Don’t stop the music
You might be tempted to turn the radio off to improve your car’s range, but it’s probably not worth it – you’ll barely gain any extra mileage from doing so, as a car radio saps just 0.3 miles of range an hour.
If you are not using the sat nav, however, turning the central screen off isn’t a bad idea, if your car offers this function, as it can use up to half a mile an hour, taking total consumption from a car’s on-board technology to almost one mile for every hour of driving.
Get off the motorway
If you have been driving for a while, you’ll probably be aware that a petrol or diesel car is normally at its most efficient when driving at a constant speed – for example, on a motorway or dual carriageway.
In an electric car, that accepted wisdom gets turned on its head. This is because EVs can use regenerative braking – effectively using the motor as a dynamo – to harness the kinetic energy you’d normally be wasting when you’re slowing down.
So if you’re accelerating and braking a lot – for example in town or rural driving – an EV can partially replenish its battery as it’s going along. On a motorway, however, there are far fewer opportunities for an EV to do this, which means you tend to find motorway driving saps an electric car’s battery the fastest.
Should you watch your weight?
It’s no secret that adding weight to a car reduces its efficiency. But by just how much? Well, the American EPA reckons that for petrol and diesel models, you use just one to 2pc more fuel for every 100lb (45kg) you add.
What’s more, this rule of thumb can’t be directly translated over to electric cars, because while extra weight will hamper their efficiency, extra weight (or to be more precise, greater mass) will also result in greater kinetic energy.
And because EVs can harness that kinetic energy by way of their regenerative braking systems, that extra energy can in some cases be used to recharge the battery.
What this means in real terms is that, while additional weight isn’t a good thing, it’s less of a problem than it is in a petrol or diesel car – or to put it another way, using some of the other tips elsewhere in this article will probably result in greater gains than reducing weight.
Remove your roof rack
Where it does pay to remove stuff you’re not using is on the roof of the car. Even on their own, roof racks cause aerodynamic drag, which means your car has to use more energy to push itself through the air.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, an empty roof rack adds 16pc drag when driving at 75mph; at the same speed, a roof rack with a roof box installed on it adds a whopping 39pc to the car’s drag. You can expect your energy usage to increase by similar amounts.
