A group of Italian Tesla owners has set a new record by driving a Model S 100D 1078km on a single charge. The feat was made more impressive by the fact that it used a standard production vehicle; and had he charging port sealed by a lawyer to ensure that the record would be official.
Range is one of the biggest challenges electric cars face today, as it isn’t as simple as simply pulling into a petrol station for a few minutes. Recharging an electric car takes significantly longer. Tesla has been working on overcoming these limitations by introducing superchargers and building more efficient batteries. Still, trying to hit 1000km on a single charge was not considered withing the realm of possibility. Especially considering that even diesel cars have trouble accomplishing the feat.
In order to achieve the record, the club had five drivers complete the task of driving through southern Italy for 29 hours. To reduce rolling resistance the car was fitted with low-rolling resistance tyres and to also conserve power, the air conditioning turned off. Keeping a constant speed with the minimal use of brakes is the key to achieving high efficiency.
After hearing the news, Elon Musk was excited and tweeted his congratulations to the group. It is definitely a new feat for a production vehicle to achieve that much of a distance on a single charge, but of course, it isn’t in conditions that one might normally have. Ideally, there is hope that as technology progresses, efficiency improves and the rise of the electric vehicles will slowly overtake combustion engines.
[Source: The Verge]
