Range anxiety is overblown. Electric vehicle owners only use 13 percent of their battery capacity a day, on average.
You Need Way Less Range Than You Think
Range anxiety isn't even real. The problem is really charging anxiety, and it's entirely solveable.
Let's describe it like this... You're on a road trip, and you realize that you are using more fuel than expected, and you're going to need to put gas in your car in the next 50 miles. No problem, you've been passing gas stations for the the last hour, there is practically two at every exit, and they have their prices up on signs that can be seen for miles around.
Now let's switch over to our EV. Same scenario, you need to charge in the next 50 miles. The most signage I've seen for EV charging is a single "amenities" sign showing available gas stations, and one of them has a small green strip on the bottom that said "EV charging". No info on how much it is going to cost. No info on what plugs are available. Sure, I can check one of the 3 apps I have for finding charging stations, but that involves using more range to pull over and scout around. My car will tell me if I won't make it to my destination and suggest a charging station, but now I mucking about in my infotainment screen instead of focusing on the road, which is also stressful.
So the easy fix for "range anxiety" is to put up signage for charging stations that lists the types of plugs they have, and incentivize them to put pricing up on their electronic billboards.
I'd actually like to see a chain of dedicated EV charging stations that have small venues attached to them, like a restaurant, bowling alley, putt putt, library, etc... where they get the benefit of a captive audience, and the people charging get the benefit of some food and activities for the 15-20 minutes that they are charging. If I had the money, I start the business myself...
The 1% trips are what people worry about, not the average trip. When you do make that dream road trip to the bckwoods...
I've considered this a bit.
I preordered the slate because I like the idea a lot. If it works well enough for most of my driving then I can rent a car for long trips and camping.
But even if I get it I think I it will be quite a while before I also get rid of my ice vehicle. The convenience of a 5 minute fuel up is just too nice.
The convenience of a 5 minute fuel up is just too nice.
Not as convenient as plugging it in when you get home. (For those with the privilege to do so). One of my favorite parts of driving electric for the last ten years has been not having to stop at the gas station.
My partner and I actually have one electric, and one plug-in hybrid. We end up putting fuel in the hybrid about once every 4-6 months on average.
The author doesn't understand marginal utility. Not all time is equally valuable. When I am on a road trip, an extra 10-20% longer really sucks. The longer I can drive between charging, the shorter the trip, and the more time I can enjoy at my destination. Range consistently ranks as the highest concern for potential EV buyers for good reason. No matter how comprehensive the charging network, more frequent stops are annoying and time consuming.
Disclaimer: I own an EV.
I actually like the forced stops. I personally never want to drive for more than 3 hours without stretching my legs, so it's pretty convenient for me that the my car's range lines up with that.
Right, but you never want to be dependent on a stop.
We have an older 2017 leaf. You can highway about an hour and a half/two hours tops. If you get to that charge station and they only have 1chademo plug and it's out of order you're stuck using the slower "charge the car in 4-5 hours" plug.
For long trips we top up once we get to 40 percent or so, that way we can potentially skip a stop if need be.
That's understandable, and it sounds like an EV suits how you like to road trip very well.
Which, sure, is great, but not what I or most want to do. My first car had a 50mpg rating, and a 14 gallon tank. You best believe I could get to my destinations with less than 2 fuel stops most of the time.
I've driven a EV as a daily for six years now and while daily range M-F anxiety is mostly not an issue but that one day a month when your spouse tells you there's a last minute change in plans and you're running at half charge because you forgot to plug in at night and hitting a charger that's miles out of the way isn't going to work is a thing.
You're also going to be doing a lot of planning for trips to another city, eating into the day of fun for charging which can be more stressful.
Work trips where you can't get someone to drive you to the airport in your car is always fun.
Don't get me started on road trips, we don't take the electric vehicle because range anxiety is very much a thing when you don't know if a cold front is coming up your ass and you're mid charging stations and debating if you turn on the heat or not (spoilers there was no heat). Add to that, the battery degradation and charging stations being fewer and farther between than gas, that range anxiety will hit you on long trips and not to mention the hours it adds to your trip.
I'm still a proponent of electric cars but range and time are issues still.
I don’t press my brakes too hard on average either, might as well get rid of 3/4 of em
Yeah, however we are worried about non-typical days, like the surprise drive for four hours out of the city. Then we are quite literally fucked.
Superchargers exist.
So do combustion engines.
People worried about that have never actually had to evacuate.
It's not just evacuation, it's a sudden illness or death in the family that means that I have to drive 7-12 hours on very short notice, which has happened to me twice in the last 5 years. I daily drive an EV but to pretend that I don't sometimes need more range than it has and can easily compensate for (lack of charging infrastructure in rural areas, charging adding 4 hours to a 12 hour drive unless you drive a 50k+ car or a tesla) is ridiculous. Tbh I think the 260 miles of my bolt is more than enough for me if it charged like a Tesla/Hyundai and there were more chargers in West Virginia
I honestly have no clue what you are trying to say.
