Range anxiety is overblown. Electric vehicle owners only use 13 percent of their battery capacity a day, on average.
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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.
That's understandable, and it sounds like an EV suits how you like to road trip very well.
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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.
- Frequency like you already called out
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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...
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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.
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.
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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.
wrote last edited by [email protected]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.
- Frequency like you already called out
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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
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...
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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.
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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....
