Cruise fast, lose range. Slow down, and you might actually achieve your EV’s official claim. Practice right foot restraint, and you may even exceed it.
One of the things that was made clear in the Eurocharge 2025 EV road trip that I took part in a few weeks back was just how big an impact speed has on an electric car’s range. On the days that required mostly or only highway driving, which means cruising at a constant 80 mph (130 km/h) here in Europe, all eight EVs in the group lost around 40% of their range.
When we drove mostly on national roads with a lower speed limit, usually 56 mph (90 km/h) or lower, they were easily able to come close to their WLTP range and efficiency numbers. The trip itself was made pretty easy by the plentiful choice of powerful fast chargers scattered along most main roads, but it highlighted one limitation that EVs still have.
Photo by: Ciprian Mihai/Autocritica
Had this been a road trip exploring Germany’s Autobahn network at full speed, we probably would have spent more time charging than actually driving. EVs don’t do very well at high speed. Even at 80 mph, which is what most people stick to on European highways, if you get a bit of headwind and have the car loaded up with passengers and bags, you’re probably looking at getting half of its WLTP range.
The Renault 4 E-Tech, which was one of the more efficient cars of the trip, went from sipping 4.5 miles/kWh (13.8 kWh/100 km) when we drove it on slower roads (including the Stelvio and Gavia passes in Italy, so it wasn’t all flat), to gulping 2.67 miles/kWh (23.3 kWh/100 km) driven mostly on flat Hungarian highways with a bit of headwind.
At its most efficient, the car should have been able to travel a theoretical 234 miles (376.8 km) on one charge, but only 139 miles (223.2 km) at its least efficient.
Photo by: Autocritica
All eight cars exhibited a similar range and efficiency difference between full-highway and no-highway days, including the newest and most advanced cars in the tour, the Porsche Macan EV and the Audi A6 e-tron Quattro, which ride on versions of the same 800-volt platform. Doing this trip confirmed to me that you have absolutely no issues driving EVs long-distance across Europe, even if you start in a place like Romania, whose charging infrastructure isn’t up to the level of Austria or Germany.
The bottom line is that any range test you watch that’s performed at 80 mph will yield a range result that’s way off the official WLTP claim. Even the lower-speed 70 mph range tests we do in the United States often fall short of the official EPA range, although there are cars that match and even exceed it when driven constantly at this speed.
Germany-based YouTuber Battery Life publishes a lot of 80 mph range tests, the most recent of which features the BMW i5 M60 Touring, which I tested and thoroughly enjoyed earlier this year. It has a WLTP range rating of over 300 miles, but it would barely exceed that figure in kilometers driven at 80 mph. That just isn’t good enough, and if you live in Germany, where autobahns often have no speed limit, it may be even more frustrating.
His conclusion was that a car whose average electricity consumption at that speed was 2.43 miles/kWh (25.5 kWh/100 km) needs more battery capacity to be a proper long-distance cruiser. When I tested the same car here in Romania on a mix of highway at no more than 80 mph, as well as on country roads and in the city, often enjoying its plentiful performance, my average was even worse: 2 miles/kWh (31 kWh/100 km). This made me think at the time that having this much performance in an EV was pretty pointless if using it drained the battery as quickly as it did.
Having a bigger battery is just part of the equation, though. The key here is getting that efficiency figure up, an area where the 400-volt i5 is limited. The most efficient EVs that you can buy today run at 800 volts or more, like the undisputed range and efficiency champ, the Lucid Air, which can achieve over 500 miles at 70 mph on one charge.
BMW has revealed the first in its new line of 800-volt Neue Klasse EVs, which also has improved motors and battery technology. Its new platform allows the iX3 to post a WLTP range rating of exactly 500 miles (805 km), thanks to a bigger battery than the i5, but also much improved efficiency, even though it fights to cut through the air at high speed with its bulky SUV body.
If BMW keeps the same battery capacity in the lower, sleeker i3 sedan, which is the second Neue Klasse model to debut, then we could finally have another sedan that challenges the Lucid Air for range and efficiency. Even if it gets a smaller battery, it will still be a worthy challenger, at least for the base Lucid Air Pure, whose 84-kilowatt-hour battery takes it 420 miles on the EPA test cycle or 365.5 miles at a constant 70 mph.
So yes, speed kills EV range. This is one of the reasons why many people choose plug-in hybrids and why extended-range EVs are growing in popularity, since they offer the benefits of electric driving with the added safety net of burning fuel for extra miles. At the same time, if you don’t plug in these PHEVs, then they end up using way more fuel than they should, even more than the same car with the same engine but without electrification. They are only for the most diligent drivers who know they can commit to plugging them in.
The only thing you can do to go long-distance in an EV right now is to slow down. Sticking to the speed limit, or even driving under it, is the way to do it in an EV road trip, which means you will be safer while avoiding any kind of speeding ticket. So at least that’s a win.
