Range anxiety is overblown. Electric vehicle owners only use 13 percent of their battery capacity a day, on average.
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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.
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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.
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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.
That is the way.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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Wana buy me one?
Because I can't afford a new car.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Neither can I, that's why I got a used one, and TBH I can barely afford that.
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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.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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…
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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
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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
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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.
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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 -
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.
Funny thing. Only time an ICE has failed me on the road is either the brake caliper locked up or the battery died....
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Funny thing. Only time an ICE has failed me on the road is either the brake caliper locked up or the battery died....
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
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no, so I have this meteor hit insurance for
you... it only costs 120% of your incomeI’ve never had an accident so I guess I don’t need car insurance or seatbelts.
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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?.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
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.
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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?
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
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.
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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.
And hence, range anxiety is overblown.
