22 October

Off-roading is one of the key arguments used against EVs. But an EV off-roader can get almost 3 times the range of a petrol or diesel equivalent. The reason is pretty simple. I’ve shared lots of times, that petrol and diesel engines produce virtually no power, unless you rev them hard. They’re gutless. Off-roading needs a lot of power and torque. A petrol or diesel off-roader needs to be in a high-rev, low-geared, high fuel consumption zone almost the entire time. Whereas an EV will give you maximum power/torque from a standing start, using no more energy than at any other time. It will also give you that power or torque instantly. And infinitely fine gradients of it, titrated exactly to need. If you watch or do off-roading, you’ll hear a lot of revving going on, with petrols/diesels, to try to find the right amount of power for each bit of track. The EV doesn’t need any of that, it’ll calculate *exactly* how much is needed, every second, and give you just that. So they use almost 3 times less energy, to do the same off-roading. Like the test I shared yesterday, where an electric Discovery lasted 5.5 days on a single charge, off-roading. The petrol/diesel equivalent - 2 days.