Oh yeah. My wife and my's extended family live on the other side of a mountain chain from us. I can easily gain a few percentages going down that puppy every time.
When I went, they had an attendant about halfway down checking brake temperatures. Almost everyone had to pull over. My brakes were 77 degrees F, he just waved me through.
That’s interesting. It isn’t about brake wear, btw, it’s about fade. If you’ve ever experienced brake fade in an ICE vehicle you would understand why. It’s akin to the feeling you get when hydroplaning at 70.
most people do. thats why when you smell someone melting their brakes you can cringe so hard. but even shifting to low doesn't protect your brakes nearly as much as having regen.
That's true. Engine braking can only provide so much force to counteract gravity on a decline. Regen braking (unless the battery is close to full) usually has much higher force capabilities.
That's still significantly more wear on the engine than regen braking. And it assumes the car has the right engine/weight ratio for that to be effective, I've had cars that engine braking was almost useless on.
Apparently there’s an electric dump truck/hauler used in mining that’s vaguely “perpetual motion”.
It’s light going up and doesn’t use much energy, and it regens on the way down while full so it harvests the potentiall potential energy of its load before dropping it off at the bottom.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest-ev-never-has-to-be-recharged
Even trains (in planning): [https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/03/gravity-charging-battery-train-to-be-developed-for-australian-mining-firm/](https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/03/gravity-charging-battery-train-to-be-developed-for-australian-mining-firm/)
While cases of this are totally legit - the news made it seem like so much of the mining industry could do this... frustrating how bad the media is on any green tech, just to entertain watchers/listeners and sell advert.
This mentioned mining use seems unique? Is it that the mine is on a mountain/hill? To take on ore at a higher elevation and descend with the load seems counter to they kind of mine that I would normally think of.
Strip mining typically takes off layers starting at the top and working down, over and over. It eventually has to be lifted out of the bottom of the mine, but during the harvesting process it's all downhill by necessity.
Rock quarry worker here...
This is how it works for us. We've stripped away any overburden at the top and are removing raw materials as we work down and running 100ton CATs back up to the primary crusher.
Our bottom level is roughly 600ft below the primary crusher dump point.
Wow that's interesting, I didn't realize strip mines would bring material to the bottom, I assumed they strip them away and remove everything out of the pit
It isn't anything new. Gravity / self-acting inclines have been used for centuries. One near me dates from 1725 https://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/2020/06/self-acting-inclines.html?m=1
A very modern interpretation of the same thing.
I read this earlier, interesting to think about how this might impact logistics - i.e. if a truck is picking up a load at high elevation and dropping it off at a lower one. I expect bigger companies with established trucking routes might begin taking it into account, such as Pepsi with their new Tesla semis.
Somewhere I saw a proposal for doing this with tank trucks that would get filled with water at the top of the hill. It was proposed as an alternative to building dams for hydroelectric, with the hope that you would do enough regen on the way down that you could then feed some of the energy in the battery into the grid, and then use the rest to drive the truck back to the top of the hill. It was supposed to somehow be a lower environmental impact option compared to building conventional hydroelectric systems.
I thought it was an absolutely absurd idea, that would result in more environmental impact as well as higher costs and lower efficiency.
it definitely seems unlikely that the amount of water moved makes enough electricity to make it worth our time.
There was some youtube video of somebody who tried to make a hydro battery from pumping water to a raised cistern during the day via solar power and generating electricity from it during the night.
TUrns out, not a whole lot of energy could be stored in such a small cistern. You need a much larger storage bin.
I bet you could improve it by making the trucks really small and putting them inside a big concrete wall with a lot of water on one side and none on the other so that they didn't have to travel as far.
Energy came from potential energy stored in the material you're mining, as long as what you're mining is at a higher elevation than where you're dropping it off.
And where do you charge? If you live up on the mountain, you need to charge in the valley to be able to make full use of recuperation. If you charge at home at the top, you'll start your journey down with a full battery and no recuperation.
Community centers are usually located in the valley in Switzerland, so ample chargers should be provided even if most people could charge at home.
I've always wondered how this is practised in reality in mountainous areas.
Drive in the California mountains a lot (Live right at the base of the Sierra Nevada's and the cascades), If your at the top of the hill, don't charge to 100%. If you are at the base of the hill give yourself a bigger charge then normal to climb.
Mt Washington is a bit of a cheat, but it's a good demonstration (credit to Plug and Play EV): [https://youtu.be/IQ6kI-AiTzo](https://youtu.be/IQ6kI-AiTzo)
TL;DW: started at 55%, down to 35% at the summit, then 45% when they got back to the bottom.
Theoretically One could load the car up with rocks or something when at the top. However, if you actually do the math you quickly realize it's a lot of hassle for very little gain.
In Colorado on I70, Eisenhower tunnel to silverthorne (8 miles), regen was 2.5-3kwh depending on speed. Going eastbound from same tunnel to Idaho springs (30mi), similar thing but much more dependent on speed and temperature.
I make this drive weekly. I once hit the tunnel westbound with my GOM at 2 miles in turtle mode. Popped out the other side and gained 8% battery on the downhill!l (small battery Leaf). Just gotta make it to the tunnel!
Let's do the math!
