept compensation for time spent setting up and completing Event Drives. The views and opinions expressed on CleanMPG are purely that of mine and those that contribute. I will only endorse products or services that I believe, based on my experience, are worthy of such endorsement. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. CleanMPG does not contain any content which might present a conflict of interest as once a job is over, I no longer work for said company."
It's from 2016. The event drive in question was with a 2013 Passat, so not up then. Maybe this a revision of an earlier disclosure, or maybe not. It is closer in time to the event than the TTAC reporting on the payment from last year.

But I was only bringing up his steady speed MPG results. The time requirements of calibrating the Scangauge means those tests are done with the longer reviews. The cars are supplied by the manufacturer press fleets, which is the pool of cars virtually all journalists base reviews on. He gives more details about route and weather at the time of the test than other sites and publications.

 

Good lord I forgot that tacky site existed

can still view a few sections of the discussion forums with an excel or two in there

Wayback Machine

Odd I never cared about the subject back then (or wasn’t really aware), even though I was hypermiling since 1996.
Remember going to that site in the day and it always seemed dead.
dDo you Remember the ecomodder founders before ecomodder.com days?
I had a priuschat account in the before times that get locked or deleted somehow.
I still did the 90’s thing of maintaining my own website back then, eBay, pricewatch, got my last copy of the Computer Shopper, keeping track of in person government auctions , craftlister, ordering shirts, supplies, paint etc, repairing and reselling antique computers,
hanging out on vintage and then “current” computer tech forums instead, downloading 20 year old commercial software.

Lol, sad none of those things exist in any real form or are a thing anymore,

 

GreenHybrid had one of the best mileage databases because it included temperature with each record. Our efficient vehicles are cold, 55 F, and heat, 90-95 F sensitive. I found it was easy to see how well different hybrids work in real life.

Bob Wilson

 

Toyota is learning from Tesla to overstate the range.

 

Not quite. If the article is correct, it isn’t possible to reach the stated range in the BZ. It is quite possible to attain the Tesla ranges.
But other than range, I am more concerned about the battery capacity not being what Toyota claimed.

 

With my driving, I would reach it and then add another 100 miles.