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Comment by robertlagrant | Hacker News Reader

The range seems unclear - the title of this post takes the lower range, but they also did a test at a steady 70mph, probably the worst case for a boxy vehicle due to wind resistance, and got 254 miles. I'd expect going slower to yield much better range.

Maybe there's variance in the trucks themselves?

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> That test was done at a relatively constant speed of 70 miles per hour while the outside temperature was about 45 degrees.

It's winter so the battery is not going to be at peak performance. 20% less range is pretty much what you should expect with temperatures like this. It's actually pretty good.

The Rivian R1T does better, although it is also significantly smaller.

A steady 70mph cruise is approximately the best case for virtually all vehicles

Absolutely not for electric, which is far more efficient at lower speeds, unlike gas which has a minimum burn even at idle and downhill.

The most efficient speed for virtually all vehicles is about 50-55 mph, and that’s probably going to be a more pronounced difference on something that’s less aerodynamic. 65-70 doesn’t tend to be too bad though, no.

You're thinking of ICE vehicles, which have efficient torque at certain RPMs, and don't recover energy when they brake, so traffic is even more inefficient. Electric vehicles have all the torque, all the time, and do recover energy, so for them it's more about wind resistance, which increases with speed.

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