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Correcting Audi: Tesla Model 3 Charges Over 2 Times Faster Than Audi e-tron

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Published on May 17th, 2019 |

by Guest Contributor

Correcting Audi: Tesla Model 3 Charges Over 2 Times Faster Than Audi e-tron

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May 17th, 2019 by Guest Contributor

The article was written by Simon Barke and Myles Clark. They each hold a PhD in physics, work for an international space mission at the University of Florida, and understand scientific data quite well.

Matthew Mostafaei, Audi’s manager for e-tron, presented data taken from Twitter during the New York Auto Show without naming the source. (That’s plagiarism.) The data was misrepresented by plotting it on a different axis. (That’s a falsification.) He then used the data to show the e-tron’s charging superiority over the Model 3, when it actually proves the opposite. (That’s deception.) You may call this good marketing. I call it a brazen lie. At best, it is a highly misleading accident.

A chart presented by Audi’s manager for e-tron and connected vehicles in the US, Matthew Mostafaei, made the rounds this week. During a New York International Auto Show presentation, he pointed out how much longer Audi’s new all-electric “e-tron” SUV can sustain a 150 kW charge rate. The point of the chart: in many situations, the e-tron charges faster at a 150 kW charger than a Tesla at the upcoming 250 kW “Supercharger V3.” And the faster you charge, the quicker you arrive. Right? No, not quite…

There is a lot of confusion about electric vehicles. Different test cycles, range, state of charge, efficiency, charging power, and charging rate. This lack of general knowledge helps companies make unsubstantiated claims about their cars.

I got on the phone with Mark Dahncke (Director, Product/Technology/Motorsports Communications of Audi USA) about this. He confirmed the source of the data and admitted that Audi never contacted or credited the original author. He further regretted that Audi (accidentally) falsified the underlying data. Although he was now denying that the presented chart implies that the e-tron can charge faster, he was still defending Audi’s basic claim that a high charging power helps you reach your destination faster. Oversimplified statements like these are not only purposefully misleading. They also add to general EV confusion, which is bad for everyone.

Let’s set the record straight, try to understand what Audi did, and find out what the data really shows. Below is the slide Audi showed during the New York Auto Show presentation. The chart shows the charging power (20 to 250 kW) of different electric vehicles over battery state of charge (0 to 100%). The first indication that something is terribly fishy here is the fact that the unspecified Tesla at a third-generation Supercharger starts charging at negative 1%. (The black line and red arrow/text was added by me.)

Audi got the data from Twitter — and did not know how to read it.

When I confronted Audi with the charges of plagiarism, I was told they used an image published by Electrek. However, Electrek is not the author of the data and instead itself names the original Twitter source. It was published 2 months ago by user “@privater” on Twitter (“u/privaterbok” on Reddit).

On reddit here.

Audi’s mysterious charging profile is a perfect match. What is striking, however, is that the data posted on Twitter was plotted on a non-equidistant horizontal axis. Notice that 28%, 30%, 40%, and 44% are spaced by the same distance on the chart while being different by 2%, 10%, and 4%, respectively. Audi blatantly ignored that, simply copied and pasted the v3 trace onto its traditional, equidistant axis, and stretched it arbitrarily so that it somehow worked with the rest of Audi’s chart. The company never cared to check the underlying data. No wonder they got confused to the point that their version now starts with the car in a negative state of charge!

Luckily, u/privaterbok used Reddit to post the original data in a spreadsheet. I managed to create a corrected version of Audi’s chart that also includes a new charging profile for the upgraded 150 kW Tesla Supercharger V2.

It is important to note that the 250 kW Supercharger system is still in a testing phase and further improvements are likely. Both Tesla charging profiles do not include any automated battery preheating, which will increase charge powers at low charge states. So, the Tesla charging profiles shown here can be seen as conservative. Anyhow, now that we have corrected data to work with, we can answer the question of what this data is actually telling us.

In its current form, it is purposefully misleading. Don’t get me wrong — it is very impressive that the e-tron can sustain a higher charging power at a higher battery state of charge. But does this help you get anywhere faster? Not without the range and efficiency to back it up it won’t…

Charging power is not charging speed!
First of all, we have to adjust the horizontal axis. Who cares about battery percentage? The important information for the driver is how far they can go before they need to fill up. The battery of a low-range vehicle does not get me anywhere, no matter if it is fully charged or not. For the Audi, a 100% state of charge corresponds to 204 miles (EPA test cycle). The Tesla data Audi copied from Twitter was measured from a Model 3 Long Range, hence I will correctly use 325 miles for a 100% state of charge. The chart above highlights the 40 mile and 200 mile range equivalents for the e-tron and the Tesla, so we can rescale the traces accordingly and plot the charging power over electric vehicle range.

