Why is a larger battery better than a longer range?

While longer ranges promise autonomy and convenience for the driver, the associated larger battery increases energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions over a vehicle’s lifetime. Furthermore, it increases the overall vehicle’s costs due to higher purchase price and operational expenses.

How does doubling battery size affect energy consumption?

In relative terms, the urban commuter experiences the biggest increase in emissions when doubling the battery size (20%). This is due to the more frequent and shorter trips of this user type, which requires more frequent cooling or heating of the cabin and battery and thereby increases the energy consumption of the thermal management system.

Are lithium-ion batteries getting bigger?

Battery installations are getting bigger as the industry scales — and new solar power plants are being built next to containers of lithium-ion batteries in order to store their output. What are the pros and cons? Lithium-ion batteries are getting cheaper, which is accelerating their deployment.

How to simulate a wide range of battery sizes?

In order to simulate a wide range of battery sizes for the same vehicle model, the study uses the Siemens Simcenter Amesim simulation software. The vehicle model data is obtained from a recent test project conducted by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and from the German car club ADAC database.

Does driving a car make a battery last longer?

Real driving with frequent acceleration, braking that charges the batteries a bit, stopping to pop into a store, and letting the batteries rest for hours at a time, helps batteries last longer than we had thought.” For example, the study showed a correlation between sharp, short EV accelerations and slower degradation.

Does a larger battery affect the number of en-route charging stops?

This is due to the more frequent and shorter trips of this user type, which requires more frequent cooling or heating of the cabin and battery and thereby increases the energy consumption of the thermal management system. Most of the year, a larger battery does not affect the number of en-route charging stops for the urban and rural driver types.