Life hacks: How to save electricity when driving an electric car
AN ELECTRIC car is definitely more environment-friendly but it could sometimes give you trouble if you do not pay attention to saving its battery while driving.
If you drive an electric car, there are ways you can save electricity by paying attention to your driving style.
Drive with foresight and keep your distance from the car in front of you to avoid a lot of starting and stopping.
When you’re in the town center and the traffic is inching along, only accelerate gently so you can save the fuel and the battery, according to a German car association.
When braking, you can also use the car’s recuperation mechanism: If you have an e-car and you take your foot off the gas, the engine responds by acting like a generator and feeds the braking energy back into the battery.
If you get good at this, you can get up to 20% more range out of your vehicle in the city alone, say the experts.
Another tip is to drive mainly using just one pedal – as that can be sufficient to accelerate and decelerate.
Often, you can adjust the levels of recovery, to increase or decrease the braking effect.
When the road is clear, the best way to drive is to roll free – meaning the recuperation is switched off and you can sail along with the momentum you have, without having to accelerate.
Meanwhile, if you know that you are likely to be mainly covering shorter distances, you can also opt for a smaller, lighter battery before you buy your e-car. The reason is that the heavier your car is, the greater the amount of electricity it consumes. That also applies to what you pack in the boot – avoid unnecessary, heavy items in the back or the luggage rack.
There are other ways you can save electricity too.
Make sure the air pressure is right in the tyres. You can even raise this to up to 0.2 bar compared to the carmaker’s recommendations to reduce your energy consumption.
If you identify features that consume a lot of power and only use them when strictly necessary, that will save energy too.
Consider only using interior, seat and steering wheel heating, or air conditioning, when needed, then switching them off again right afterward.