EV road-trip speed optimizer
Should you really
drive 100?
Faster driving means more charging, but slower isn't always sooner. We simulate your route at every cruise speed, charging curve and all, and find the one that gets you there first.
Assumes motorway cruise at your chosen speed where legally possible (130 in AT/NL, derestricted where German autobahn allows), real fast-chargers along the route, and your car's measured charging curve. Night-owl approved.
What speed should you drive an EV on a long trip?
Aerodynamic drag rises with the square of speed, so 130 km/h uses roughly a quarter more energy per kilometre than 100 does. That energy has to come back at a charger, and charging power tapers steeply as the battery fills, so the time you save on the road can be handed straight back at the plug. Somewhere between those two effects sits the speed that gets you there earliest.
It is usually higher than people expect. On a real 956 km run from Utrecht to Innsbruck in a Cupra Born 58, driving 130 took 10h41 and the quickest speed of all, 145, took 10h36. Five minutes for fifteen more km/h. Drop to 100 and the same trip takes 11h40. The penalty for crawling is far bigger than the prize for pushing on, which is roughly the opposite of the usual advice.
That is one route in one car, though, and yours will differ. Where the fast chargers sit on your road matters as much as the car does. So the app works it out for the actual trip: it fetches your real route, simulates it at every cruise speed from 90 to 160 km/h with a separate charging plan for each, and shows you the total journey time for all of them.
How it works
- 1
The real route, not a straight line
Your origin and destination are geocoded and routed with OpenRouteService, giving the genuine road distance, the elevation profile and the free-flow speed of every segment. Speed limits are applied per country, including the German autobahn sections that are actually derestricted.
- 2
Real chargers, your car's real curve
Fast chargers along the corridor come from OpenChargeMap. Your car brings a hand-curated DC charging curve and a consumption model fitted to motorway speeds, so a stop costs what it would really cost rather than a flat average.
- 3
Every speed, every stop plan
For each cruise speed a dynamic program searches every combination of charger and charge level and returns the fastest one. Nothing tells it to “arrive low and charge to 70%”. That behaviour falls out of the search on its own, which is how you know it is the maths and not a rule of thumb.
Charging curves for every car in the catalog
Usable battery, peak DC power, modelled 10-80% time and motorway consumption at each cruise speed, for every electric car the planner can simulate.
Browse the EV catalog →Common questions
- What speed should I drive an EV on a long trip?
- Faster than most advice suggests, and above roughly 130 km/h it stops making much difference. On a real 956 km run from Utrecht to Innsbruck in a Cupra Born 58, driving 130 took 10h41 and the quickest speed of all, 145, took 10h36. That is five minutes for fifteen more km/h. Drop to 100 and the same trip takes 11h40. The useful rule is not to crawl, because the penalty for going slow is much bigger than the prize for going fast.
- Does driving slower in an EV actually get you there sooner?
- Usually not. Slowing down does remove charging stops, and on the Utrecht to Innsbruck run above it takes you from eight stops down to five. The problem is that those stops are worth about fifteen minutes each and the extra time on the road is worth an hour. You end up trading cheap minutes for expensive ones. Slowing down wins only in the narrow case where it removes a stop without adding much road time, which tends to happen when the chargers on your route are awkwardly spaced.
- How much does speed reduce EV range?
- Aerodynamic drag rises with the square of speed, so consumption follows a curve of roughly Wh/km = a + b·v². A typical family EV uses about 20 to 30 percent more energy per kilometre at 130 km/h than at 100. For a Cupra Born 58 that is 160 Wh/km at 100 and 232 Wh/km at 130, which turns 363 km of range into 250. Every car on this site lists its own coefficients and what they work out to at each cruise speed.
- Is it faster to charge to 80% or to 100%?
- Almost always 80% or less. Charging power tapers steeply as the battery fills, and on a Cupra Born 58 the last 20% takes about as long as the whole 10 to 80% stretch. The quickest plans usually arrive at a charger fairly low and leave somewhere around 60 to 80%, before the taper bites. Nothing in this app's planner is told that rule. It searches every possible stop plan and the pattern turns up on its own.
- How many charging stops will I need?
- It depends on your battery, your speed, and where the fast chargers actually are on your route. The number is an output rather than something you choose. Utrecht to Innsbruck in a Born 58 needs five stops at 100 km/h and eight at 130, because going faster means arriving at each charger sooner and lower. A bigger battery moves those numbers a lot, which is why the planner asks which car you drive before it answers.
- Does cold weather change the best cruise speed?
- Yes, and it pushes it downward. Cold raises consumption, and more importantly it cuts how much power the battery will accept, so every stop takes longer. Once stops get expensive the balance tips towards driving slower and stopping less often. You can set an ambient temperature on the planner and watch the optimum move.
- Is this a route planner like ABRP?
- It answers a narrower question. Most EV route planners take a speed as given and plan your charging around it. This one sweeps every cruise speed from 90 to 160 km/h, works out the best charging plan separately for each, and shows the total journey time for all of them side by side. So it is less useful for navigation and more useful for deciding how hard to drive before you set off.