I've never had to use my seatbelt. Guess I should get rid of them.
It’s overblown, but this is a stupid way to point it out. For those that dont stay entirely in highly populated areas, even stops for gas require some planning ahead.
I want to go all electric, but it would currently mean a 3.5 hour trip into the mountains would become a 8 hour trip because no EV can reliably handle that much altitude gain in winter on the route I take. There are no chargers on the way, thus having to take the considerably slower route. Even in summer A Better Route Planner doesn’t think it’s worth the gamble to try the direct route.
Depending on the frequency of said trips, you would probably still end up saving a tonne of money by just borrowing a diesel 4WD for those trips into the mountains (assuming it’d only be a couple of times a year).
It takes a bit of a mental shift but in our case range is only ever an issue when visiting people elsewhere in the country. In those cases you are almost certainly using the motorway network and services have been rapidly upgrading with fast chargers that will get you to 80% in the time it takes to go to the loo and grab a coffee.
Edit to add book max range on my MG5 is ~220 miles but in practice we keep it at 80% charged so 160-180 miles which is enough to get to the local city and back in winter without even worrying about it.
Yes but there a giant but. Yes the range is only an issue on a motorway. Yes the services are getting better fast and yes you can charge while grabbing coffee, BUT:
And don't even get me started on how inaccessible the charging infrastructure is. Just managing all the apps you need to access different networks is a huge pain in the ass. Planning your trips is complicated and require yet another apps. You also need extra money to access it as it's very common for the charges to block big amounts of money to let you charge (Repsol in Spain locks 70 Euro which is insane. You can stop and buy gas for 5 Euros but if you want to charge your EV you need to have 70 Euro on your card, if you don't you're fucked).
So yeah, you and me can manage it with couple of extra coffee stops and playing around with apps but I really can't imagine older people learning this and I'm not surprised a lot of people don't want to have anything to do with it.
I used to be able to drive nonstop for a full tank of gas. I think I managed about 8 hours in my Mazda 3 once.
But these days between me and my super anxious dog, I'm stopping every two hours. By the time I put in half a tank in my van, let her go potty and then I take my break, it's often longer than I sent parallel processing with my car (EV).
That's only true of older/cheap EVs. I took my 2023 Bolt on a similar trip, and each of 3 stops (usually 20-80%) was about 40 minutes. This year/model is limited to ~55kW chargers.
Nearly everything on the US market, even from my model year, can do at least 100 kW. Some can do 240 kW. While it's not a linear increase in speed, you can easily see how much faster other models are. I don't know about the EU market, but I would assume the situation is similar. If you actually need faster charging, there are options.
FWIW, I agree on the apps. But some networks, like Electric America, have standard credit card readers. Obviously this depends on your location, but you get used to it quickly enough. You'll learn which networks are difficult to deal with and generally avoid them.
the coffee breaks add up so the travel time gets significantly longer. For me it's about 30%. What was a 7h drive in a ICE car turns into 10-11h drive in an EV
If you take a three hour nap. I charge 20-80 in 18 minutes. If I do that three times, that's one hour, not three. If you go a little lower than 20, that gets a bit more efficient.
If you can use an app, the infrastructure is reliable. Granted, the environment isn't amazing right now because there are ten different charging vendors and a dozen apps, but people report outages. And many of the better stations self report usage and outages. I'd say to check out one of the websites, but honestly I don't know them that well because...
How often are you making these 11 hour trips? 99% of my driving is 5 hours or less round trip, and the charging time there is comparable to a gas car. You really have to go over one charge for the gas car to be more efficient on stops. That's a hell of a trip, and in those rare cases I can deal with it.
I wouldn't even say a gas car is better for long trips. An EV has no problem "idling" while running heat/AC all night. It's much more comfortable if you need to stop and nap in the middle of winter.
the infrastructure is not as reliable. You may get a charging station every 50 km but it's not uncommon for them to be out of order.
I’ve never pulled up to a supercharger where all of them were out of order. And the ones that are out of order usually pop up on the dash so I know not to use them.
Oh my god buy a Prius
This problem was solved handily by hybrids before most porn stars were even born
Sadly most people are too retarded to know how to use a hybrid properly. It's why they are likely to be phased out as well because too many people just treat them like an ICE.
Interesting metric.
Prius is boring. A lot of EVs are enormous fun to drive, even some of the ordinary ones, because they have so much instant acceleration compared to a diesel or petrol car. You won't even be able to tear my EV from my cold dead hands.
The article is right, and for me, 13% is a massive over estimate. I only need to charge at service stations when we go on holiday and there's an app that lets me plan it all out anyway. I don't know of any motorway service stations that don't have chargers in the UK.
