Check Electric Cars Listed By Weight Per Battery Capacity (kWh)

Tesla occupies most of the top spots, but there are some interesting findings.

Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Aug 23, 2021 at 1:10pm ET

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Continuing to explore electric vehicle weight data, provided by Bjørn Nyland, we will today take a look at the vehicle weight versus the total battery capacity (official or estimated).

In the chart below, we listed all the EVs weighed by Bjørn Nyland by their weight (in kg) per battery capacity (in kWh). The results are between 22 and 75 kg/kWh.

For example, in the case of the Ford Mustang Mach-E (ER, AWD), shown in the video, its weight of 2,300 kg and battery capacity of almost 98.9 kWh translates to 23.2 kg/kWh. And that's the second-best result overall. The problem with Mach-E is its efficiency though.

As we can see, most models with the lowest results are Teslas - Model 3 LR (23.5-24.5 kg/kWh) and Model S LR Raven (22.4 kg/kWh) - however, the Volkswagen ID.3 also did pretty well at 24.6 kg/kWh.

The median (middle result) is 30.7 kg/kWh:

Overall, the best results usually belong to the models equipped with large battery packs (like the Mach-E) and high-energy dense battery cells.

If we look carefully, we will see that the latest MIC Tesla Model 3 SR+ is in the middle of the pack at 30.7 kg/kWh - first, because the battery is smaller (a level of 60 kWh or so) and CATL's LFP batteries are less energy-dense.

That's actually not a bad result for the entry-level Tesla, as it almost matches 62 kWh versions of the Volkswagen ID.3 with higher energy-dense cells (NCM chemistry).

The newly launched Hyundai Ioniq 5 stands at 28.4 kg/kWh, almost on par with Volkswagen ID.4 and Skoda Enyaq iV (27.1-27.8 kg/kWh), which considering a several percent smaller battery is a very similar outcome.

It will be interesting to see whether the new MIC Model Y LR will be close to 25 kg/kWh. That lower weight per battery capacity unit is one of the main factors behind Tesla's high efficiency.

The huge and heavy Audi e-tron 55 SUV notes 28.6 kg/kWh, but has a 95 kWh battery.

At the bottom of the list, we will see cars with battery packs of 40 kWh and smaller. An interesting thing is that the kg/kWh factor starts to increase quickly in the case of smaller battery versions.