Old school RAV4 I met yesterday and the importance of calculating altitude

So I got a nice sight yesterday when an old RAV4 EV from 2004-2005 used the paddle legacy charger at the Park I am using.

The woman driving it parked it sideways in front of my car as there are only 2 spots in front of 3 outlets counting the legacy one, go figure.

She told me she still gets 90 miles in a charge and didn't change her battery pack yet, which is a good indication on the durability of it.

Besides that charging went very well, as during the afternoon I found all 4 outlets deserted.

I guess per Poisson's law things happen in burst, some days being crowded and some others with plenty to choose from.

Still resolving the issue of why my drive back home is way less efficient than the one going in... but I what if it has something to do with the altitude?

Murrieta is roughly at 900 ft ASL while Santa Monica almost at 0.

That means the kinetic energy I get going into work is:

Height is 900 X .3 = 270 meters
Weight of the i3: 1300 kg
Gravity acceleration: 9.81 m^s^s
Force needed to lift the i3: 1300 X 9.81 or roughly 14000 Newtons

Physics 101 formula for work to do to lift a certain mass up: E = F x h

So to lift the i3 from Santa Monica to Murrieta I would need an extra 3.78 million Watts or 1.05 kWh

So I lose 1 kWh going back home and gain 1kWh going in!

This seems to be the only reason why my range is lower i.e 90s vs. 110s.

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