ZEEKR 001 with 140 kWh battery: will Tesla react?

[Giampigua]

ZEEKR 001 is approaching the market with an optional 140 kWh battery and a range of more than 620 miles (chinese standard, anyway).

Elon was contradictory in the past: till 2/3 years ago Range was his main worry. Plaid + was advertized with 520 miles range, not to say Roadster (620). MS "long range plus" was described by Elon as "the best range car has now better range".

When 4680 cells were initially presented at the battery day, one of the main point was that they could grant a +46% range once properly developed in the chassis.

But in 2021, after the cancellation of the plaid + model, he turned out saying that tesla could have built a longer range car, but the product would have been worse.

Now, if the market offers higher range cars, which version of Elon do you think will prevail?

 

[MP3Mike]

That much battery capacity is pretty much only needed when towing, so I wouldn't expect the Model 3/Y to get a larger battery.

Just like they didn't respond to Lucid taking the range king spot putting a 25% larger battery in the Air than the Model S has.

 

[Supcom]

That much battery capacity is pretty much only needed when towing, so I wouldn't expect the Model 3/Y to get a larger battery.

Just like they didn't respond to Lucid taking the range king spot putting a 25% larger battery in the Air than the Model S has.

When fast chargers are few, far away and unreliable, you need more range.

 

[Watts_Up]

That much battery capacity is pretty much only needed when towing, so I wouldn't expect the Model 3/Y to get a larger battery.

Well if you stay on main highways, you might find enough Tesla Superchargers along your trip,
but as soon as you decide to drive on some secondary roads where there is no charging locations,
you need to include your return trip when evaluating your real possible range.

So if you have a 300 miles range vehicle, and typically charge between 20% and 80%, or 60%, you will get only 180 miles or 90 miles one way.
And in winter you may lose another 20% or more, so real winter range would be 144 miles, or 72 miles.

Also you need to consider the slop of the road. If you look at the distance between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, there are only 274 miles,
so you could imagine that only one supercharger location half way could be sufficient, but Tesla has about a dozen of supercharger locations,

Getting a 500 miles range option, while not necessary for everyone, would be certainly something that many would like to consider.

 

[Giampigua]

That much battery capacity is pretty much only needed when towing, so I wouldn't expect the Model 3/Y to get a larger battery.

Just like they didn't respond to Lucid taking the range king spot putting a 25% larger battery in the Air than the Model S has.

Well if you stay on main highways, you might find enough Tesla Superchargers along your trip,
but as soon as you decide to drive on some secondary roads where there is no charging locations,
you need to include your return trip when evaluating your real possible range.

So if you have a 300 miles range vehicle, and typically charge between 20% and 80%, or 60%, you will get only 180 miles or 90 miles one way.
And in winter you may lose another 20% or more, so real winter range would be 144 miles, or 72 miles.

Also you need to consider the slop of the road. If you look at the distance between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, there are only 274 miles,
so you could imagine that only one supercharger location half way could be sufficient, but Tesla has about a dozen of supercharger locations,

Getting a 500 miles range option, while not necessary for everyone, would be certainly something that many would like to consider.

Agree.
Right now I have the return trip problem: I will travel for business for 400 km and no chance to charge at destination.
With my excellent MS raven I am fine, but if I had 20/30% more range I could save half an hour.
Is it important? Well, I can survive with this, but I’d prefer to avoid losing 30 mins in a pretty long trip.
So, Zeekr or other similar range car will be a good option for me

 

[ThomasD]

I enjoy driving the back roads. Sometimes you may not see another car for a half hour or more. You pass a home and the next Home maybe 3/4 of a mile or more away. Stop at Small Town Restaurants for Lunch. EVs need more range and/or more charging stations in out of the way small towns and rural areas.

 

[beatle]

Well if you stay on main highways, you might find enough Tesla Superchargers along your trip,
but as soon as you decide to drive on some secondary roads where there is no charging locations,
you need to include your return trip when evaluating your real possible range.

So if you have a 300 miles range vehicle, and typically charge between 20% and 80%, or 60%, you will get only 180 miles or 90 miles one way.
And in winter you may lose another 20% or more, so real winter range would be 144 miles, or 72 miles.

If you're driving into a charging desert, don't stop at 80% SoC. 20% is also a pretty high threshold at which to stop. I typically go to 10% before charging. That gives you 270 miles, or 216 miles in the winter, 108 miles one way by your calculation. While it's true that some places are more than 108 miles away from a charger, there aren't too many situations where you'd be driving into a charging desert 108 miles and then decide to go back to your original charger. Tesla would be better off investing in a few more supercharger locations to address these fringe cases than adding battery capacity at this point.

There will always be some people whose use case or obsession with range, minimizing stops, etc. will draw them to higher capacity batteries, but I don't find more than 400 miles of range to be very useful for a vehicle that won't be towing. It's a lot of extra weight to haul around most of the time that is rarely used, and bigger batteries are more expensive. With charging speed increasing and chargers in more places, I just don't find giant range numbers that important. Heck, my car only has 333 miles of range and I very rarely have to supercharge it. My bladder runs out of range before the car does.

