Electric Vehicles

3222 readers

106 users here now

A community for the sharing of links, news, and discussion related to Electric Vehicles.

Rules

No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, casteism, speciesism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
No self-promotion
No irrelevant content. All posts must be relevant and related to plug-in electric vehicles — BEVs or PHEVs.
No trolling
Policy, not politics. Submissions and comments about effective policymaking are allowed and encouraged in the community, however conversations and submissions about parties, politicians, and those devolving into general tribalism will be removed.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

120

You Need Way Less EV Range Than You Think: Study (insideevs.com)

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

173 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Data from thousands of EVs shows the average daily driving distance is a small percentage of the EPA range of most EVs.

For years, range anxiety has been a major barrier to wider EV adoption in the U.S. It's a common fear: imagine being in the middle of nowhere, with 5% juice remaining in your battery, and nowhere to charge. A nightmare nobody ever wants to experience, right? But a new study proves that in the real world, that's a highly improbable scenario.

After analyzing information from 18,000 EVs across all 50 U.S. states, battery health and data start-up Recurrent found something we sort of knew but took for granted. The average distance Americans cover daily constitutes only a small percentage of what EVs are capable of covering thanks to modern-day battery and powertrain systems.

The study revealed that depending on the state, the average daily driving distance for EVs was between 20 and 45 miles, consuming only 8 to 16% of a battery’s EPA-rated range. Most EVs on sale today in the U.S. offer around 250 miles of range, and many models are capable of covering over 300 miles.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago (81 children)

People need to seriously consider 40mi range PHEVs.

Toyota Prius Prime, Ford Escape PHEV, and others have "EV-mode" buttons that drive exclusively on electric now. Meaning you could keep the gasoline for "emergency use only", even as you enter highway speeds. (Older PHEVs would turn on the engine because they didn't have this mode-selector button).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (80 children)

All the complexity of a gas engine, plus the cost of a battery. Just so you can use the range once or twice a year? What happens when you don't use the gas engine for months and then go to start it with gelled gas? You're trying to solve a problem that the article shows doesn't exist for 99%

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I think people use the gas more than twice a year. For me, the electric could suffice for weekday commutes, but weekend trips end up requiring the gas.

I have personally avoided EVs in favor of PHEVs because I think charging all the time would be a pain. EVs like Tesla claim you get like 320 miles of range, but that’s on a full battery and they recommend only charge to 80%. So it drops to 256 miles. However even that is on the high end as driving at normal highway speeds, using AC or heat, in cold weather all kill the range even further. Tesla actually got caught exaggerating the range and canceling customer appointments over the issue. So, a realistic estimate there is probably more like 175 miles left. From there you probably don’t want to risk getting stranded and would need to find a charge with no less than 25 miles left. This gives an effective range of more like 150 miles out of the claimed 320. If you’re on a road trip, stopping every 150 miles for 20-40 minutes is going to be a pain.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

As a model 3 owner of 5 years, your math is just wrong and charging is a minor inconvenience if you have a level 2 charger at home or work. I went the first 3 years with no home charging.

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments (78 replies)