This version of the chart is slightly less misleading, but we still have another step before this is a real apples-to-apples comparison. That step is to take into account how fast the vehicles actually charge in units that are more relevant in the real world. For that, we need to adjust the vertical axis to reflect charging speed (charge rate in miles per hour). This metric not only depends on the charging power but also on the efficiency of the vehicle. The more efficient a vehicle is, the more range you add for any given charging power.

The Model 3 Long Range maxes out at a ludicrous 1000 miles per hour at 250 kW charging power. This translates to close to 600 miles per hour at the 150 kW level. If you do the math, these values include a roughly 8% loss (mainly due to heat). If we assume the same 8% loss for charging the e-tron, the picture looks very different. Audi’s entry in the electric vehicle market peaks at just above 300 miles of range added per hour at the charger due to its inferior efficiency: it needs to charge a much larger battery which provides significantly less range than the Model 3’s much smaller battery.

Finally, we can directly compare the speed at which the two cars can charge. The area below the charging profile is directly related to the time it takes to add drivable range to the car. As an example, I picked a realistic remaining range of 40 miles before we begin charging. We then charge both cars to 200 miles (since the Audi can’t get beyond 204 miles). You can see in the chart above in the highlighted area between 40 and 200 miles: the larger this area, the faster the charge process will be to add 160 miles of range. So, in reality, the Audi e-tron charges way slower than the Tesla Model 3 even at the older generation Supercharger.

How long does it take to add 160 miles of range?
@privater, the Twitter user who published the original data, also posted the charts for range vs time while charging.

From these charts, we know for certain that it took 15 minutes to charge from 40 to 200 miles on the third-generation Supercharger. This would translate to roughly 21 minutes when charging the same car at a V2 Supercharger. And the e-tron? Well, if our charge rate estimates are correct, it would take 36 minutes for the e-tron to add 160 miles of range.

Can this be true? Turns out, our estimate is spot on. User “Elbil24” published a video on YouTube charging the e-tron from 1% to 99% at a 175 kW rapid charger. For this charging session, it took exactly 36.7 minutes to charge from 20% to 98% (which corresponds to 160 miles on the EPA test cycle).

So let’s go back to Audi’s headline: “quick to charge = quick to arrive.” This is true, but Audi forgot to mention that the e-tron’s real-world charging is discouragingly slow.

Tl;dr
Here is what you should take away from this article: do not trust anything published by the Volkswagen Group. After all the coverups from the past few years, it comes as no surprise that Audi keeps deceiving the public with falsified data and twisted arguments. Some companies never learn. I just hope customers finally will.

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. 😀

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Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory Update — Unbelievable Progress Over A Single Month

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Published on May 7th, 2019 |

by Dr. Maximilian Holland

Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory Update — Unbelievable Progress Over A Single Month

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May 7th, 2019 by Dr. Maximilian Holland

In the latest aerial flyover video of the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory, the main roof structure is now essentially complete, the walls along the east side of the main structure are also complete, and the rest is rapidly being finished. The progress over the past month has been spectacular, as we can see when comparing images over that time period.

Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory images courtesy of 烏瓦 and Jason Wang (see article text for links)

The above shots (click to zoom), both looking from south to north along the length of the Gigafactory site, come from an April 5th video by 烏瓦 and a 7th May aerial video by Jason Yang. It is stunning to see the speed of construction progress over essentially just a single month, scarcely believable were it not for the evidence of our own senses.

As can be seen in Jason’s full video (below), whilst there remains some construction work to be done on two taller structures at the north and south ends of the factory, the central body of the structure is now basically complete. The main roof is effectively in place (roof workers can be seen in the video, finishing up the last remaining small patches), the main east side wall is up (visible in the above shot), and the west side wall is near to completion.

It’s an amazing transformation from the build state just one month ago, when the structure was still in the early phases and the first few roof panels were just starting to be laid down.

Recall that the goal is to have the factory in a ready state to start pilot production runs sometime in September, with volume production beginning in the 4th quarter:

“It looks like we’ll reach volume production at the end of this year with, let’s say, more than 1,000 cars a week, maybe 2,000 from Shanghai Giga at the end of this year. That’s what it looks like to be the case right now. If it’s not at the end, it will be shortly thereafter.” Elon Musk, Q1 2019 Tesla earnings call

For those of you who want to marvel at what can be achieved over just a month, remind yourself of what the site looked like on 5th April, from the video by烏瓦 …

… and then watch Jason Yang’s latest video, dated 7th May:

About the Author

Dr. Maximilian Holland Max is an anthropologist, social theorist and international political economist, trying to ask questions and encourage critical thinking about social and environmental justice, sustainability and the human condition. He has lived and worked in Europe and Asia, and is currently based in Barcelona.

