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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.
The convenience of a 5 minute fuel up is just too nice.
Not as convenient as plugging it in when you get home. (For those with the privilege to do so). One of my favorite parts of driving electric for the last ten years has been not having to stop at the gas station.
My partner and I actually have one electric, and one plug-in hybrid. We end up putting fuel in the hybrid about once every 4-6 months on average.
I don’t press my brakes too hard on average either, might as well get rid of 3/4 of em
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Oh my god buy a Prius
This problem was solved handily by hybrids before most porn stars were even born
Interesting metric.
Prius is boring. A lot of EVs are enormous fun to drive, even some of the ordinary ones, because they have so much instant acceleration compared to a diesel or petrol car. You won't even be able to tear my EV from my cold dead hands.
The article is right, and for me, 13% is a massive over estimate. I only need to charge at service stations when we go on holiday and there's an app that lets me plan it all out anyway. I don't know of any motorway service stations that don't have chargers in the UK.
Sadly most people are too retarded to know how to use a hybrid properly. It's why they are likely to be phased out as well because too many people just treat them like an ICE.
I hope the irrational fear of battery degradation lasts long enough to buy one used next year.
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.
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.
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.
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!
That is the way.
I'd advise you to get the type 2 home charger anyway. Even if your expected mileage is very low.
The savings of not getting one aren't worth the hassle of having to charge slowly constantly, and being depended on that slow charge.
A proper charger will enable you to take spontaneous drives more often. It could allow you to take advantage of cheap hourly rates (if that's an option). It removes the dependence on public chargers. It'll be fast enough for two cars if you eventually need that in case one of you gets a new job or you have family visiting etc.
So, sure, you don't neeeeed it, but it's easier in all of those situations that are just a little outside the ordinary and optimized commuting schedule.
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.
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…
Off the top of my head, I think L1 is like 75% efficient and L2 is closer to 95%, so it's a pretty significant efficiency drop. For me though, it's a similarly difficult install, and I've just got so many other other projects on the go that I've just never made it a priority. Maybe one day if I ever get solar installed...
this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2025
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