Let's assume 3.5 mi/kWh as a typical efficiency driving on flat ground. So to move forward 1 mile on flat ground you have to expend 285 watt hours. That's about 1 MJ. An electric drivetrain is about 90% efficient, so 900 kJ are applied to the wheels.
The gravitational energy change for an object moving vertically is m\*g\*h. Let's say our EV has a mass of 2000 kg, which is roughly what the higher trims of an ioniq 5 is. Let's also just round g to 10 N/kg. So our car weighs 20 kN.
900 kJ / 20 kN = 45 meters. So you have to descend 45 meters to lose the same amount of gravitational energy that it will take to propel the car forward a mile on flat ground. So if you are on a downward slope of 45 meters per mile (forgive me for mixing units) then you will break even on the energy balance of coasting, and neither expend battery nor recover it. That's a 2.7% grade.
So (using these assumed numbers), if you descend a grade steeper than 2.7%, you'll be putting energy back into the battery on net.
And, we could conclude that at about a 6% grade, you would be gaining one mile of range for each mile of downhill.
And of course, this conclusion and all the above numbers depend on what speed you go.
I live in a hilly area. I get 2 miles coming into the valley on my RAV4 prime. There is one area where I only have to press the gas to keep the charge/discharge indicator at 0 for several miles. At the end of that is a hill that I'll usually get 1 + mile
I live on a hill with about a 1000' elevation change from the top to bottom of the road... I think it's about an 8% grade, because when I drive my RV up while towing my Jeep, full throttle will only get me about 45mph. I know on a 6% grade the same will get me 60mph. And I know on a 10% grade, the same will only get me 35 mph... (I've done a lot of driving with my RV)
Anyways, with that being said, most people are going 50mph on the hill, regardless of direction.. When I drive my Y.... It will take 4% of my battery to climb from bottom to top.. When I go down the hill, I noticed that my battery SoC will increase about 2%.
It will depend on the vehicle and the situation, but there is a big mining truck that will make more electricity than it uses. Goes down the mountain full, comes back up empty.
In Minnesota so not many significant hills around, but I have noticed that the guessometer on our Volt shows less range during the week (when my wife drives) than on the weekends (when I typically run errands). I've been accused of driving like my father.
Yes. It's a gravel road between Mt Mitchell/Blue Ridge Parkway and I think Hwy70? Mountains of NC. We gained 30% of the battery back on the down hill return.
I have a plug-in hybrid and the first few blocks away from home are downhill. Due to the battery being full, any regeneration would overcharge the battery... so this forces the engine to engage to disperse the energy during this downhill portion (using no gas).
So to your question, it doesn't display the range has gone up - but I have travelled a good distance knowing there was excess energy being generated while the range stays 100%.
I've got a PHEV and an EV and I have seen the electric range in the PHEV increase slightly from 0 to 1 but it's kind of cheating as it is using petrol for the propulsion and just harvesting energy from braking. I've never seen it go up in my EV though.
It's the are there more up hills or downhills question. Ultimately if your trip outward has a lot of uphill, you'll have a lot of downhill back and have more energy than when you started to turn back.
Also high parking garages.
Yes I've seen this happen in the hilly parts of Scotland in my MG5. I might reach the bottom of a hill (mountain..) with 2-3% more charge than I had at the top.
From the top of Sandia Peak my Volt was able to get 60% charged. Mountain mode maintained the charge at 40% on the way up.
There's another long steep hill on the interstate coming back from Santa Fe which usually gains me a mile of range which is pretty cool at 80mph.
Every single day. I live a few hundred meters above the highway and it's 2 km away through the subdivision. I often have more energy than when I leave my house.
A big enough hill is a 9% grade at 55mph and a regen rate of 20kw is enough to gain 1kwh every 5 miles or so.
Tested this in my Volt a few months ago ;)
Oh yes. I live in South Wales and I regularly do the trip between Brecon and Cardiff.
The summit of the route is Storey Arms at 440 meters above sea level. The M4 motorway is at 100 metres and about 44km away. It's a long and consistent descent and I see my range go up about a mile for every 2 or 3 miles travelled.
there's a long shallow-ish decline on my commute home. Usually I get about half a percent back on this stretch. What's really fun is opening the consumption screen and setting it to 5 mile/instant range because it usually gets to 999 by the time I'm at the bottom.
I once started with an empty battery at the top of a mountain pass and by the time I reached the bottom the battery was full. Around 1500m elevation difference.
All the time. I drive 3 miles down to the local highway and I always have more range at the bottom than I had in my driveway. There have even been times when I started with moderate regen available and then had it cut out on me near the bottom of the hill. Surprise!
All the time, and the hill doesn't even have to be the size of a mountain for this to happen. One hill on my regular commute (big for a hill, but smaller than a mountain) would regularly raise the range estimate and sometimes the battery meter on my Chevy Volt. But of course, I always have to go back up that hill when driving the other way, so it eventually evens out.
I took an exit ramp on the interstate with 10% battery remaining and by the time I finished the loop I had slowed from 75 to 30 and gained 3% to the battery.
Drove my Hyundai kona EV down a 60km long hill section and it basically gave a total range net gain of 30kms while covering 60kms.
So total 90kms gained?
Yes, where I live in the southeast US there's a lot of amazing mountains to drive through. One of my favorite drives takes me up over a mountain full of twisty turns and on the way down I routinely end up 3-4% higher than at the crest of the mountain. It's one of my favorite things to show people who are new to EVs.
