Explaining MPGe, Miles Per Killowatt-Hour, And More Ways To Measure Electric Car Efficiency

[@BobbieGWhiz]

Thanks for the video. Watts are power, not energy. Joules are energy. Calories are energy. Watts = energy/time. If I lift a weight over my head regardless of how long it takes me, I’m using the same amount of energy. But if I lift it twice as fast, I’m twice as powerful.

[@outofspecguide]

Yup! In the video I separate watts (power) from watt-hour (stored energy or 1 Wh = 3600 J)

[@steveinoz8188]

In 2022, annual U.S. renewable energy generation surpassed coal for the first time in history. By 2025, domestic solar energy generation is expected to increase by 75%, and wind by 11%.

[@willadams8558]

Perplexity brought me here when I asked about kWh and Wh/mi for my Model3. Thanks for the info!

[@Dactylonian]

Thanks for the video, Max. Being a fellow nerd, I printed out a little card that shows me the estimated miles remaining in increments of 5% SOC, for a wide span of miles/kWh (2.4 to 4.4). This will hopefully make for a handy guide when my new vehicle arrives in a few weeks. Oh and I like how you’ve doubled down on funny face thumbnails 😂

[@Budooby]

Great video Max! I hope people will listen closely to you distinguishing kW vs kWh, I see people say things like “oh this has an 80kw battery” all the time and it drives me BANANAS!

[@undrachvrsage]

TFTC. I did my own math to figure out the cost per gallon equivalent as that's what matters most to me. Take the distance I could average on a gallon of gas in my previous vehicle (20miles) and compare the cost of that to the kwh it takes to go the same distance in my new car (model Y). I average nearly 4mi/kwh so 5kwh is the equivalent of a gallon of gas for me. Therefore when I homecharge overnight I pay roughly $0.80 per gallon equivalent And when I DCFC on the road I pay roughly $2.00 per gallon equivalent Compared to the $3.50 for an actual gallon in my region (averaging the wild fluctuation) and the roughly 1000mi a week I have to drive, I'm a happy penny pincher Lulz

[@undrachvrsage]

Granted my old vehicle was a brick on wheels (Jeep) so take that with a pinch of salt. Everyone else's math will vary.

[@chrisruggiero9043]

Haha - THIS - Same move, Jeep to Model Y in January. With some long trips and a resulting near 50/50 split of home and supercharging I’ve saved a little over $100 in “fuel costs” for every 1000 miles driven because of the massive gain in efficiency achieved by switching to electric. That’s a grand (plus) in cash every 10k miles IF local prices stay at around $3.40 a gallon (they’ll go up) every increase in gas price is more real savings for us 👍

[@barryw9473]

mpge is a silly metric. We pay for kWh, not gallons. My suggestion is to convince EPA to drop this metric.

[@chidorirasenganz]

Eh I think it makes sense as a metric to show potential EV owners efficiency differences

[@loriallen67]

Agree wholeheartedly. It does nothing but confuse people. People will adjust to kWh metric.

[@saltydogg]

MPGe is calculated by dividing miles by kilograms of hydrogen, e.g. 47 MPG ÷ (2.85769-87%) =126.5142 MPGe. When we remove the carbon from gasoline it'not gasoline any more, it's hydrogen, so MPGe should changed to MPKh (miles per kilogram of hydrogen)

[@barryw9473]

@@saltydogg I think you are confusing the EPA MPGe for EVs with a metric for hydrogen fuel cells. FCEVs use MPGE. EVs use MPGe.

[@saltydogg]

@@barryw9473 Notice at the 4:30 mark when he calculates the MPGe, 75 kwh divided by 33.7 kwh equals 2.23 kilograms of hydrogen, NOT gallons of gasoline. 2.23 kg of hydrogen PLUS 14.92 kg of carbon makes 17.15 kilograms of gasoline, 17.15 ÷ 2.85769 = 6.00 gallons of gasoline. What this means is that if you have 6 gallons of gasoline in your Ford you can burn 2.23 kilograms of hydrogen, then your walking!

[@ezpoppy55]

It’s important to keep one thing in mind when considering fossil fuels v. electricity: electricity can be made greener and cleaner. Wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal… The sources for electricity can, and are, being shifted to renewable/sustainable/green with every passing day. Fossil fuels will always be environmentally dirty. From exploration, drilling, transporting, refining, transporting (again), storing, pumping, and burning, the entire process involved in making and using fossil fuels are all environmentally disastrous. Always have been. Always will be.

