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.
In theory. In theory some can rent a car with property XYZ. And for “sometimes but often enough” long trips those rental charges adds up fast.
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.
Better drive an EV then. Fewer moving parts, practically no maintenance to forget to do. Every ICE car I’ve owned has required unexpected roadside repairs at one point in time.
Wana buy me one?
Because I can’t afford a new car.
Neither can I, that’s why I got a used one, and TBH I can barely afford that.
This is the way.
Funny thing. Only time an ICE has failed me on the road is either the brake caliper locked up or the battery died…
EVs only use physical brakes under sharp breaking and parking, so they wear down less.
In over 30 years driving I only ever had a breakdown away from home because of a gearbox failure. (I buy all my cars second hand but young, so that someone else has done the expensive bit of depreciation, and I don’t buy American cars.)
Well, I had a muffler partially fall off. Fuel filter clogged (twice) intake manifold cracked and caused a misfire. O2 sensor went haywire and put the car in a limp mode… I’ve never run out of gas, but I’ve heard that isn’t uncommon for other people. Ignition coils went bad… Consider yourself very lucky.
Sounds like you just dont do maintenence on your cars lol.
Speaking of ignition coil, i did have the ECU fail and stopped sending siginals to a coil… but can really include a computer failure when talking about ICE reliability vs EV?.
No, I maintained my cars. What’s the maintenance schedule on an intake manifold?
I’m not ignoring it, I’m simply assuming most poeple are not driving across country constantly… much less without any foresight or planning
I know my small house would not fit my family from abroad if they all come to visit at the same time… I would not say such situation is preventing the adoption of condos
People do indeed have foresight. And they are planning ahead. That’s why they are not buying electric cars.
I’m not ignoring it, I’m simply assuming most poeple are not driving across country constantly… much less without any foresight or planning
They very clearly explained that it’s not “constantly.” It’s sometimes. Sometimes they would like to take longer trips, and on these longer trips, it makes their trips even longer and more difficult to plan.
prescisely my point… they seem to be ruling out EV because of an issue most poeple face very rarely
The infrequency of an event doesn’t determine its value or importance.
no, so I have this meteor hit insurance for you… it only costs 120% of your income
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…
because it’s social media… fellings > facts
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.
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.
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:
- 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
- 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. If I see a long stretch of road with just one charger I will simply not take it. If I have to rely on a single charger when going somewhere I will definitely be anxious about it
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.
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.
I don’t drive 11h often, once/twice a year maybe, but the 30% is more or less constant for me because:
- You can’t always charge 20-80. You don’t just magically find a charger when the battery hits 20%. Very often I have to stop at 30% or more because I will not get to the next charger
- Often I don’t sit in my car looking at the charging progress. As you said, I get out, go to a bathroom, get some coffee, eat a sandwich. It nice to have something to do during the stops. But because of this 20 min stop something changes into 30 min stop
- Often I have get off the main road to get to a charger. Sometimes I have to enter a small town. This easily ads another 5-10 min to the trip
- Very often the charger doesn’t work right away. Oh, I didn’t use this this app in some time. I got logged out. Ok, get the password manager… My card details changed, I have to update this. My pre-paid card is out of money, need to recharge it. Another 5-10 minutes gone. Or it’s a new network and I have to register. Or something doesn’t work and I have to call the help line.
On routes that I drive very often this is not an issue. I plug-in, charge for 20 min and drive on. But those are usually 1-2h trips. On long routes, far away from home something almost always will happen to add extra time to the trip.
As for reliability I always check the apps but I often plan the route 1-2 days ahead and you can’t be 100% sure something will not break before you get there. In the 2+ years I was driving I saw chargers that were reporting as active that refused to charge, chargers that died right as I was charging and even the entire infra of a charging network collapse as I was about to charge (even their website went down. I called and they told me it’s an outage and it will be fixed “soon”).
I’m very happy with my EV. I’m just saying there are still issues with longer trips. If you don’t do long trips that’s awesome. If you do range anxiety is still a thing. I can deal with it but I understand people who don’t want to.
You don’t just magically find a charger when the battery hits 20%.
That can go both ways. You can go to 10%. You should be able to pretty easily find a charger somewhere between 5-20%.
But because of this 20 min stop something changes into 30 min stop
You can’t do this AND complain about how long you’re stopping. Presumably you’re doing this because you want to, which can be fine, sure. Your phone tells you when the charge is done. If you want to spend less time charging, just choose not to do this.
Oh, I didn’t use this this app in some time.
All of this is 100% legit. Sometimes tapping the credit card doesn’t work, or you have to use their fucking app to get the discount.
I also wonder about privacy. Which ones are recording my VIN when I connect? I’d really like the option to pay cash for a charger to be normalized without the charger recording my VIN. My car should be asking me before it shares any information. I don’t know if it does, and would love to hear more on this.
often plan the route 1-2 days ahead
Is this a relic? In the middle of the US, I’ve found charging networks to be reliable enough to not need this. I picked what should be a terrible route on google maps, Clinton, Oklahoma to Ogallala, Nebraska, an 8 hour drive. I might plan that one a little more, but you probably don’t need to.
Not all of what I mentioned happens always but sometimes you have an issue with the charger, sometimes you stop for a bit longer and it all adds up. I mean, I’m not making this up. I did the same routes multiple times with my ICE and electric car and charging easily adds 20-30% to the time. With bigger autonomy it would be less of a problem (you stop for longer by less often so all the little things are a smaller problem) but I think the article is trying to prove that we don’t actually need bigger batteries (and I agree that 90% of the time we don’t).