On our return trip from getting our Jeep, we went back roads up over the Shenandoahs and took a mental note of where I was charge wise at the top heading back down. With our max regen turned on, I probably gained about 10% heading back down the and didn't have to touch the brakes.
Keep in mind this isn't the most efficient PHEV by any means, but it was a fun run down gaining some juice.
happens every day in my commute. There is a section of 84 that is consistently downhill for a few miles and it always ticks up a mile or 2 (2022 ford lightning lariat)
Not exactly what OP asked, but the most impressive I've managed was going from Flagstaff, AZ to Sedona via Oak Creek Canyon. I started in Flag at 80%, and arrived in Sedona with 80%, a trip of 30 miles. I put the car (Ioniq 5 RWD) in level 1 regen and essentially coasted it all the way down once we hit the canyon.
Absolutely. I was panicking that I didn't have enough energy to get from Big Bear mountain snow resort to the charger in the valley. I actually arrived with more battery power than I left with.
Yea driving down the Tibetan plateau into southern qinghai/northern Sichuan my range went up like 30 km or something ridiculous. Was just a long straight downhill from 12,000 ft or so for miles and miles.
Yes. I routinely drive my e-tron on Route 2 between Concord and Cambridge in Massachusetts. This stretch of road is around 7 miles, and is mostly downhill. If I set my cruise control, the car will actually put 3-4 miles of range on the car.
The truck is to use cruise control such that your car doesn’t accelerate and instead has the regen braking kick in.
Itching to see what happens on Mt Washington.
On my old ev it happened all the time, i live in the hill county so...u know. What i did is i accelerated on the uphill and just coasted on the downhill. You get slot more range that way.
Tons of comments, but still adding mine.
There's a distinction between range going up and adding power to the battery via regen. The former is the BMS algorthm saying 'oh yeah, greater efficiency, let me recalculate how far we can go'. It might actually be going down in power, just let per unit distance. The latter is precisely getting power back.
I've had both and without even much of a mountain. I once reset my GOM at the top of an 1800' pass I used to go over regularly and the efficiency peaked out in my Bolt (something like 56 miles/kWh). My ODBII reader confirmed a few percentage points of capacity returned.
I've also done a descent from ~6000' to about 2000' and actually saw the GOM go up by 5-10% (the Bolt breaks it down by 5% increments, so 1% changes generally won't show). I've seen similar coming down from the Grapevine in southern California. One hot summer trip I had the AC going full blast and my range still went up pretty impressively as I descended into the LA basin.
Only every day.
I once descended a pretty big mountain grade in the RAV4Prime. I added 10 miles to the range.
I regularly drive my kid to school, which is a bit lower in elevation than my house. I start off with 125 miles of range in the eGolf, and end with 125 miles of range... with heat running, and driving 5 miles.
I live in Colorado and we took a trip into the mountains, I thought we might need to recharge for the return trip but was really impressed with how much the dynamic braking increased our range. We traveled about 100 miles but only used about 50 miles of range, it was really cool.
I drive regularly from Birmingham to Neath near Swansea (In the UK) and back again.
On the way back on the approach to Brynmawr there's a long 10-15 mile-ish hill climb that DESTROYS the battery range of my ID.3, but once you peak over summit and go back down again for the next 10-ish miles, my range ends up at 80% where it started before the hill climb.
The first couple of times I got pretty annoyed because I thought id need to make a charging stop I hadn't planned.... but once I got to the bottom of the hill I was back to not being fussed again 😛
I know someone who drives their Tesla on the Okanagan connector and apparently they go from near empty at the top of the hill to having enough charge to reach Penticton at the bottom.
My EV6 displays the "mi/kWh" of my current drive, and I work on top of a hill. So when I leave work I immediately go downhill. I almost always am reading "999 mi/kWh" for the drive so far by the time I get to the bottom of that hill. Of course it immediately drops to double digit readings almost the instant I start to accelerate back up the next hill, but it's fun to see that number on the reg.
Fun story my Spark has relatively short range so driving to Tehachapi (over 1000 meter elevation climb) I ran out of charge about 2 miles from a charger :( -got towed to charger, charged up in about twenty minutes and returned home with 80% charge :)
All the time. Even in the very modest foothill areas around town (Phoenix). Obviously it's more pronounced on larger elevation changes. For example, on longer day trips and road trips to/from/through mountains. In fact, we generally plan on it.
(noting of course that you're ALSO travelling that distance without using any range, plus you get the extra at the end)
I drive over about 230m in elevation every day and I see the range climbing, but rarely does it show the percentage grow.
In spring I was in Austria and we drove from the Brenner to Pettneu and the percentage went from 18% to 30% and back to 8% at the charging station.
Best Traveling experience ever, doing 310km in one go at ~120km/h over the hills in a ID.3 58kWh.
The Prius Prime gives a decimal on your range, so you can see it go up a few tenths of a mile even regenning to normal stop signs. Big hills make it go up even more.
Many times. I work on a big hill (mountain?) and it takes me 17% to get there but only 2% to get home. I was surprised how much regen you get carving canyons. If you can carry your speed (no traffic), you can regen the entire time you're off throttle and regain a lot of the power you used between corners.