[@TheRealLaughingGravy]

Like the scene in the W.C. Fields movie where a pompous woman exclaims, "You're drunk!" to which Fields responds, "And you're ugly. I'll be sober tomorrow. You'll be ugly the rest of your life."

[@barryw9473]

KWh per 100 miles (or km) is the best metric because no calculations are required when charging car. If you know car took in 33 kWh, you then know that will give you 100 miles of range and no need for mental gymnastics.

[@chidorirasenganz]

I think miles per kWh works better because the difference is more stark and easily translated into other figures such as how much would it cost to go X number of miles

[@barryw9473]

@@chidorirasenganz the difference is less stark. My e-Golf gets about 4.5 mi/kWh vs the polestar 2.8 mi/kWh. That’s 22 kWh / 100 miles vs 36 kWh / 100 miles. 36 vs 22 is way easier to visualize (and not calculate) vs 4.5 and 2.8.

[@barryw9473]

@@chidorirasenganz also, if 7 kW charging is available, that’s about 3 hrs for the e-Golf to get 100 miles of range vs 5 hours on the Polestar - very easy math as compared to figuring out charging time using mi/kWh.

[@chidorirasenganz]

@@barryw9473 I think smaller numbers work better for scale for example giving a rating 1-5. A 3 star restaurant doesn’t look as good one rated 4.5 star restaurant. It also makes it easier to convert to a distance you need travel and roughly how many kw you’ll need. For the second I would say take your battery size and divide it by the charge rate (7 kw). Much easier lol

[@MigRx]

I found this video by looking up what MPGe actually meant and I spent the whole vidro wondering where in the world I had seen you before. Your Garmin Marq videos. The hint was the Epix you’ve got here haha

[@foppo100]

A English Gallon is just over 4 liters,That is what MPG means.

[@MigRx]

@@foppo100thank you! it’s the meaning or interpretation of MPGe that I was looking for

[@johnharden6343]

Okay. But I need to know how many kWh per mile will my 12k pound step van use at 55mph. Thanks!

[@timoliver8940]

The multiplier for IMPERIAL gallons is 40 - eg my Mini Cooper S E in the U.K. can get 5miles/kWh = 200mpgE Imperial - much easier than multiplying by 33.3!

[@saltydogg]

5 miles per kwh x 33.333 kwh = 166.665 miles per kilogram of hydrogen.166.665 ÷ 12.3833 kwh = 13.459 US gallons. 166.665 ÷ 14.9 kwh = 11.186 imperial gallons

[@WhereWeRoll]

Except you buy fuel in litres so your units were already nonsensical.

[@PeaceChanel]

Thank You Everybody for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste

[@leepeffer1304]

My daily driver gets 105 actual real world MPG and 270# gross vehicle weight worth of raw material. Is that more or less than the average EV over its lifetime including manufacturing footprint?

[@wkdj2522]

great explanation. agree that using the 100 in the rating is totally unnecessary, but actually mixing SI and british units makes even less sense. so what's really dumb is not using km/kWHr, which is intuitive, easier math and conversion. sadly the usa continues to coddle americans who think metric is MORE confusing.

[@derekcrayton1173]

Sometimes I get 5 miles per kilowatt in my Srp lfp battery.

[@miggy8011]

The USA needs to catch up to the rest of the world and quote Wh/km My Tesla M3 achieved over 50,000km an Avg. Energy use of 133 Wh/km

[@ukbulldog2024]

. A tesla (single motor) as an example - 1KwH can give on average 3 (average) KM of range, Lithium Ion Battery gives useable 46Kwh of Power say (65% of 71Kw Battery as I needs 15% min and 80% max charge). A Tesla range is 138Km. Cost of Charge of 46Kw depends on your Country or Solar Power at Home. Measure with the KM you would get to a Diesel or Petrol Engine Cost. PHEV may be more economical. Check you Figures

[@barryw9473]

Kilo, not “killa”. 😊

[@iMaxPatten]

Dem wats are killa :D

[@saltydogg]

