[Steviestainz]

I'm new to the forum, but not new to the e-tron - having owned my Launch Edition 55 for around a year now.

I was one of the first deliveries of that model into the UK around early summer 2019 so didn't really find anyone else to share info with initially, and unfortunately the car hasn't been driven continuously due to extended workshop visits, other repair work and Covid-19 restrictions. However since getting out a bit more recently and comparing my economy data with other threads on this site I downloaded the data from the 'my Audi' app and started playing around in Excel to analyse the .csv file.

Basically the data set is around 500 journeys, a couple of which seem to be logged twice (with similar start times, durations and distance logged) so this might be a bug. However there's a full year of data now and quite a lot of journeys.

Most of my trips are local town traffic, stop/start and under 8 miles on average. So for certain I'm using the air-con and heating during the year for short cycles where they are using the most energy to attain their set-point. A lot of journeys are only 1-2 miles. Occasional longer journeys of 180 mi for holiday have been few and far between.

I'm going to quote the data below in miles per kilowatt hour, i.e. how far can I go with each of my precious 95kWh in the battery before recharging. NB I understand that the net available capacity is more like ~86 kWh because Audi kept some of the battery spare for deterioration over the lifetime of the battery.

So having outlined the basic details of how I'm using the car the overall average energy usage across all 500 journeys is:

1.63 mi / kWh (or 2.62 km / kWh)

That's much lower than I was hoping IMHO and extrapolates to an average range per 100% charge of just (1.63 mi * 86.5 kwH) = 140 miles based upon my driving requirements e.g. short journeys with air-con, heating, stop-start traffic etc.

I decided to dig a bit deeper into the figures to see if my consumption was getting worse over time, or affected by the ambient temperature. Generally I always recharge when I'm around 45-50% remaining and cap the charging cycle at 80% SoC so that's not a variable in my use.

Graph 1 - average speed (mph) vs average consumption (mi/kWh)

This graph shows the average speed over every journey shown against the energy consumption average for the same. I guess even though we might reach 70 mph regularly during a motorway journey the average overall is much less when including the regional roads etc. So you'll see a sizeable spread of average speed data points, and no journeys with an average speed above 43mph (2.6 mi / kWh). There is one outlier, a data point on the right where consumption was 5.5 mi / kWh during a journey where I travelled 4 mi in 18 minutes at an average speed of 12 mph. Go figure!

Graph 2 - average speed (mph) vs median monthly temperature (degC)

Now this was only a hunch, but I thought it's worth looking at the median temp for any given month for my location in the UK (Greater London) and see if energy consumption correlates with the temperature shown in orange. The green line is just a moving average of mi/kWh through the month to see if there's much of a causal link. I'm not a statistician and there's a few gaps in the data but I think it's fair to say that consumption goes up (i.e. less miles per kWh) during the coldest months, which is to be expected when some mornings have been approaching or lower than zero C and when using the heaters has been mandatory. However the hottest months don't seem to have had such a clear impact when using the AC - in fact the hottest month also seems to have been the one where I saw the outlier of 5.5 mi / kWh!

Graph 3 - a different visualisation (mi / kWh consumption stacked on top of average speed)

I think that this shows nicely how there is much better economy when the average journey speed is higher - hence much less start/stop traffic and lost energy due to that repeating cycle.

In summary

My car's MMI currently shows an average Long Term memory over 3,000 miles of 1.8 mi / kWh, and with the data shown above this points to a fairly close approximation when viewed alongside the myAudi app exported information. I'm guessing that a car like the e-tron was designed primarily (both aesthetically and functionally) as a town car, with occasional distance/range potential when coupled with ultra rapid charging - but I would say that the overall range promise of 248 miles at 100% SoC is not realistic for that type of use. As I've said before a lot of my journeys are very short, often commencing in the morning when the interior is cold and needs heating (I do try and pre-warm when I remember!), but the start-stop nature of queuing traffic in town is the major detractor from better economy. If I look closely at the higher mi/kWh values there are a wide cluster of data points around 1.7 - 2.8 mi/kWh concerning any journeys with average speeds greater than 20 mph.

If I multiply those examples by the 86.5 kWh maximum capacity of the battery it equates to a maximum possible range (for journeys above 20 mph on average) as [147 to 242] miles. Results may vary ;-)

Is it a problem for me? No.. not currently, I can easily go days without charging the car and the monthly charging costs are between £15-20 a month for 3,000 miles a year. I've never not been able to recharge the car overnight back to 80% - so from that point of view the economy isn't important - and the car is just beautiful to drive!