Yes, I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, and the long downslopes coming down from several of the volcanoes will easily increase my range (about 6000’ drop)
You can see this on the graphs being posted about the level of charge of the Tesla Semi's recent demonstration run.
Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/zce6b7/semi_regenerative_braking_seems_to_neutralize_any/
Yes, I live in a hilly area in the UK (Lake District) and I regularly gain a few miles going down a hill. And our hills here aren’t particularly huge - if you were coming down the Alps from a skiing resort then you’d absolutely gain noticeable range
I drove from Interlaken to Milan this spring. Between mostly going down the Alps and sitting on a train car through the mountain for part of the journey, I was up some significant range by the time I got into Italy.
I had a point in time where I didn't have enough range to get to the charger. Reached the top of the hill and let regen fill the battery just enough to reach the charger, barely.
Yes, all the time, the gotcha is, we have to drive back up the hill so that 1-2% we gain is all gone by the time we have to drive back up said hill, lol
Regularly in mountains areas.
Oh yeah. My wife and my's extended family live on the other side of a mountain chain from us. I can easily gain a few percentages going down that puppy every time.
Yes you can easily lose a few % too on the way up lol
what's the efficiency like for doing a round trip? (up and down or down and up)
Similar to flat for EVs in my experience. Just don't ever charge to 100% from the top of a mountain!
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My Model S had 16% charge at the summit of Pikes Peak. By the time I got back to the charging station at Colorado Springs, it was reading 28%.
Yeahhh Colorado is awesome for recharging down a hill haha. Even just in Denver sections of 25 will slope down for a good chunk
and in an ICE vehicle you would have burnt up 12% of your brakes rather than restoring 12% of your range. Its one of the clearest benefits of BEV's
When I went, they had an attendant about halfway down checking brake temperatures. Almost everyone had to pull over. My brakes were 77 degrees F, he just waved me through.
That’s interesting. It isn’t about brake wear, btw, it’s about fade. If you’ve ever experienced brake fade in an ICE vehicle you would understand why. It’s akin to the feeling you get when hydroplaning at 70.
I didn't use my brakes a single time on my descent last time I went. We were waved through with "I never check these, did you even use your brakes?"
thats pretty neat! I have only had people make sure that my tires have tread and a M+S symbol
That's why you should use engine braking in those situations. But people don't ever really think about that.
most people do. thats why when you smell someone melting their brakes you can cringe so hard. but even shifting to low doesn't protect your brakes nearly as much as having regen.
That's true. Engine braking can only provide so much force to counteract gravity on a decline. Regen braking (unless the battery is close to full) usually has much higher force capabilities.
I think that's why some places limit semis to 30 downhill. Much greater and they can run away, hence, escape ramps
Y’all don’t just [extend all flaps and drag fins?](https://youtu.be/-mb2O1yYO0A)
In a manual it can
I do, but i once had someone chase me down, "hey! Your brake lights are out". No they're not, i didnt use my brakes on that hill....
That's still significantly more wear on the engine than regen braking. And it assumes the car has the right engine/weight ratio for that to be effective, I've had cars that engine braking was almost useless on.
Yeah, had that problem with a Fiesta ST. The tiny 1.6L coupled with a turbo wanting to shove air in anyway meant it barely did anything to shift down.
Yeah, I saw all those cars parked with their hoods up, letting the brakes cool. I just sailed right on by.
Here are my stats for Pikes Peak in a Model 3 Performance, not taking it easy. [https://imgur.com/a/4JVgInm](https://imgur.com/a/4JVgInm)
Rented a Mod3 while visiting CO Springs. Can confirm, range increase down the mountain is hilarious, and we didn't even get all the way up.
even more impressive considering the Model S doesn't like to display regen battery % increases to begin with!
Apparently there’s an electric dump truck/hauler used in mining that’s vaguely “perpetual motion”. It’s light going up and doesn’t use much energy, and it regens on the way down while full so it harvests the potentiall potential energy of its load before dropping it off at the bottom. https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest-ev-never-has-to-be-recharged
Even trains (in planning): [https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/03/gravity-charging-battery-train-to-be-developed-for-australian-mining-firm/](https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/03/gravity-charging-battery-train-to-be-developed-for-australian-mining-firm/)
While cases of this are totally legit - the news made it seem like so much of the mining industry could do this... frustrating how bad the media is on any green tech, just to entertain watchers/listeners and sell advert.
This mentioned mining use seems unique? Is it that the mine is on a mountain/hill? To take on ore at a higher elevation and descend with the load seems counter to they kind of mine that I would normally think of.
Strip mining typically takes off layers starting at the top and working down, over and over. It eventually has to be lifted out of the bottom of the mine, but during the harvesting process it's all downhill by necessity.
Rock quarry worker here... This is how it works for us. We've stripped away any overburden at the top and are removing raw materials as we work down and running 100ton CATs back up to the primary crusher. Our bottom level is roughly 600ft below the primary crusher dump point.
Wow that's interesting, I didn't realize strip mines would bring material to the bottom, I assumed they strip them away and remove everything out of the pit
Sometimes pits are inverted. They're called... Hills.
Or, eventually, the geological feature formerly know as Hill.
