On The Fence About An Electric Car? EV Profiler Can Help

By Kurt Ernst

Kurt Ernst

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Kurt has been fascinated by anything with wheels and a motor for a long time. Growing up, he spent his spare time turning wrenches and pumping gas in... More

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1,816 views Aug 11, 2011

The EV Profiler unit.

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So you’ve finally realized that you don’t drive outside the 70-to-100-mile range of a battery electric car on your daily commute, at least under normal circumstances. You’re confident that you’ll be able to make it to and from work on a nice spring day, but range anxiety still makes you worry about a worst-case scenario.

What if a traffic accident forces you to take a long detour in hot summer weather? Will you have to choose between air-conditioned comfort and having enough range to make it home?

Will taking the scenic route, over a mountain pass, leave you stranded a mile from home? And how big a difference is there between driving at 75 miles per hour and 65 mph?

Thanks to a device called the EV Profiler, you can now get answers to those questions.

The EV Profiler looks like a radar detector, but it’s really a sophisticated GPS tracking device that records your car's exact position at all times. It measures your rate of acceleration or deceleration, your elevation change and your driving habits, then uploads the data on a nightly basis to EV Profiler’s servers.

The company's computers then generate a detailed daily report showing the amount of battery power remaining, the lowest level of battery reached (if recharging took place during the day),  a map of your travels, a minute-by-minute power profile, and a route list. We’d call that almost too much information.

The beauty of EV Profiler is this: you can use it in whatever car you’re driving today, and compare multiple electric cars against one another. Without spending significant money, you can get hard data telling you if a Nissan Leaf is the best choice, or if you’re better off with a Ford Focus Electric.

Ryan Reynolds Nissan Leaf Spokesperson

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If you guessed that there’s a catch to this, you’d be correct. The EV Profiler isn’t inexpensive to rent; doing so will run you $25 for a week or $82 for a month. Late fees run $5 per day, so there’s a pretty strong incentive to return the device on time.  

That may be too much money for the average individual, especially when smart phone apps can get you similar data (though not with the same degree of accuracy) for a lot less money.

We see this as ideal for fleet managers and those looking to test the waters for business-related electric vehicle adoption. Under those circumstances, we can see EV Profiler saving companies a significant amount of money by determining the right vehicle and even changing routes to optimize battery usage.

Interested? Visit the EV Profiler website for more details.

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