PS - to be honest, I put this together to test my own understanding of the way the car was behaving but decided to throw it out for comment. Please do let me know your thoughts and/or compare with your own data!

Steve

 

[RVA]

Thanks for the very thorough analysis. I've been tracking my charging/usage data, without the level of detail you have.

My observations (note: Mid-Atlantic US location)
I also experienced the significant drop in efficiency in cold weather. Here, the coldest months were actually November and December (winter basically ended at Christmas), and my miles/kwh was in the 1.6 to 1.7 range.
One tip I learned - if you are driving alone on a cold (but not bitterly cold) day, use the seat heater and turn the climate control off. I tended to stay plenty warm, and it made a significant impact on efficiency and range.
I also experienced the lack of a drop in efficiency in hot weather - the air conditioning does not seem to be a big draw on the battery. In the heat of last summer (August), I was regularly getting 2.3 to 2.4 miles/kwh. So far this summer (it's only recently gotten over 85 or 90 degrees F), I'm seeing the same thing.
In more temperate times, my efficiency seems to range between 2.4 and 2.7 miles/kwh - a fully charged range consistently above 230 miles.
The car does not like being driven on the highway. 90% of my driving is on secondary roads (25 - 45 mph), which the car seems to be quite efficient at navigating. I took two longer-distance trips (basically about 80% of battery used), and got about 15% lower efficiency than the preceding and following charging cycles.
The range displayed in the car (and on the app) is a consistent lie - I am getting 15% to 20% less miles than the range stated upon full charge. So while I've seen range stated at 260-275 miles, I never achieve it.

 

[Steviestainz]

The car does not like being driven on the highway.

Great feedback, thanks for taking the time to read through the post and for sharing your data too. I’ve noticed myself (and others pointed out in other threads) the effect that hilly terrain has on consumption. Could that also be a contributing factor to the highway driving that you’ve experienced poorer performance during?

Exporting the trip data is easy from within the app in case you wanted to share the details of your own journeys. I’m easily able to output the same graphs now that I’ve built them. No location or private data is exported so we could try to build a bigger data set perhaps for similar climates.

 

[Andrea G]

Audi etron 50 may 2020 1200 km (90% no highway ) media of 23 kwh per 100 km. car set on manual passive braking recharge . About 300 km with full battery (around 85%)
Outside temp around 20° using clima on eco .
my personal record without clima on is 16.1 in city traffic

 

[Steviestainz]

Nice mileage. I think that is equivalent to 2.7 mi / kWh when you quoted 23 kWh / 100 km. I was getting 2.5 mi / kWh today with AC On rather than AC Eco, during a short 30 minute local roads journey at 20C ambient temp today. Mine is a Launch Edition 55 with 21” wheels.

 

[RVA]

I've found the app data to be horribly overstated. I track miles and kwh input for my efficiency/range tracking, I starting trying to use the app data, but found that when I had driven 150 miles and used 65 kwh (2.3 mi/kwh), the app would say I had driven 200 miles, and got over 3 mi/kwh. No idea why it is so bad, but I just quit even looking at the app.

 

[JNealCox]

I'm running about 2.2-2.3 mi/kWh in 70+ F weather. When in range of the 30's and 40's, it's more like 1.8 to 1.9. In the cooler months I find i save significantly on the battery drain if I pre-condition the car in the garage before starting out. I'll be looking at what I get in 90 degree weather in a few weeks!

 

[Steviestainz]

Nice trip out today (Epsom to Brighton and back via Worthing).. started out on 69% charge ‘eek’. Turns out that I made the 113mi with ~45mi to spare (23%), averaging 2.7mi /kWh - temp 20degC.

That’s much more like what I was hoping for but it was a longer run with clear traffic. Another data point for the experiment!

 

[GMTRB5]

I’m averaging 2.0 to 2.2 in the winter, although with bad traffic it can be 1.7 to 1.8... but in the summer I’m averaging 2.5 to 2.8 on a typical journey (mostly A roads...).

move driven about 3,500 miles now and my long term average since owning the car is 2.1 mi/kWh ... I’m aiming for 2.0+ in the winter and 2.5+ in the summer...

