We know EVs take a range hit when the temperature drops – but hot weather isn’t all good news
Like for a lot of people, the novelty of the 30deg C-plus temperatures and fearsome sunshine are wearing off pretty quickly for me. It wasn’t long into this latest heatwave before I was practically kneeling in the street and begging the skies for a summer downpour – if only for the sake of my new hydrangea.
Compounding this heat-induced frustration is that once the mercury gets past a certain point, it overshoots the ideal operating window for an EV battery and you start losing the efficiency benefits that come with warmer weather.
The impact isn’t quite as drastic as you might see in the depths of winter, but according to Renault’s official range calculator, my R4 could lose as much as 35 miles of urban range when the temperature jumps from 20deg C to 35deg C.
That has certainly borne out when I’ve been pottering around over the past few days, with my average efficiency dipping as low as 3.3mpkWh to give a range of 172 miles – and that’s with low-speed driving. I saw a similar percentage drop from the Alpine A290 – with the same basic powertrain – in the coldest weeks of winter.
I wanted to pootle around for a few miles with the air-con off and the windows open at the weekend to see if reducing the draw on the battery markedly increased efficiency, but my distinctly less curious passenger advised that she was liable to abruptly expire or exit the vehicle if I turned the fans off, so that experiment will have to wait until the next heatwave.
In any case, the efficiency hit hasn’t really been drastic enough to impact my driving style or cause any charging worries while I’ve been out and about. The heat, though, has alerted me to an irritating quirk that made me briefly extremely uncomfortable – although I am partly to blame.
Like a lot of electric cars, the 4 can be connected to your phone so you can control and monitor things such as the central locking, the charging system and – most usefully – the climate control, so in theory whether it’s Baltic or boiling outside, you can make sure the cabin is at a pleasant ambient temperature before you have even left home.
The trouble is, it seems I have previously made an account for this system and I can’t remember my details, which is especially annoying because it takes ages to type my email address and possible passwords into the car’s touchscreen.
There’s a ‘forgot your password’ option in the app, but it doesn’t seem to like any of my new suggestions for some reason. I’ll keep trying to suss it out, because it would be really useful to pre-condition the car and check the state of charge remotely, but with all the advancements in in-car connectivity of late, why can’t the car just flash up a QR code for me to scan and log in automatically?
Otherwise, though, I’m getting on swimmingly with this cheery little crossover. Quite aside from the practicality advantages it offers over its hatchback sibling, the Renault 5, it’s also a generally more agreeable thing for nipping around town in, by dint of its smoother ride and improved visibility.
It’s just as easy to park, too, and because it’s so closely related under the skin, it’s almost as much of a laugh when you pick up the pace a bit.
I have a few big drives on the horizon, and they will give me more of a chance to test the 4’s cruising credentials and dynamic character on faster, more flowing roads. I’m hoping that by the time you read this the weather has relaxed into a more June-typical state of temperate mildness, and I can focus on enjoying my time at the wheel rather than enduring it.