Mercedes-Benz EQA 250 wins in Autotrader entry-level electric car battery range test

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Electric car battery battle — The best options for highway trips

South African motorists who can spend around R1.2 million or less on an electric vehicle (EV) should opt for the Mercedes-Benz EQA 250 if they want the best possible range over long distances.

The R1.18-million crossover SUV came out on top in AutoTrader's latest Electric Car Challenge, beating three similarly-specced competitors.
 
Rattle Box by Uday
 
How did you test regenerative braking? A real-world test should include stop-start at traffic lights, and braking for other cars on the highway or going downhill all of which add to the battery through energy regeneration?
Isn't the car's claimed range in urban or extra-urban based on some % probability of regenerative braking?
 
I wonder if stopping at 10% was a mistake, since battery % remaining is a complex calculation. If they drove them till they died (like carwow) it may have produced a different result. But i see they did use the kwh/100km calculation so the range is pretty accurate.
 
This article was written to alleviate range anxiety...but i think i have more range anxiety now than before...1.2 million car will take what 3 stops to get you to Durban? And a 7 hour drive will now turn into what an overnighter??
Not to mention when driving to Capetown or a slightly more remote place like Calvinia.
Mercedes own numbers over 30mins from 10 to 80% on fast charger, 9 to 10 hours on 7kw charger...
EV's have a long way to go before they can become practical in countries like South Africa
 
They should have conducted the test till they ran flat out or just before they were depleted, not 10%.

That’s how most of the other okes (tests) do it.
 
This article was written to alleviate range anxiety...but i think i have more range anxiety now than before...1.2 million car will take what 3 stops to get you to Durban? And a 7 hour drive will now turn into what an overnighter??
Not to mention when driving to Capetown or a slightly more remote place like Calvinia.
Mercedes own numbers over 30mins from 10 to 80% on fast charger, 9 to 10 hours on 7kw charger...
EV's have a long way to go before they can become practical in countries like South Africa

The testing doesn't translate to the real world that way fortunately.I drove JHB to Durban with an ix3 with 5 people and a boot full of luggage recently and back with only 2 stops at speeds well above 120km/h and only needed 2 stops,the stops were to 80% btw.Who leaves home with 90% for a long distance drive anyway,any reasonable person leaves with 100%!

If I drove at 120kmph or below I definitely would have made it with just one stop of 100%.

The iX1 is supposed to do similar range to the iX3 so something is off here, perhaps the lack of regen breaking was not correctly emulated by this test...

It's definitely doable my only concern is one that is easy enough to fix,rather stop at the 2 fast chargers available on the route instead of the 60kwh ones which lengthen your stops needlessly compared to what you'd experience with an ICE vehicle.But as EVs become more popular there's already plans for hundreds of proper DC fast chargers underway in SA this year and next so this hopefully shouldn't be an issue much longer.

Total drive time including stops at the slow chargers came to 7.5 hours.Definitely could have brought it down to around 6.5 had I used fast chargers instead.

Also I see the new Porsche Macan has a 784km range,so if driving at the highway speed limit you probably wouldn't need to even charge,or perhaps a quick 10 minute top up when you stop for a bite/coffee/rest stop with a fast charger over 100kwh.
 
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