As for the route planning it’s definitely not easy in Spain. I think right now it kind of getting to the point were you should be able to find a charger every 50 km but only on some highways. Very often the shortest and fastest route will take me through secondary roads but there’s only one charger along the route and if it’s not working when I get there I’m fucked. Last time I did a longer route I got to one charger and it simply wouldn’t initiate charging (the app claimed it’s working). I got to the next one (again, app claimed it’s active) but all the fast chargers were disabled, only the slow one was active. The third one worked. Looking at your map I can see some places were broken charger could leave me stranded so I would definitely spend some time trying to figure out alternatives. If some day the chargers will work 100% of the time it will be a different story.
As for the route planning it’s definitely not easy in Spain.
It’s getting even easier in the US with Biden’s initiative to “Electrify America”.
Oh wait, that’s cancelled.
It’s an interesting discussion, and I think all of it is valuable reading for people who might be on the fence or skeptical. And of course I’m not as familiar with Europe, but I expected you’d be farther along than Kansas when it comes to this green anything. On the other hand, our car culture in general is much larger, and highway culture in Kansas surely plays a bigger role than Spain.
It’s a complicated topic in general. In my apartment building there are many families with two cars (because both parents work). They are in a perfect situation to get an EV because then can simply keep the other car for longer trips and in the last year I saw many new chargers appear in the garage. In other places people don’t have a private parking spot to install a charger, have just one car and drive more. For them EV will still be a big inconvenience. The infrastructure is improving quite fast and you can definitely drive anywhere you want but it still not as convenient as gas stations.
What are you using for route planning? It should have had you charge 10% less at the previous stop so you’d arrive at the current stop with 20% instead of 30%.
A 20% buffer is my high end. I generally prefer at least 10% buffer but that depends on conditions, speed, etc.
I just use electromaps to find the chargers. And figure out the route myself. I don’t know any reliable app to plan the whole route. Can you recommend anything?
A Better Route Planner (ABRP) is generally considered the gold standard.
But that said 99% of the time I was using Tesla’s chargers so there is little thinking involved. But I’ve white knuckled a couple of charging stops in ND, SD, MT.
Last summer i unfortunately got in an accident about 900 miles from home. When I went to pick up my car a few months later, I found out at my first charging stop that stupid Tesla disabled supercharging. Fortunately I had done the DIY upgrade to enable CCS charging and was relieved that they only disabled supercharging and not all DCFS.
I managed to get home but it was painful. 5 or 6 different charging networks all with their unique issues. I often spent more time getting a charge started than I would have spent charging on a Tesla charger.
When I got home, my local service center reenabled supercharging without having to do some HV voltage battery test at a cost of about $1600. That was not disclosed on the estimate they provided.
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).
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.
That’s great. I never use a supercharger. I once tried but they were still switching them to CCS and the one I stopped at was still using the other plug.
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…
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).
I considered it, but there are two problems.
- Frequency like you already called out 2 Availability of good rentals. Most rental companies don’t put snow tires on their rentals and do not want you to use chains. Good way to get stuck.
I’m a massive EV fan and love my car more than I thought it was possible, I never dreamed commuting could be enjoyable, but…
if you’re regularly driving five hours up into remote mountains in the winter with no chargers en route, then absolutely stick with your diesel.
It’s not for you.
Another option would be to borrow off friends/family, or in the event it’s frequent enough - either have one as a secondary vehicle (or go halves, if family are in a similar boat), the maths might still make it viable.
For our situation, an EV makes sense as we have solar & batteries (so ‘free’ charging, given our surplus sell-off rate has tanked to 1c/kWh), and would only find ourselves in a similar situation 1-2 times a year.
Most other trips are well within range, even driving ~250km to visit our regional relatives - and that’s before any stops for a nappy change, letting the dog go pee, stretching our legs or grabbing a coffee - where we could easily top up the battery over >80% in minutes at a fast-charging station.
But I am a strong believer that most range anxiety is overblown, and that just about everyone who switches over will not look back once they get used to it.
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’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.
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.
I am not making an account to test if this works.
The website works without a login. Nevertheless, I’ve created a screenshot of a route from Madrid to Paris, 1260 km, with four charging stops, adjusted for a Hyundai Ioniq 6 LW AWD.
The longest charging stop takes 18 minutes.
That’s pretty disingenuous, the Hyundai ionic 6 is either the second or third fastest charging (km/minute) EV on the market and costs twice as much as the most affordable non-chinese EVs. I’m an advocate for mass ev adoption, but to pretend that real issues don’t exist hurts the movement. Battery capacity doesn’t necessarily need to increase imo, but all cars need the charging speed of Hyundai/Tesla or better before these types of trips are reasonable.
In a 2023 Chevy Bolt here’s what the same trip looks like:
You’re right, I picked one of the fastest charging EVs. Your example of the chevy bolt is however one of the slowest EVs in terms of charging.
But you’re right, I probably should have chosen a more “average” car. 1 hour of charging for this trip is really the “best case”, other EVs need 2+ hours (or 3+ hours for older models).
What’s really nice about this website is that everyone can easily find out how much time charging takes for a given route and car. And that is really why I posted the link here.
This thread was perfect, ultimately providing a high, a low, and an average.
You don’t need an account.
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.
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.
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.
The slate is the first thing I’ve ever pre ordered in my life.
IIRC it wasn’t going to be offered in Canada. Otherwise I’d be all over it. I like the lack of touchscreen bullshit.
Good damn it
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.
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…
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.
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.