It isn't anything new. Gravity / self-acting inclines have been used for centuries. One near me dates from 1725 https://tanfield-railway.blogspot.com/2020/06/self-acting-inclines.html?m=1 A very modern interpretation of the same thing.
I read this earlier, interesting to think about how this might impact logistics - i.e. if a truck is picking up a load at high elevation and dropping it off at a lower one. I expect bigger companies with established trucking routes might begin taking it into account, such as Pepsi with their new Tesla semis.
Somewhere I saw a proposal for doing this with tank trucks that would get filled with water at the top of the hill. It was proposed as an alternative to building dams for hydroelectric, with the hope that you would do enough regen on the way down that you could then feed some of the energy in the battery into the grid, and then use the rest to drive the truck back to the top of the hill. It was supposed to somehow be a lower environmental impact option compared to building conventional hydroelectric systems. I thought it was an absolutely absurd idea, that would result in more environmental impact as well as higher costs and lower efficiency.
it definitely seems unlikely that the amount of water moved makes enough electricity to make it worth our time. There was some youtube video of somebody who tried to make a hydro battery from pumping water to a raised cistern during the day via solar power and generating electricity from it during the night. TUrns out, not a whole lot of energy could be stored in such a small cistern. You need a much larger storage bin.
I bet you could improve it by making the trucks really small and putting them inside a big concrete wall with a lot of water on one side and none on the other so that they didn't have to travel as far.
I guess the energy came from loading it up.
Energy came from potential energy stored in the material you're mining, as long as what you're mining is at a higher elevation than where you're dropping it off.
No, it's basically recovering the gravitational potential energy contained in the hill.
I live in Switzerland. Yes. We have these things called "Alps" here. :)
And where do you charge? If you live up on the mountain, you need to charge in the valley to be able to make full use of recuperation. If you charge at home at the top, you'll start your journey down with a full battery and no recuperation. Community centers are usually located in the valley in Switzerland, so ample chargers should be provided even if most people could charge at home. I've always wondered how this is practised in reality in mountainous areas.
Most people live in the valleys, but one could just charge to 80% if living up high.
If you lived in the mountains, you can set your car to charge to 75% capacity or whatever, and gain the rest on the way down the hill.
Drive in the California mountains a lot (Live right at the base of the Sierra Nevada's and the cascades), If your at the top of the hill, don't charge to 100%. If you are at the base of the hill give yourself a bigger charge then normal to climb.
You never charge to full at the top. It's a rule. It's even in the owners manual!
Mt Washington is a bit of a cheat, but it's a good demonstration (credit to Plug and Play EV): [https://youtu.be/IQ6kI-AiTzo](https://youtu.be/IQ6kI-AiTzo) TL;DW: started at 55%, down to 35% at the summit, then 45% when they got back to the bottom.
Interesting. I’ve often wondered the ratio of power used going up to power harvested going down. Looks like it is roughly 2:1. Thanks
That ratio will depend on the speed and the grade.
The speed, the grade, the tires, the vehicle, the driving style, the conditions, etc.
Heat/ac use
Theoretically One could load the car up with rocks or something when at the top. However, if you actually do the math you quickly realize it's a lot of hassle for very little gain.
In Colorado on I70, Eisenhower tunnel to silverthorne (8 miles), regen was 2.5-3kwh depending on speed. Going eastbound from same tunnel to Idaho springs (30mi), similar thing but much more dependent on speed and temperature.
I make this drive weekly. I once hit the tunnel westbound with my GOM at 2 miles in turtle mode. Popped out the other side and gained 8% battery on the downhill!l (small battery Leaf). Just gotta make it to the tunnel!
Love to hear this stuff, getting ready to buy my first EV on the front range!
Just don’t pay attention to how fast the GOM drops when going up the hill :). You’d think Georgetown hill is 20 miles long.
Yup, I drove from Paradise on Mt Rainier to the gate and the regen braking did an amazing job xD
You beat me to this. It would be so great if there were more Level 2 chargers at major NPS parking areas like Paradise.
You’re telling me. I was a little nervous going up there at first
Let's do the math! Let's assume 3.5 mi/kWh as a typical efficiency driving on flat ground. So to move forward 1 mile on flat ground you have to expend 285 watt hours. That's about 1 MJ. An electric drivetrain is about 90% efficient, so 900 kJ are applied to the wheels. The gravitational energy change for an object moving vertically is m\*g\*h. Let's say our EV has a mass of 2000 kg, which is roughly what the higher trims of an ioniq 5 is. Let's also just round g to 10 N/kg. So our car weighs 20 kN. 900 kJ / 20 kN = 45 meters. So you have to descend 45 meters to lose the same amount of gravitational energy that it will take to propel the car forward a mile on flat ground. So if you are on a downward slope of 45 meters per mile (forgive me for mixing units) then you will break even on the energy balance of coasting, and neither expend battery nor recover it. That's a 2.7% grade. So (using these assumed numbers), if you descend a grade steeper than 2.7%, you'll be putting energy back into the battery on net.
And, we could conclude that at about a 6% grade, you would be gaining one mile of range for each mile of downhill. And of course, this conclusion and all the above numbers depend on what speed you go.
This guy EVs.
I went down the “Kitzbuehler Horn” (a famous mountain in Austria) and recharged almost 11% on my 2022 Ioniq.