 

[ewoodrick]

ZEEKR 001 is approaching the market with an optional 140 kWh battery and a range of more than 620 miles (chinese standard, anyway).



Now, if the market offers higher range cars, which version of Elon do you think will prevail?

I don't expect that there will be a reaction. Is the ZEEKR actually a competition to worry about?

300 miles seems to be a number that consumers are happy with. It ends up being a decent crossover between price and performance.
As people learn more and more about EVs, the reality is that 99% of the driving needs no way near that amount of range. While you will see a lot of posts on the forums which say that bigger is better, talk to the folks that don't get the Tesla long range models and you'll see that they are indeed happy and are satisfied that they didn't spend the more money for the LR car.

Was the 88 mile range good enough? For well over 50% of Americans, yes.

Census Bureau Estimates Show Average One-Way Travel Time to Work Rises to All-Time High

A new report released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the average one-way commute in the United States increased to a new high of 27.6 minutes in 2019.

www.census.gov

 

[Giampigua]

I don't expect that there will be a reaction. Is the ZEEKR actually a competition to worry about?

300 miles seems to be a number that consumers are happy with. It ends up being a decent crossover between price and performance.
As people learn more and more about EVs, the reality is that 99% of the driving needs no way near that amount of range. While you will see a lot of posts on the forums which say that bigger is better, talk to the folks that don't get the Tesla long range models and you'll see that they are indeed happy and are satisfied that they didn't spend the more money for the LR car.

Was the 88 mile range good enough? For well over 50% of Americans, yes.

Census Bureau Estimates Show Average One-Way Travel Time to Work Rises to All-Time High

A new report released by the U.S. Census Bureau shows the average one-way commute in the United States increased to a new high of 27.6 minutes in 2019.

www.census.gov

I get your point and agree: 99% of the people who bought a Tesla were fine with the promised range, and many of them did not chose a long range version.

But:
1) is this valid also for the people who did not yet step in the EV world?
2) how many people who bought a short range version did it because they relied on the "advertised range", but nevertheless would prefer to benefit of a better range in case a new battery technology is available, rather than a "same capacity lighter battery"?

 

[ewoodrick]

I get your point and agree: 99% of the people who bought a Tesla were fine with the promised range, and many of them did not chose a long range version.

But:
1) is this valid also for the people who did not yet step in the EV world?
2) how many people who bought a short range version did it because they relied on the "advertised range", but nevertheless would prefer to benefit of a better range in case a new battery technology is available, rather than a "same capacity lighter battery"?

How many ICE vehicles have you taken from full to empty?

People just don't normally use a full battery, not even on a trip.
Range is a worry for folks with Range Anxiety.

 

[Giampigua]

All those I had

 

[ewoodrick]

All those I had

You've run all of your cars out of gas?

If that's the case, you really need to work on staying away from the lower limits.

 

[Giampigua]

I didn’t mean literally empty. I never run out of gas.
But I use to benefit of the entire gas volume that is available in each car I had.

 

[Giampigua]

here is a first real drive test.

Zeekr 001 with 140 kWh Qilin battery real life range test results

If you ever wondered how far will the 140 kWh Qilin battery take the Zeekr 001 - we have the answer. Can the Zeekr 001 manage the advertised 1,032 km?

www.arenaev.com

At 120 km/h it reached 864 km.

It seems better than Lucid.

Once again: will Tesla react?

 

[MP3Mike]

Once again: will Tesla react?

Highly unlikely.

 

[ewoodrick]

Why does it need to?
It seems as if if you may still have some pretty severe range anxiety. I've been driving EVs for 8 years now and have only had EVs for about 5. I don't really see a need for a car to 9 hours without stopping. I don't want to go 9 hours without stopping.

Just because they can, doesn't mean that they should.

The other way to think about it is that the car is carrying around an extra ton and that you are are paying over $10,000 for something that most people would use maybe twice a year.

 

[ucmndd]

Once again: will Tesla react?

No, because they have no reason to and obviously don't care. There's no market of any significant volume for 6,000 pound ultra-high-range ultra-high-price EVs, and Tesla is a volume player. They're happy to leave the niche stuff to someone else.

 

[Ctuna]

Real World Range differs a lot compared to claimed measurement.
One my Y Highway mileage is about 30 percent less than claimed with
on Sailboard on the Racks. This is on a highway drive going over on hill
that has a +1500 foot climb and at highway speeds of around 75 .I suspect that it would be 15 percent less to 20 percent more without the board on top . Even Recurrent has a real world range of 180 to 240 , with the battery health saying I have a 325 range.

 

[Ctuna]

Real World miles are no where near epa miles and the foriegn standards
are even worse . Takes me 220 miles of range to go 145 miles with one sailboard on top on the highway run with mixed driving and some hills.
Recurrent estimated my real world range a 180 to 260 on a 2023 model y
long range . I think that is about right. That is why it takes a 400 to 500 mile
epa range to get 300 miles real world. A model Y would need about a 100 kw
battery to do that.