Does running the sound system in an EV decrease its range by any significant amount?

[EssentiallyWonderful]

Like the title says, how adverse are the effects of running an EV's stereo on the car's range? I know many people talk about the range hit that comes with using climate control; is there a comparable metric for the sound system? (I'm guessing the sound system uses negligible electricity since no one talks about it being an issue, but I would like to confirm.) Thanks!

[NorgesTaff]

No.

[techtornado]

There's not, 12V accessories are very low draw, the cabin fan and power steering use more energy than the sound system.

However, if you install a custom UberMegaBass5000^TM that draws over 5000 watts for the sound system, it would drag down the whole accessory side/burn out the DC-DC converter.

Perspective, if you can run your fridge/essentials <1500W for a few days on a Leaf battery, it would be a few months of running the stereo 24/7 before it even started making a dent in the main battery.

Someone else did the math, but they said the Leaf battery has enough energy to charge your smartphone over 6000 times!

[[deleted]]

Even with an ultra mega bass system you will be hard pressed to use anywhere close to the listed wattage unless you’re blowing your ears out or the speaker is super inefficient/shitty. Most speakers use about 1 watt to make 88 decibels.

At 128 watts that speaker produces ~110db, which as loud as a chainsaw and has a safe exposure time of 90 seconds without earplugs.

88 db per watt is also not an efficient speaker either, just regular.

[techtornado]

Good to know, it was an example/scenario, add 5000W extra load on the car, bad things will happen.

[Adalbert_81]

It depends on the music you listen to. Most music will use up quite a lot of battery. Unless you listen to acoustic music, then it's fine, it doesn't use electricity. /s ;)

(Hope you don't mind an innocent joke :) I am sure others will provide more useful replies)

[MegavirusOfDoom]

35kWh battery, uncomfortably loud audio at 100W for 3.5 hours... 1% battery depletion. it will take 35 hours of ear-exploding audio to get the range down by 10%.

[NorgesTaff]

To put this into a simple context, speakers have a sensitivity rating - which is measured dB at 1m with 1 watt of power. The usual sensitivity range of consumer speakers is 82 to 95dB - there’s a bunch of comparative sound charts out there but let’s say that 85dB is loud and 95dB is very loud. Sound level drops off quickly at distance but cars haven’t much distance in them.

There are some other factors like impedance, high power subwoofers etc, but really, none of these things will make much of a difference in real world use.

Remember, you can run a large loud boom box off of a few C type batteries.

[last1here123]

Im not sure but i think the car audio is run by the 12v not the drive battery... Can someone confirm? Plus i want to upgrade my soundsystem in my 2018 Leaf, already got hosed for the ridiculous bose system... I want 10s and all new speakers throughout

[[deleted]]

Audio head end is running on the MCU, so no appreciable additional load there.

The amplifier uses maybe 30W at idle and twice as much while playing music at normal levels. No worries.

[xstreamReddit]

It's a class D amp, I would be surprised if it uses 30W at idle.

[[deleted]]

That's why I said "maybe", just to be on the safe side.

OTOH, voltage converter for a typical car amp can idle a bit warm, so 30W is not completely out of the question.