Range anxiety is overblown. Electric vehicle owners only use 13 percent of their battery capacity a day, on average.
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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.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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I don’t press my brakes too hard on average either, might as well get rid of 3/4 of em
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
People worried about that have never actually had to evacuate.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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I am not making an account to test if this works.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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:
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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.
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.
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I am not making an account to test if this works.
You don't need an account.
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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.
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).
