Like it or not, range anxiety is a real phenomenon that affects a high proportion of first-time electric car drivers, especially when driving unknown routes.
But a website we’ve recently discovered -- that has been in development for several years -- helps electric car drivers better predict how much energy a particular route will use before they even leave their home.
Written by students at Center Professionnel du Nord vaudois in Sainte Croix, Switzerland, Green Race 3.2 allows you to plot a course between two or more locations and predict how much energy your car will use en-route.
It does this by using an algorithm that takes into account the car’s specifications, average speed, number of passengers and even topography of the route to produce a mile-by-mile assessment of how much energy your car will use.
Once calculated, Green Race displays the expected state of charge of your car’s battery pack, with all of the major electric cars on the market today represented.
Unlike the on-board GPS systems on cars like the 2012 Nissan Leaf, which use historical energy consumption figures to predict range, Green Race uses known constants to construct an accurate simulation before you drive it.
While it isn’t new, we think the Green Race website is worth adding to your browser bookmark list as a website you should check out if you’re planning an electric car trip into the unknown.
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