Electric VW achieves 531km on a single charge

Range anxiety, that  bugbear that has stymied rapid migration to all-electric mobility in SA and other markets, appears to be a syndrome on its way out.

Volkswagen has announced that an ID.3 – the brand’s first electric vehicle - has covered a distance of 531 fully electric kilometres from the German town of Zwickau to Schaffhausen in Switzerland  without needing a charge.

The ID.3 is a production car fitted with a 58 kWh battery and a 150kW motor, and was driven on a route consisting entirely of public roads and highways through many cities. The Swiss driver who achieved this feat has a most apt name, Felix Egolf.

Although the journey is not entirely comparable with day-to-day trips, it nevertheless underpins the every day practicality of the ID.3, pointed out Volkswagen’s Reinhard de Vries, managing director technology and logistics at Volkswagen Sachsen.

The ID.3 even beat its officially quoted 420km range by more than 100km because the driver employed an economical driving style of constantly lifting his foot off the accelerator to let the ID.3 coast on ideal sections of  highways. When the opportunity arose, he also used the slipstream of trucks to decrease wind drag.

“The weight, on the other hand, was not ideal,” said Egolf.

“The additional weight of the cameraman plus technical equipment took the total payload to around 250kg. In addition, auxiliary consumers such as navigation, daytime running lights, radio and ventilation were either temporarily or permanently in operation.