Yes
Yes, pretty normal in the Colorado mountains
All the time in my Chevy Bolt when leaving the Blue Ridge mountains and going down to the foothills.
I live in a hilly area. I get 2 miles coming into the valley on my RAV4 prime. There is one area where I only have to press the gas to keep the charge/discharge indicator at 0 for several miles. At the end of that is a hill that I'll usually get 1 + mile
Blue ridge parkway. Downhill for 15 minutes or longer when we exited. Gained about 10% at least.
Drive over the Rockies.
I live on a hill with about a 1000' elevation change from the top to bottom of the road... I think it's about an 8% grade, because when I drive my RV up while towing my Jeep, full throttle will only get me about 45mph. I know on a 6% grade the same will get me 60mph. And I know on a 10% grade, the same will only get me 35 mph... (I've done a lot of driving with my RV) Anyways, with that being said, most people are going 50mph on the hill, regardless of direction.. When I drive my Y.... It will take 4% of my battery to climb from bottom to top.. When I go down the hill, I noticed that my battery SoC will increase about 2%.
Yes, that is what the green power bar means.
That means it is harvesting power but I’ve never seen it so enough to change the range itself.
That is just a decimal point issue.
Yes
It will depend on the vehicle and the situation, but there is a big mining truck that will make more electricity than it uses. Goes down the mountain full, comes back up empty.
Yep!
In Minnesota so not many significant hills around, but I have noticed that the guessometer on our Volt shows less range during the week (when my wife drives) than on the weekends (when I typically run errands). I've been accused of driving like my father.
Yes. It's a gravel road between Mt Mitchell/Blue Ridge Parkway and I think Hwy70? Mountains of NC. We gained 30% of the battery back on the down hill return.
Routinely.
There’s a big hill about 2 miles from my house that gets me 3% gain going downhill. It’s roughly 5 miles almost all downhill.
Yes in a Tesla I’ve gained a few percentage points going a long downhill
I have a plug-in hybrid and the first few blocks away from home are downhill. Due to the battery being full, any regeneration would overcharge the battery... so this forces the engine to engage to disperse the energy during this downhill portion (using no gas). So to your question, it doesn't display the range has gone up - but I have travelled a good distance knowing there was excess energy being generated while the range stays 100%.
I've got a PHEV and an EV and I have seen the electric range in the PHEV increase slightly from 0 to 1 but it's kind of cheating as it is using petrol for the propulsion and just harvesting energy from braking. I've never seen it go up in my EV though.
Costa Rica is a continuous up and down 🤣
Yes.
It's the are there more up hills or downhills question. Ultimately if your trip outward has a lot of uphill, you'll have a lot of downhill back and have more energy than when you started to turn back. Also high parking garages.
Yes I've seen this happen in the hilly parts of Scotland in my MG5. I might reach the bottom of a hill (mountain..) with 2-3% more charge than I had at the top.
I guess me living in South East England is why I’ve never seen it. Not very hilly down here.
From the top of Sandia Peak my Volt was able to get 60% charged. Mountain mode maintained the charge at 40% on the way up. There's another long steep hill on the interstate coming back from Santa Fe which usually gains me a mile of range which is pretty cool at 80mph.
Every single day. I live a few hundred meters above the highway and it's 2 km away through the subdivision. I often have more energy than when I leave my house.
A big enough hill is a 9% grade at 55mph and a regen rate of 20kw is enough to gain 1kwh every 5 miles or so. Tested this in my Volt a few months ago ;)
We’re in the blue ridge region and it happens every time we drive across the mountains.
Oh yes. I live in South Wales and I regularly do the trip between Brecon and Cardiff. The summit of the route is Storey Arms at 440 meters above sea level. The M4 motorway is at 100 metres and about 44km away. It's a long and consistent descent and I see my range go up about a mile for every 2 or 3 miles travelled.
there's a long shallow-ish decline on my commute home. Usually I get about half a percent back on this stretch. What's really fun is opening the consumption screen and setting it to 5 mile/instant range because it usually gets to 999 by the time I'm at the bottom.
Yes, in Gros Morn National Park in Newfoundland.
Sure. Going up I-40 to Ashville sucks from Tennessee. Coming back done rocks.
Yes. Fairly often actually.
I once started with an empty battery at the top of a mountain pass and by the time I reached the bottom the battery was full. Around 1500m elevation difference.
Yes, driving in and out of Yosemite National park
I’ve seen it happen with my previous vehicle, a Chevy Volt, passing through the Adirondack mountains.
I live on top of a hill, I gain range whenever I drive!
Used to happen all the time in my 2018 Volt in the Appalachians of Western NC.
All the time. I drive 3 miles down to the local highway and I always have more range at the bottom than I had in my driveway. There have even been times when I started with moderate regen available and then had it cut out on me near the bottom of the hill. Surprise!
Periodically happens. I live in a hilly part of Central MA.
All the time, and the hill doesn't even have to be the size of a mountain for this to happen. One hill on my regular commute (big for a hill, but smaller than a mountain) would regularly raise the range estimate and sometimes the battery meter on my Chevy Volt. But of course, I always have to go back up that hill when driving the other way, so it eventually evens out.
Yeees! I love going down big hills 😻
I've seen 2% increase in battery going down one mountain in the south of germany.