I'm a farmer and I've been looking for an affordable EV pickup. I'm unlikely to use 100km of range in a day so I'd be perfectly happy with a small battery in it.
The Slate truck is probably your best bet if it comes out. It's the only modern vehicle that's claimed they won't have any tracking or privacy invasive modules installed, and just so happens to be a small, cheap, no-frills EV pick-up.
Be careful with range estimates. You can lose 40% of the range in the cold, for example. And another 30% at highway speeds. Plus you can't charge at exactly 0%, so you want a 10% buffer or so. Assuming you never want to drive further than 100km, you want an EV with a rated 260km of range at least. That shouldn't be difficult with modern EVs, but you'll want to avoid older EVs.
Good to know, since we will hit -40 here regularly over winter.
The Ford midsize pickup they're talking about might be more battery than I need even with that, but it's looking like the only reasonably priced offering.
I hope the irrational fear of battery degradation lasts long enough to buy one used next year.
Well, yeah, but going 100.1% over capacity can be very inconvenient, particularly if you are far from service. So "on average" doesn't consider that some numbers are worse than others.
I have an ice maker at home. Most days I use maybe 5 ice cubes total to make a cold drink.
However, if my ice maker could only hold 5 ice cubes max at a time, I would consider it a shitty ice maker and would be looking for a new one.
Article says 13% of capacity is normal. That's like your ice tray holds 35 but sometimes you have a party and have to buy cubes at the store.
Everyone shouts at you for not having ice on tap that costs them five times as much to make as your ice tray and is still more expensive than store ice, all because sometimes you have go to the shop.
I don't think you're understanding the analogy, or at least there's some fallacy in the way you're applying it.
I would be perfectly fine with one that holds 35 cubes since I only use about 13% of that per day. That doesn't mean I will accept arguments that my ice tray should hold LESS than 35 cubes, which is what this article is trying to do with the range of electric vehicles.
Just because I'm not using the maximum amount every day, does not mean I want the maximum lowered. Again, if I had an ice maker that could only hold 5 ice cubes, while it would technically fulfil my needs most days, it would still be a shitty ice maker.
We aren't talking about "what if I had a large party?", just like we aren't talking about "what if I need to drive 1200 miles in a single day?". We're talking about "what if I have a single guest over?" or, in terms of the car, "what if I have a few extra errands to run?"
If we had a better rail system, I wouldn’t have to worry about range. I can use the city bus or bike in town but I like to travel and it’s inconvenient to have to stop at very specific refueling places for 30min to an hour and a half.
Take a look at https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ and pick any modern EV and your desired route. Most charging stops will be below 15 minutes.
Ive had an EV for the years and recently bought a class b van for road trips. I vastly prefer charging the EV to filling gas in the van. With the van getting gas, walking my dog, and my own potty break are all serial and involve moving the van after getting gas.
With the car, I can plug in and do all the other stuff while it's charging. I have to stop roughly every 2 hours anyways.
My Pacifica only gets on average 30ish miles and it's gets us 90% of our daily driving. We live in the city so everything is close. We usually only use gas once a month or a bit more in the winter because the Pacifica has a shit electric heater.
We did reserve a slate but we might skip it as it's probably going to surpass their $20k mark.
Maye if Trump didnt tariff steel and aluminum from Canada...
I've never owned an EV but have been casually considering what it would entail. Like would I really need level 2 charging at home? I'm sort of thinking not at this point. The commute for me or my wife would be something in the 20 km round trip range. We don't live in a big city. Errands could increase that somewhat. But if let's say the charger could add back even 5 km/hr, which I think is a pretty conservative estimate. That should be plenty to handle our needs with overnight charging on 120V.
As for intercity, well, you'd likely be using some public fast charger right? So that's kind of a moot point as far as what you need at home.
I don't know if I'm missing something though in this analysis? Like I've heard winter driving affects range fairly considerably. And that's unfortunately also the time I'd be more tempted to drive over riding the e-bike everywhere. But even so, I doubt I'd ever exhaust the battery in my home town?
Like would I really need level 2 charging at home?
No, you don't need it. A level 1 charger will handle most, if not all of your weekly driving needs with some overhead.
I have a MachE, as my daily. It goes to work and back with me, which is ~20 miles round trip, and then my wife uses the car after work to run some errands or go to appointments or whatever she wants to do. She has her own car, but prefers to take mine to save gas. At the end of the day, I'm usually going from 80% down to 65%. Charging overnight at home on level 1 covers most, if not all of that. One the weekends, the car typically gets all the way back to 80. During a particularly bad week where I was driving around a lot for work, I got down to 25% charge at the end of the day on Friday. If it gets too low, you can always go to a supercharger and top of 50% in like 10 minutes.