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Mercedes-Benz lays out plan for carbon-neutral future

2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC Edition 1886
Mercedes-Benz's CEO-apparent Ola Källenius laid out a plan Monday, just after the Norway launch of its EQC electric SUV, that outlines the development of an entire “carbon-neutral” passenger-car fleet.

Källenius, currently the head of product development at Mercedes, has been named future Chairman of the Board of management of Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz starting later this year.

Part of the plan, called Vision 2039, calls to make half the company's models plug in by 2030—either plug-in hybrids or all-electric vehicles.

READ THIS: First Mercedes-Benz EQC rolls off assembly line in Germany

According to a transcript of his speech, Källenius said, “Let’s be clear what this means for us: a fundamental transformation of our company within less than three product cycles. That’s not much time when you consider that fossil fuels have dominated our business since the invention of the car by Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler some 130 years ago. But as a company founded by engineers, we believe technology can also help to engineer a better future.”

He laid out plans to electrify the company's vans, trucks, and buses as well as its cars, and said the Mercedes is focusing first on building better electric cars, by bringing “EV performance up and costs down,” he said.

Källenius also doubled-down on Daimler's commitment to developing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. “There’s also room and need to continue to work on other solutions,” he said, “for example, the fuel cell or eFuels…. Today, no one knows for sure which drivetrain mix will best serve our customers’ needs 20 years from now. That’s why we encourage policy makers to pave the way for tech neutrality: Let’s fix the target, but not the means to achieve it.”

He noted that in addition to electric buses, the company will also build city buses with fuel cells.

READ MORE: Mercedes joins forces with BMW to build an electric ecosystem

Källenius pointed to the company's car-sharing efforts such as Car2Go as a means to help customers reduce their carbon footprint, and said the company will be making new efforts to encourage its customers who buy EVs to charge them using renewable energy. The company launched an effort in March, in conjunction with BMW's Reach Now, to provide clean power to chargers, and smart home chargers, similar programs at Tesla and Volkswagen.

Of course, electric cars are only as carbon-neutral as the factories that build them. The company plans to convert all of its European factories to renewable energy by 2022, starting with an extension of its main plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, and including the factory in Bremen that builds the EQC and the Kamenz factory in Saxony where the EQC's battery is built.

By 2039, the year that gives the plan its name, the company intends to propagate the changes throughout its worldwide factories as well as its suppliers, using incentives as motivation.

Volkswagen says EV batteries to last “the life of the car”

Volkswagen ID Buzz Concept
In an announcement last month, Volkswagen joined Nissan and Tesla as the only automakers to explicitly warranty not just the batteries in its cars but specifically how much life it expects them to retain.

Frank Blome, the head of VW's Center of Excellence in Battery Cells, said in an outward facing internal marketing interview that the company expects the battery packs in its upcoming line of ID cars to last “the life of the cars,” he said.

READ THIS: Here's the battery pack behind VW's global electric-vehicle push

Of course, for a key component of the car that costs five figures to replace it's an open question whether a dead battery becomes a self-fulfilling condition of a dead car.
Volkswagen has previously said—at several points—that its batteries will retain 70 percent of their original capacity for 8 years or 100,000 miles. That's the standard time frame for an EV battery warranty, though not all companies go so far as to provide a definition of how much capacity the battery needs to retain at that point.

CHECK OUT: Volkswagen details the foundation for 10 million electric vehicles

Batteries for the Audi E-tron quattro, the first all-electric car from the Volkswagen Group's luxury division come from Korean supplier LG Chem. LG's South Korean rival, SK Innovation, which was just sued by LG Chem at the International Trade Commission, will supply batteries for VW's new products in Europe as well as the U.S.

SKI is building new battery factories in Hungary and the U.S. state of Georgia to supply the batteries. In China, VW will rely on local batteries from CATL.

DON'T MISS: VW Group has nailed down $25 billion of batteries for electric cars, it said today

Blome confirmed that Volkswagen continues to work with Silicon Valley startup QuantumScape to develop solid-state batteries for its next generation of batteries for electric cars sometime between 2025 and 2030.

He also affirmed that he expects VW's European Battery Union partnership with Swedish battery maker Northvolt to produce more and better batteries, and to promote more battery production in Europe. The EBU is expected to begin research in 2020. “This new consortium will cover the entire battery value chain,” he said. “The primary aim is to gain broader expertise in battery cell production.”

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