here are the results of a super test carried out in Norway

Twice a year, the “NAF”* (Norges Automobil-Forbund) carries out a major test of the autonomy and charging of electric vehicles, in the largest market (in terms of penetration rate) in the world. The Norwegian equivalent of the German ADAC and the Swiss TCS encountered slightly more difficult conditions in this winter of 2024 with icy roads and temperatures oscillating between -2° and -10°C. Temperatures that we are ultimately likely to encounter in France in certain regions. But if the NAF is carrying out this big test which mobilizes people (dozens of cars tested at the same time, trucks mobilized to repatriate them), it is because the Norwegians do not completely trust the approval data from the test WLTP. And for good reason: consumption and autonomy are carried out using standardized tests at 23°C. Far, far from the average temperatures encountered in Norway. The NAF therefore conducted its own tests, XXL. Here are the results for winter 2024.

*NAF is a Norwegian organization founded in the early 1920s and bringing together several hundred volunteers and thousands of members, who benefit from benefits such as automotive legal advice, services and vehicle buying guides.

Sometimes big gaps

The NAF actually carried out a double test. On the first day, around thirty vehicles left the hangar with full batteries and completed a complete journey until total breakdown. The ranking is based on GPS data, which indicates the mileage from 100% to 0% battery for each car. The comparison is then made with WLTP approval data to find out which ones lose the most autonomy in winter.

You will therefore have noticed the rather mediocre score of the Tesla Model 3 (here in the Long Autonomy Propulsion version) which can be explained: the sedan obtains extremely low consumption in the WLTP test at an ambient temperature of 23°. Obviously, as soon as the cold comes into play, the exceptional performance achieved in temperate conditions evaporates, but it remains on excellent standards, with barely more than 14 kWh/100 km recorded by the NAF. Consumption is still very low, but the difference in autonomy with the WLTP test is necessarily greater than an SUV with less favorable aerodynamics, which does not achieve such scores in WLTP and whose difference in cold weather will logically be weaker. And above all, the Model 3 is the car which offers the greatest autonomy in extreme cold with the Polestar 3. There are therefore several ways to read this table.

Charging powers that vary

On the second day, the teams test the charging power: “cars drive for at least two hours, until they have a remaining battery percentage of less than ten percent. Where cars have battery preheating, this is activated. Cars are then charged to over 80 percent while we take time to record the charging effect and the amount of energy added”. Result : the best is unsurprisingly the Lotus Emeya with a 10 to 80% in 16 minutes with a peak load at 260 kW. The Peugeot e-3008 obtains the worst score with a 10 to 80% in 47 minutes and a peak load of 71 kW. The two BYDs (Tang and Seal U) are also quite slow with more than 40 minutes and fairly low peak loads.