That being said, Level 2 is not too expensive to get in your home, depending on your situation, you could do it for under 300 bucks (for comparison, my L1 setup was about 150 for just the cable). I'd get L2 if you are going to have multiple EVs, or if you have market rate billing on your electric. L2 would let you charge more when electricity is cheaper.
I'd advise you to get the type 2 home charger anyway. Even if your expected mileage is very low.
The savings of not getting one aren't worth the hassle of having to charge slowly constantly, and being depended on that slow charge.
A proper charger will enable you to take spontaneous drives more often. It could allow you to take advantage of cheap hourly rates (if that's an option). It removes the dependence on public chargers. It'll be fast enough for two cars if you eventually need that in case one of you gets a new job or you have family visiting etc.
So, sure, you don't neeeeed it, but it's easier in all of those situations that are just a little outside the ordinary and optimized commuting schedule.
I've owned an EV for 5 years, and I still don't have a level 2 charger at home. It works for me, but it mostly depends on your daily drive.
It is less efficient than a L2 charger, so I am spending money on electricity that just disappears as heat, so I'll probably get one installed eventually.
That's interesting. I hadn't considered the efficiency aspect. L2 would be a pain to install where I live, I'm thinking. It's a bungalow and the breaker box is about as far from the driveway in the basement as is humanly possible. So lots of wiring and drilling to bring the power out to where it's needed seems likely.
From what others are saying, I probably do not need L2 for my modest driving needs, but the efficiency aspect could imply it would eventually pay itself back in energy savings. But if I have essentially what amounts to the worst case scenario in terms of upfront installation cost, that could take a long time…
I suggest this video from the youtube channel “technology connections”.
The key takeaway is that you can charge your EV with any household outlet, unless you drive a lot.
Thanks that was very informative!
That is the way.
Every car owner has a delusion that one terrible day a very bad thing will happen and they will drive 400 miles away from it and be saved.
M-F I drive 20-40 miles a day, no biggie for an EV.
Weekends I may not drive at all occasionally, but more often than not I'm putting hundreds of miles on my car, sometimes over 1,000, depending on the task at hand.
I've considered getting a runabout like a Nissan leaf for weekdays, but even if it saves me 2-4$ a day m-f in fuel, the cost of the car plus the insurance premiums eat that savings up even with minimum coverage, and an old leafs sub 100 mile range will simply not suffice for my weekend adventures 3 out of 4 weeks a month, so keeping an ice with insurance would be a necessity for me.
If they come out with an affordable (sub $35k) EV that gets 400 miles on a full charge, that changes things for me.
Until that is available, ice it is for me.
And here I am with the strong belief that 1000Km is the range at which I’d be happy with. EVs degrade over time, and one must undercharge them to 80% on a daily basis. 1000Km also solves the road trip issue, being able to drive until you’re tired and then charge to rest. Then also, EVs would be better than gas cars and be a better deal overall.
1000km is 620 miles. That's heading for a 10 hour journey without stopping. No way am I prepared to do that. I don't have your stamina or concentration span.
For me, personally, without other considerations, my ideal EV would cover me to probably stop every three hours for a break. That's around 270 miles if I'm on a motorway 100% of the route, so I'd be happiest with an EV with a stated range of 400 miles to have 50% more than I need, and would want to charge from 50 left up to 320 left in ideally 20 minutes to half an hour. (Once the family has all been to the loo and I've looked at the route ahead and caught up with my messages, 20 minutes has flown by.) 400 miles stated range is roughly 100kwh capacity, charging 270 miles in 20 mins is 67.5 kwh in 1/3 hr, so 202.5kw charger.
Motorway service stations are installing 350kw chargers although a bunch of them still have 100kw or 150kw max, and some just 50kw.
I reckon my absolutely ideal EV will be on the market in a few years with plenty of fast enough chargers and I'll buy it second hand a few years after that, by which time I'll have had this EV, my most fun to drive vehicle ever, for a decade and my wife will be happy to swap it out.
And hence, range anxiety is overblown.
Most people drive around their city.
People don't have range anxiety about driving around their city.
It's for the few times they need to be able to depend on a car to take them to the next city.
Yeah.
I like going camping sometimes.
Or on longer road trips.
Range is an actual issue. The fact that I'm in the city MOST of the time I drive doesn't mean I'm in the city ALL the time I drive. I don't need some article telling me range anxiety is overblown when it isn't on those days.
For the "sometimes" long distance trips, you can always hire a long-range car for the trip.
why? it' trivially easy to know how far the other place is and the car's average consumption
You'd only be justified if you are cutting it super short but I'd assume that would be rare
When I'm driving across country i want to know that my car isn't going to die.
You ignoring this reasonable concern just shuts down valid criticism.
As your range gets low, it starts to vary a lot, but generally you are correct. The owners of my car joking call it "the guessometer". Not sure why you are getting do voted for being mostly right...