Cadillac Escalade IQ Gets More Than 600 Miles On A Single Charge – CleanTechnica

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A Cadillac Escalade IQ was driven more than 600 miles on a single charge in real-world driving (not on a test track). It was driven at 60 mph to achieve such a huge range. Driven at 70 mph, it still achieved 482 miles. Not all drivers drive at 70 mph on highways and interstates, so it does make sense to do a test at 60 mph as well as 70 mph. One commenter asked about the range at 80 mph, which makes little sense considering driving at that speed is illegal in most places, and presumably dangerous.

The IQ, as many EV enthusiasts know, or could guess, has a huge battery. It’s about 221 kWh; most EV batteries are nowhere near this large. For the 60 mph test, the range was 607 miles. The efficiency was not great, as one might expect, because the IQ is massive and not all that aerodynamic – just 2.7 m/kWh.

The video host explains that in the eastern US, because of congestion, sometimes it is not possible to drive over 60 mph. So, again, a 60 mph EV driving test is valid. 

Of course, it is not necessary to drive over 600 miles on a single charge where the vehicle was tested because they are public EV chargers along the way, and plenty of them.

It’s really the adding of new public EV chargers in places where there aren’t any, or enough, that solves ‘range anxiety’, which increasingly is less of an issue. Electric vehicle ranges have steadily grown while more and more public EV chargers have been added, are being installed, and will be installed.

To drive the distance of over 600 miles on a single charge, the driver drove for well over 10 hours. Of course, most drivers don’t do that, so, again, it’s actually not necessary to drive like that. Most of us, if we take a long-distance trip, will stop every several hours where there is public EV charging and take a bio and/or rest break and add some electricity to the battery pack at the same time. A little pre-trip planning helps, but we usually are not driving for over 10 hours with no expectation of refueling. 

The IQ can, at times, charge at over 300 kW, the host explains. The charging curve does not allow this rate all the time because charging curves alter charging rates. So, according to this video, the IQ has a great range and a high charging speed.

The IQ weighs over 9,000 pounds; there are critics of overly large EVs and overly large gas and diesel vehicles, for good reason. They aren’t energy efficient and sometimes they only transport one occupant at a time. The gas version of the Escalade only gets about 14 mpg combined; this is really low and just silly at this time in our lives when climate change and its impacts are real, as as is toxic air pollution that harm human health.

The all-electric IQ has a 59 mpge for combined driving. So, it is much more energy efficient than the gas version.

The critics of such very large vehicles say we shouldn’t have them in the first place. We don’t live in a ‘should’ world though; we live in reality. Many of us Americans possess the ‘bigger is better’ mentality and will continue to buy overly large vehicles that consume far too much energy. In the case of the IQ, it is much more energy efficient than directly burning fossil fuels to operate the gas version. It also doesn’t generate toxic air pollution from its tailpipe because there isn’t one, unlike the gas version.