Jaakko Leppo and Harri Salo noticed what Finnish people considering an electric car are still thinking about. That’s why they decided to organize a huge electric car test event.
“But how far can it really go?”
It’s still a big question when making the decision to buy an electric car.
Even though the so-called operating distance anxiety is becoming more common and developing in electric cars, the actual operating distance of the car can make you wonder. Is the reading according to the official wltp test just a piece of paper when the car is brought to Finnish conditions, cold and bumpy roads?
Jaakko Leppo and his friends Harry Salo decided to solve this problem.
“Harri and I noticed that the most pressing question for those still thinking about purchasing an electric car is how far you can go on one charge,” says Leppo.
The fltp test was born. It is known to be the world’s largest test program measuring the consumption and range of all-electric cars.
Cars The WLTP test, or Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure, which measures consumption and operating distance, is done under regulated conditions, at a temperature of 23 degrees, over a distance of 23 kilometers and a lot of urban and urban driving.
Based on this test, the car manufacturer announces the consumption of the car and the operating range of the electric car.
Because the car manufacturer wants the best possible readings for their car, they try to manipulate the test by all legal means. Therefore, the result of the wltp test may not correspond to reality.
The Finnish fltp is an abbreviation for Finlandwide Light Vehicles Test Procedure.
It is a testing system machined by Lepo and Salo, the purpose of which is to show what kind of operating distances fully electric cars are capable of in real conditions in Finland.
Twosome thought about what kind of trip would reflect the usual Finnish driving performance as well as possible.
They ended up with a run of 50 kilometers of highway driving, 50 kilometers of road driving and 30 kilometers of urban and urban driving.
“Fltp is much tougher because the speeds are higher than wltp and the conditions vary. The roads are as bumpy as they are, and it’s cold in the winter just like it really is in Finland,” says Leppo.
The 130-kilometer test run is performed three times a year, in spring, summer and winter, in order to use the averages to get the most realistic picture of the actual operating distance.
The testers are ordinary Finns who have ordinary, all-electric cars of different ages. Just like in real life.
Tests have been done four times now, and the next fltp test will be run on Sunday, July 23. The event center is in Honka Tuusula’s house display area, and access is free.
Last time there were almost 90 drivers with their cars. So the test kilometers came to more than 10,000. In total, after four test times, they are almost 40,000.
This is in spite of the fact that everything is done in the spirit of workers, that is, no one is paid anything.
Self driving instructions follow the same “as usual as possible” formula.
Drivers are asked to keep the air conditioning at 20 degrees and drive “normally respecting speed limits” in traffic.
Each driver resets his car’s on-board computer before the test stages and records the on-board computer readings after the stage on the form on the fltp.fi page, from where the data is transmitted to the database.
In Lepo’s opinion, the fltp test’s strength lies precisely in these usual operating methods.
“There is definitely a harder accelerator and on the other hand a dimmer, but the idea is that when there are so many performances, the extreme cases are drowned in the noise of the averages, and the result is as realistic as possible.”
In the year 2020 Jaakko Leppo took his wife’s Skoda Fabia combustion engine car for maintenance. There was so much to put in that Leppo was in pain: how can this be so terribly expensive?
Leppo decided to exchange the car for a new Fabia, but according to the seller, he wouldn’t get the car until a few weeks later. For those few weeks, Leppo let Excel sing.
For the first time in his life, he analyzed the real costs of motoring. Leppo included one fully electric car out of interest for the comparison.
“For that, Excel showed such a wonderful amount that I became interested in this electric car project. I did calculations with other electric cars and found that with the cost of driving the Skoda Fabia, I could get my wife a Tesla Model 3.”
Leppo also ordered a Tesla Model 3 for himself instead of a Volkswagen Caddy.
“During the first year, there was a saving of 6,000 euros in the costs of driving, including all expenses,” says Leppo, who now drives a Tesla Model Y car.
Take it easy is happy that so many people have joined the fltp tests.
He believes it is due to the fact that for a large number of people – including himself – switching to an electric car has been a positive experience.
“Then you want to share that joy with others.”
Good, because if fltp talks were organized as a commercial activity, the price tag could be huge.
Leppo calculated that if the salary costs of each driver were the same as the cash register of the store, the price of one test would be almost 50,000 euros.
“At no point do I intend to make the test data chargeable, but we want to share it for free, because it is important information. Many car dealers also reportedly use fltp results when selling cars.”
The test readings of individual car models can be compared on the fltp website from the database.
Tests let’s continue, according to Lepo, as long as there are enough Talkoo people and there is interest in the test results.
“Of course, this could happen like it happened to Tesla drivers,” says Leppo.
Even a year ago, Tesla drivers often greeted each other, but now that there are a lot of Teslas in traffic, the greeting has stopped, says Leppo.
“Perhaps with fltp it will also happen that when electric cars become commonplace, people will no longer worry about business trips and the interest will end. On the other hand, then we have succeeded in our task.”
With the test they developed, Jaakko Leppo (left) and Harri Salo wanted to provide information on how far a single charge of an electric car can go in Finnish conditions.
But how far does it really go?
After almost 40,000 test kilometers, the fltp test has produced an answer to the big question.
When you calculate the average on the basis of the laps driven by all the cars in all seasons, you get the number 85.
It means that, on average, based on the fltp test, the operating range of the cars is 85 percent of the declared wltp reading of fully electric cars.
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