You have a 75 kilowatt hour battery. One kilogram of hydrogen holds 33.333 kilowatt hours, 75 divided by 33.333 equals 2.25. So your battery holds 2.25 kilograms of hydrogen. Gasoline is 13% hydrogen and 87% carbon. Divide 2.25 by 13% and you get 17.3077. So your battery holds 17.3077 kilograms of gasoline (2.25 kg of hydrogen + 15.0577 kg of carbon).One gallon of gasoline has a mass of 2.85769 kg, so 17.3077 divided by 2.85769 equals 6.0565 gallons of gasoline. So your car holds 6.0565 gallons of gasoline, but 6.0565 gallons of gasoline, 17.3077 kilograms of gasoline, 2.25 kilograms of hydrogen or 75 kwh will all take you the exact same distance because they all have the exact same energy content. If you divide 75 kwh by the quantity of fuel you can calculate the energy content of the fuel, e.g. 75 ÷ 6.0565 = 12.3833 kwh per gallon of gasoline.

[@johnharden6343]

You seem to have your figures down. So I want to build a hybrid step van. My pickup with camper gets 14 mpg diesel. I need to know how many kWh per mile will it take to push the van down the road on average you think?

[@saltydogg]

@@johnharden6343 How big is your diesel tank, are you calculating US gallons or imperial, if you really needed to, how much extra diesel could you carry in a couple of jerry cans.

[@snarfbot]

It's a bullshit metric period. Take a power plant by me in ny they use natural gas. Let's be generous and say it's 45% efficient at converting the fuel into electricity. In my state the transmission losses are something like 6%. Then again let's be generous and say your charger only loses 10% on top of what goes into your battery. So for a polestar 2 which is what I assume this guy's car is 115empg turns into 43.4empg. Not bad not bad. But a far cry from the 115 they advertise! The hummer is even worse they advertise the 58empg to make it look better than an equivalent ice car but after all the losses it's 21.8empg to haul the 10000lb green energy machine to the grocery store. If they used miles per kwh instead then people could easily do the math and see if it would actually save them money to drive! I pay 25c per kwh making most of these very inefficient ev's doa. So in summation, it's 100% bullshit. Designed so that ice cars, and hybrids cannot be directly compared to phev's and ev's. Why else would they make up a nonsense metric that has no meaning in the real world?

[@COSMACELF1802]

This is all BS. The real and only important measure of efficiency is total cost of ownership. An EV can drive let's say about 400,000 miles in 20 years and costs about $150,000 in that time. An ICE car can drive the same distance and time for about the same price. Therefore neither is more efficient than the other. EV's create more pollution up front in the creation, but ICE make it over time, so again, there is really no significant difference. ICE cars catch fire 10 times more than EV, but EV fires are 10 times more toxic. No difference. ICE cars have a range of 600 miles and can be replenished in just 3 minutes. EV's have 200 miles and require hours to replenish. Saying words like "green" and "efficiency" are just sales terms to make you feel good about spending your money!

[@jessetorrens4494]

I question that an EV will have the same "energy efficiency" over the course of a 20 year - up to 400,000 miles driven lifetime. That is to say, that you'll be able to drive the same distance per kwh of charge at year 19 of ownership as it achieved in year 1 of ownership. I drive a 19 yrs old ICE vehicle, and a 28 yrs old ICE vehicle. I check my mpg with every fill up, and near as I can tell it still has the "same" (+-) a small percentage difference mpg efficiency as when it was manufactured. Based on my use of numerous rechargeable cell phones, laptop computers, battery powered kids riding toys, work tools, etc., I find it hard to believe that an EV built in 2022 will even still be roadworthy in 2042. Especially without the significant cost to the owner to replace the power unit with a NEW power unit. Which no one would ever likely do.

[@COSMACELF1802]

@@jessetorrens4494 I'm giving EV's the benefit of doubt in assuming they might perform the same in 20 years. But, you are probably right, like all electronic devices, they are pretty much garbage after 10 years. I'll stick with my 24 year old ICE vehicle, still going strong and it only cost me $4,000 (bought it used in 2010).

[@jessetorrens4494]

@@COSMACELF1802 I've got a feeling in another 20-30 yrs, after I'm gone, only the very affluent will be able to afford the "only" electric vehicles being manufactured. In 100 yrs, living life might be like the movie Soylent Green. Minus the ACTUAL Soylent Green. 😉

[@thefixedoneout1662]

Should have bought a Tesla bro

[@karlwolf2]

First