‘Electric car consumes up to 600 euros per year when standing still’ and this is how you can avoid this | Car

Re.alto is a Belgian company specialized in the exchange of energy data. It has an agreement with various car manufacturers to read anonymised data from electric vehicles. “Fleet managers reported to us that the estimated consumption often does not correspond to the actual consumption,” explains Dieter Jong of Re.alto. “This observation prompted us to analyze the consumption of electric cars exactly.”

Dieter Jong and his team found that the higher consumption is mainly due to the energy consumption when stationary. And that loss turned out to be greater than commonly assumed. “Cars that are stationary for a whole day consume – depending on the type – about 3 kilowatt hours per day. That is good for more than 1,000 kilowatt hours per year,” says Jong. “When we compare that consumption against current energy prices, you quickly arrive at an amount that is above 600 euros.”

But what explains that consumption when stationary? “An electric car constantly sends information to the user’s app,” says Jong. “This varies from temperature and battery status to meter readings. An electric car is only made to drive and not to send data That process consumes much more energy than is the case with a smartphone, for example, so it seems logical to me that car manufacturers will ensure that the data flows more efficiently.”

As the owner of an electric car, the only solution, according to Dieter Jong, is to put the car in sleep mode. “However, most owners prefer the standby mode, because in sleep mode you are no longer connected to the mobile app and the connection takes a few minutes to start up. Certainly those who have a company car will probably not take the trouble.” Jochen De Smet of federation EV Belgium calls the figures high, but not unrealistic. He also calls on car manufacturers to tackle the energy consumption of data flow through software.

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