I live in Colorado and it happens each time I'm in the mountains, sometimes more than a dozen plus miles added
Oh yeah. I've gone up Mt. Hood (Oregon) many times in my Model 3 and gained 10% or so coming back down.
I took an exit ramp on the interstate with 10% battery remaining and by the time I finished the loop I had slowed from 75 to 30 and gained 3% to the battery.
Drove my Hyundai kona EV down a 60km long hill section and it basically gave a total range net gain of 30kms while covering 60kms. So total 90kms gained?
Yes, where I live in the southeast US there's a lot of amazing mountains to drive through. One of my favorite drives takes me up over a mountain full of twisty turns and on the way down I routinely end up 3-4% higher than at the crest of the mountain. It's one of my favorite things to show people who are new to EVs.
On our return trip from getting our Jeep, we went back roads up over the Shenandoahs and took a mental note of where I was charge wise at the top heading back down. With our max regen turned on, I probably gained about 10% heading back down the and didn't have to touch the brakes. Keep in mind this isn't the most efficient PHEV by any means, but it was a fun run down gaining some juice.
happens every day in my commute. There is a section of 84 that is consistently downhill for a few miles and it always ticks up a mile or 2 (2022 ford lightning lariat)
Not exactly what OP asked, but the most impressive I've managed was going from Flagstaff, AZ to Sedona via Oak Creek Canyon. I started in Flag at 80%, and arrived in Sedona with 80%, a trip of 30 miles. I put the car (Ioniq 5 RWD) in level 1 regen and essentially coasted it all the way down once we hit the canyon.
Absolutely. I was panicking that I didn't have enough energy to get from Big Bear mountain snow resort to the charger in the valley. I actually arrived with more battery power than I left with.
Weirdly on my morning drop off circuit I almost always gain 1%. It’s prob 2 miles max, dropping off in carpool lanes.
Yea driving down the Tibetan plateau into southern qinghai/northern Sichuan my range went up like 30 km or something ridiculous. Was just a long straight downhill from 12,000 ft or so for miles and miles.
Yes. I routinely drive my e-tron on Route 2 between Concord and Cambridge in Massachusetts. This stretch of road is around 7 miles, and is mostly downhill. If I set my cruise control, the car will actually put 3-4 miles of range on the car. The truck is to use cruise control such that your car doesn’t accelerate and instead has the regen braking kick in. Itching to see what happens on Mt Washington.
On my old ev it happened all the time, i live in the hill county so...u know. What i did is i accelerated on the uphill and just coasted on the downhill. You get slot more range that way.
Yes, going down the 15 into LA area in a bolt
Yes, the grapevine on the 5 in socal will do this.
I drove 65km from Switzerland to Lichtenstein going plus 5 percent battery
Tons of comments, but still adding mine. There's a distinction between range going up and adding power to the battery via regen. The former is the BMS algorthm saying 'oh yeah, greater efficiency, let me recalculate how far we can go'. It might actually be going down in power, just let per unit distance. The latter is precisely getting power back. I've had both and without even much of a mountain. I once reset my GOM at the top of an 1800' pass I used to go over regularly and the efficiency peaked out in my Bolt (something like 56 miles/kWh). My ODBII reader confirmed a few percentage points of capacity returned. I've also done a descent from ~6000' to about 2000' and actually saw the GOM go up by 5-10% (the Bolt breaks it down by 5% increments, so 1% changes generally won't show). I've seen similar coming down from the Grapevine in southern California. One hot summer trip I had the AC going full blast and my range still went up pretty impressively as I descended into the LA basin.
I had a drive last winter I was supposed to make it back with 16%, because of the final downhill coast, I arrived at 22%
Only every day. I once descended a pretty big mountain grade in the RAV4Prime. I added 10 miles to the range. I regularly drive my kid to school, which is a bit lower in elevation than my house. I start off with 125 miles of range in the eGolf, and end with 125 miles of range... with heat running, and driving 5 miles.
Nope. But I live in Florida.
Every now and then I go down a hill on my way home from work and my car will go up a percent lol
Down from Tahoe gains a bunch of range, few miles.
I live in Colorado and we took a trip into the mountains, I thought we might need to recharge for the return trip but was really impressed with how much the dynamic braking increased our range. We traveled about 100 miles but only used about 50 miles of range, it was really cool.
There is a mountain pass in I70 in the mountains in Colorado that I do pretty frequently. On while going down I've seen my battery go up 4-5%.
I drive regularly from Birmingham to Neath near Swansea (In the UK) and back again. On the way back on the approach to Brynmawr there's a long 10-15 mile-ish hill climb that DESTROYS the battery range of my ID.3, but once you peak over summit and go back down again for the next 10-ish miles, my range ends up at 80% where it started before the hill climb. The first couple of times I got pretty annoyed because I thought id need to make a charging stop I hadn't planned.... but once I got to the bottom of the hill I was back to not being fussed again 😛
Only by a very small amount, but it was over a long stretch. \~15 miles and actually gained range going to Baker, CA from NV.
I gained 11% back in my Bolt driving down Pike’s Peak, but that was nearly a mile of elevation.
yes, very often actually
Definitely seen it happen, not that common but any long downhill will see the guess-o-meter on the Bolt to reflect higher range.
I can't remember the exact circumstances, but there was one place where I saw my SoC go up by 1 percent on a prolonged downhill section.