 

[tmiele]

I picked up my e-tron on Dec. 9th last year. I've reset the long term memory with each season start here in southern Wisconsin. My winter average was 2.0, driving 2800 miles, spring was 2.5, driving 1400 miles and since last week (summer) it's at 2.7.

 

[mmmzon]

Thanks for sharing all the interesting data points. I almost got eTron several times already but I am mostly detracted by the daily commute (very hilly, motorway 90% of the time) and we also have pretty cold winters in Colorado, with night temperatures dropping to -25C or lower. This year was not that bad, but makes me wonder what kind of effective range would I be getting. Today I had a "test drive" done on along a typical route I would do to work and starting from 188 miles I got back at 129 miles after 32 mile round trip. Nothing crazy speed wise (keeping it at 65 mph on motorway, though it does feel strange given that my current Q5 is most happy around 75 mph or slightly above) and still burned through 59 miles of range for 32 mile loop. If that relationship stays, then eTron would barely give me 100 miles of effective range on my daily commute, making it a full battery charge every 2.5 - 3 days. That is barely equal to the 500+ mile range in a diesel Q5 and same cost wise even with current higher fuel costs. I can hardly justify the purchase looking at the charge cost versus fuel costs savings.

The only upside is the lack of maintenance on eTron (at least the expensive one), but this means that 70k+ vehicle is now taking so much more time to "pay off" ...

 

[JNealCox]

Thanks for sharing all the interesting data points. I almost got eTron several times already but I am mostly detracted by the daily commute (very hilly, motorway 90% of the time) and we also have pretty cold winters in Colorado, with night temperatures dropping to -25C or lower. This year was not that bad, but makes me wonder what kind of effective range would I be getting. Today I had a "test drive" done on along a typical route I would do to work and starting from 188 miles I got back at 129 miles after 32 mile round trip. Nothing crazy speed wise (keeping it at 65 mph on motorway, though it does feel strange given that my current Q5 is most happy around 75 mph or slightly above) and still burned through 59 miles of range for 32 mile loop. If that relationship stays, then eTron would barely give me 100 miles of effective range on my daily commute, making it a full battery charge every 2.5 - 3 days. That is barely equal to the 500+ mile range in a diesel Q5 and same cost wise even with current higher fuel costs. I can hardly justify the purchase looking at the charge cost versus fuel costs savings.

The only upside is the lack of maintenance on eTron (at least the expensive one), but this means that 70k+ vehicle is now taking so much more time to "pay off" ...

Plus you will not be polluting the air if you can get your electricity through a Green Plan; also, in an EV you fuel up with your charger at home. Just plug it in, no big deal....200+ mi available every day.

 

[Chrisechild]

.. burned through 59 miles of range for 32 mile loop...

I'm not sure from reading your post if you're aware that the predicted range you saw was based on previous journey efficiency, current ambient temp and other reference points. Your actual consumption on that 32mile trip was higher than the predicted range... So calculating future efficiency based on the predicted vs real gulf will not be accurate.

Best to monitor you m/kWh readings and calculate from that. Again, apologies if you're doing this already

 

[mmmzon]

No worries and I appreciate the feedback. I was getting approx 1.4 m/kWh so if my math is correct, full 86kWh battery charge would be then good for ~140 miles of distance max, which is roughly 3 days of commute worth. My problem is that I live in a valley and to get anywhere I need to climb a pretty steep hill at motorway speeds. More, I need to join the motorway uphill with a very short runway so that adds to the whole rather high power consumption. Traffic is pretty heavy in the mornings, meaning I do need to get up to running speed quickly or risk being stuck on the road side.

I understand the whole predictive character of the range meter. The only difference is that with my current diesel Q5 my range even with the uphill driving is 500+ miles (longer flat stretches easily surpass 650 miles on a tank) and the predictometer is pretty accurate there as far as distance on a tank is concerned. Doing the math the whole math of running EV being cheaper than gas does not seem to hold much at least in my conditions (commute, distance, hilly country side, very low temperature winters).

Perhaps I should try to see if I can loan eTron for a week or so and give it an honest every day drive in standard conditions to see how it fits my expectations. I am concerned about committing such a large lump of money into something that might turn out to be suboptimum at this time. Battery technology is expected to evolve in the next 2-3 years into something much better capacity and perhaps weight-wise.