How could an electric pick-up of almost 4 tonnes been able to make 1,700 km on a single load?

How to browse more than 1000 km with an electric pick-up weighing the equivalent of two Tesla Model Y? Two solutions: have a huge battery pack, and drive at snail speed. This is good, this is precisely what characterized the “record” carried out by a Chevrolet Silverado EV Max Range as part of a marketing operation at Chevrolet.

The American manufacturer wanted to show a funny way that its huge electric truck could do wonders, as long as you opt for the high autonomy variant which starts, anyway, at more than $ 98,000 before personalization and accessories. At this rate, you will officially be entitled to a pick-up claiming 740 km of autonomy according to the results of the approval. But Chevrolet wanted to go further.

1700 km with an electric truck

This would be in France to a real electric truck therefore traveled the trifle of 1704 km on a single load, very largely beating the previous record of another American, the Lucid Air.

So how does this wind-catching machine worthy of a 30-storey building, mounted on 24-inch rims and as heavy as a small truck in Europe has been going as far? First, remember that the Silverado EV in Max Range version has a 205 kWh battery, roughly twice the size of that of a Tesla Model S! It takes at least to move the 3800 kg of the beast.

Ultra optimized driving

And then, the engineers, who succeeded at the wheel by a slice of a driving hour, had the leader to respect as much as possible an average speed located in 30 and 40 km/h. No passenger on board, the wipers had to stay in the low position to minimize the aero draft (relatively negligible at such a speed for such apendices). The tires were inflated to the maximum authorized pressure and the spare wheel withdrawn. Obviously, the Air conditioning was disabled all the time of the journey and Chevrolet even thought of adding a component to cover the bucket and improve aerodynamic performance. In short, overoptimization but without plunging into cheating either since most of these pads are achievable by customers. Painful for some, but not impossible to reproduce.

In the end, the Silverado managed to reach an average consumption of 12 kWh/100 km. Nothing very transcendent for any electric sold in Europe. The last Mercedes CLA, for example, can reach this figure by rolling completely normally and at much higher speeds. But 12 kWh/100 km with almost four tonnes also high and with gums far from being efficient, it is indeed remarkable. From there to reproduce it in real life….