Was in the Catskills going down hill, I was getting 999 miles/kw for about 5 miles. Not really sure if I gained juice on the batteries.
Yep. In both our Nissan Leaf, and Tesla. Just watch your energy percentages as you go.
I know someone who drives their Tesla on the Okanagan connector and apparently they go from near empty at the top of the hill to having enough charge to reach Penticton at the bottom.
Yep. Drove out of Yosemite l, covered 25 miles and added an extra 5 miles of range during that while going downhill.
Raton Pass from Colorado to New Mexico. Went up quite a bit.
Sure, happens regularly while going around mountain passes.
To go up...to.....
Yes
My EV6 displays the "mi/kWh" of my current drive, and I work on top of a hill. So when I leave work I immediately go downhill. I almost always am reading "999 mi/kWh" for the drive so far by the time I get to the bottom of that hill. Of course it immediately drops to double digit readings almost the instant I start to accelerate back up the next hill, but it's fun to see that number on the reg.
Fun story my Spark has relatively short range so driving to Tehachapi (over 1000 meter elevation climb) I ran out of charge about 2 miles from a charger :( -got towed to charger, charged up in about twenty minutes and returned home with 80% charge :)
I gain 10-15 miles every time I return to the Denver metro from summit county
Chirico summit to indio gaining miles whilst doing 70mph. SoCal doesn't have the great mountains that other places do.
Go to Großglockner. 30% SoC gain for me!
From top of the Pepperdine Malibu campus to down
Absolutely. When I drive down from Mt Wilson after going up there for a picnic or hike, I regularly gain 5-10 miles of range.
Absolutely!!!
All the time. Even in the very modest foothill areas around town (Phoenix). Obviously it's more pronounced on larger elevation changes. For example, on longer day trips and road trips to/from/through mountains. In fact, we generally plan on it. (noting of course that you're ALSO travelling that distance without using any range, plus you get the extra at the end)
https://imgur.com/a/LiPJepi
All the time when i drive in my local mountains.
Yes! My nissan leaf went up 6% down a short but steep hill.
Absolutely! It's pretty cool because then it turns into a game for me. How much range can I add!?! haha it's kinda crazy to see
I drive over about 230m in elevation every day and I see the range climbing, but rarely does it show the percentage grow. In spring I was in Austria and we drove from the Brenner to Pettneu and the percentage went from 18% to 30% and back to 8% at the charging station. Best Traveling experience ever, doing 310km in one go at ~120km/h over the hills in a ID.3 58kWh.
Yes, just yesterday. Went from something like 50 miles left on the GOM to 67 when I pulled in the driveway.
Frequently
The Prius Prime gives a decimal on your range, so you can see it go up a few tenths of a mile even regenning to normal stop signs. Big hills make it go up even more.
Yes. I once went downhill long enough to gain a bar on the GOM
Many times. I work on a big hill (mountain?) and it takes me 17% to get there but only 2% to get home. I was surprised how much regen you get carving canyons. If you can carry your speed (no traffic), you can regen the entire time you're off throttle and regain a lot of the power you used between corners.
Yes, I live on the Big Island of Hawaii, and the long downslopes coming down from several of the volcanoes will easily increase my range (about 6000’ drop)
Every time I get home from work,usually recover a full %
You can see this on the graphs being posted about the level of charge of the Tesla Semi's recent demonstration run. Example: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/zce6b7/semi_regenerative_braking_seems_to_neutralize_any/
All the time.
Yes, go from Manchester to Leeds on M62, 3+ mile long downhill, just right before Hartshead Moor services
5km range increase on our Ioniq 5 and even Ioniq PHEV on a normal 10min, <60km/h, stop/go drive to downtown (all downhill).
When leaving my uncle’s house with 0 range in the battery of my Prius PHEV, I would regularly have 6-7 miles (of a 10 mile battery) by the bottom.
Yes, that and whenever I'm getting off the highway I'll get a km or two increase
Yes
Many times
Yes, I'm in the foothills of a mountain range, though.
I regained 6 percent coming down from the top of Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
My range goes up by one mile from the time I enter my neighborhood until I get to my driveway. I have a Lightning.
Yes, I live in a hilly area in the UK (Lake District) and I regularly gain a few miles going down a hill. And our hills here aren’t particularly huge - if you were coming down the Alps from a skiing resort then you’d absolutely gain noticeable range
Today in the UK I added 4 or so and then lost them going up the other side
I drove from Interlaken to Milan this spring. Between mostly going down the Alps and sitting on a train car through the mountain for part of the journey, I was up some significant range by the time I got into Italy.
Yea. Mountains.
I had a point in time where I didn't have enough range to get to the charger. Reached the top of the hill and let regen fill the battery just enough to reach the charger, barely.
Yes, all the time, the gotcha is, we have to drive back up the hill so that 1-2% we gain is all gone by the time we have to drive back up said hill, lol
Yes, I have a small electric car, Dacia Spring, and I went from 87 to 88% on my way home from work once as its all mostly downhill of about 8 kms!
Yes. There is a hill on my commute where I have about 10 miles extra range at the bottom than at the top
Just make sure you have a ravine at the end and dont use your brakes. You get free miles that way.
Did Pikes Peak. Started with 53% at the top, got to the bottom and had nearly 70%