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

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/evs@lemmy.world

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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.

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[-] Rayspekt@kbin.social 62 points 8 months ago

I don't need a scientific study to know that most days I'd need my car for a significantly lower driving distance than the few long-range outliers.

The problem isn't a logistical of "Wow! Turns out I can commute with an EV because I don't drive 400 km to work each day! Thank you Mr. Scientist!" but a financial one. The large majority of people can afford one car, if any, and this one car has to work for everything. Do you think people are happy investing in a 20k or more EV when they still have to rent a car to visit their familiy over holidays?

If it's just for the sake of driving around town daily, EVs need to get significantly cheaper to be interesting for people with normal incomes.

[-] scoobford@lemmy.zip 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Basically this. My commute is a little over 40 miles. If I got a leaf (which my dad used to have, so I know it well), I could get there and back. Unless I had to make an additional stop on the way home. Or run a significant errant on my lunch break. Then it might get squiffy.

But, okay, maybe I have a spouse I can ask to run errands and stuff for me. Then I just have to worry about when its hot or cold enough I need to run the AC or heater, in which case my range goes down to 60 miles. Good thing that only happens 11 months out of the year.

Edit: I also live in an apartment. I'm sure nobody will have an issue with me throwing a cable out of my bedroom window on the second floor and snaking it across the parking lot to my car.

[-] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

If we built good regional/national/international transit, a lot of the longer range issues could be fixed. Some people may still need more range/more storage but high speed rail could get people farther more effeciently than their EVs and be suitable for many trips.

[-] APassenger@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

If we had better infrastructure, there would be fewer commutes using cars.

[-] maynarkh@feddit.nl 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Would it make sense to rent a car for those longer journeys? I know I'm not in the wasteland of car dependency that is the US, but I don't own a car because it would just sit around costing money 99% of the time. I rent a car for the 1%.

Edit: I don't know what is so controversial about me saying this, this is anecdotally true for me. I didn't say it's fine for everyone.

[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 7 points 8 months ago

Nah, renting a car on top of whatever you're already paying for the short range car is expensive. Hundreds of dollars for even a couple of days.

Even if you only need a car for those long trips, that's a huge expense on top of the travel costs (hotels, food on the go, gas, etc).

I've had to rent a car to go up to northern states to visit my or my wife's family a few times, and it's crazy how expensive it is. I drive a little subcompact because I actually like small cars, but you can't pack two adults, a kid, and all their luggage into one little hatchback.

I can kinda see someone that lives with good, cheap public transport in a city saving enough on not owning a car (insurance, licensing, etc) to make it feasible if they aren't renting more than once or twice a year, but even that can blow the balance if it's an extended rental.

The cost of a week in another state via the rental, just for the car was more than the car payment, insurance, and approximate maintenance costs for my car for the month. Mind you, I do have a very cheap to insure car that didn't cost much (13k), so the balance for most people isn't as extreme.

Plus, you can't rent without a credit card reliably, if you want to go out of state. A credit card isn't exactly impossible for everyone, but it's still a limiting factor for enough people that renting anything like that is impossible.

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[-] frezik@midwest.social 35 points 8 months ago

These studies come from the wrong angle to convince anyone. Average isn't what people are concerned about. It's getting to grandma's house, who lives 150 miles away.

However, that isn't insurmountable, either. 250 mi range with some charging infrastructure upgrades can cover almost all of North America just fine. Yes, even when it gets cold. Plenty of EVs on the market can do this.

Get more charge stations out there, and tell the industry to stop making only $45k base price SUVs for EVs.

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[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago

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).

[-] Contestant@lemmy.world 30 points 8 months ago

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%

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

All the complexity of a gas engine

Batteries are more complex. A 200lb battery is less complex than 1000lb or 2000lb battery.

EDIT: I'm an electrical engineer. I can prove to you the complexities of a modern EV Battery. Or do you think 400V systems composed of parallel transistors, battery-management systems, and a whole slew of literally fucking computers estimating the internal-state of the thousands of individual cells that compose a modern EV is a "simple" task?

EDIT: Do you know what kind of degrees you need to design a battery-management system? To mass produce those circuit boards? And to do it all over again 2 years from now when all the chemistries change and therefore the internal estimates of each of these cells completely and drastically changes? No? Please stop pretending that "Batteries" are simple.

Case in point: it's the battery that will most likely fail in ALL of the discussed designs here. Why? Because chemistry is incredibly difficult and hasn't been solved yet. I do await for the future improvements in the EV battery pack that are sure to come over the next few years and decade... But let's not pretend that anything is done R&D yet.

The gasoline engine? Okay we're up to Atkinson cycle so that's a bit different but was around in the 1800s anyway. Nothing is really new or complex here. The engines mechanics were understood nearly two centuries ago.

There's a reason why gasoline engines are so reliable, while batteries keep having faults. Complexity has a lot to do with it.

What happens when you don’t use the gas engine for months and then go to start it with gelled gas?

If only computers existed and had timers that automatically burned off stale gasoline.

Also, just fill up 2 gallons or so to minimize the stale gasoline effect. You'll only be filling up once or twice a month with all the EV driving you'll be doing in practice.

You’re trying to solve a problem that the article shows doesn’t exist for 99%

No. The 800+ to 1500+ extra lbs of battery you lug around with a full 300mi electric car is what's actually being wasted in practice.

[-] OutsizedWalrus@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Batteries are absolutely not more complex than an internal combustion car. They’re newer, but not more complex.

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Why is it that all the batteries are the things that fail in these designs?

And why is it that the gasoline engine lasts for a decade or longer, with very few repair issues? In fact, when was the last time you heard of an old car where the engine needed to be replaced?

When old cars break down, its the suspensions, the belts... radiator (those things rust / break surprisingly often), etc. etc. Its not really the ICE parts that break down.

[-] UsernameHere@lemmings.world 15 points 8 months ago

Check engine lights, oil leaks, coolant leaks transmission leaks, timing belts, timing chains, thermostats, water pumps, compression leaks, vacuum leaks, catalytic converters, oxygen sensors, ignition coils , spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributors, fuel pumps, fuel filters, fuel leaks, cracked block, thrown rod, warped crankshaft, scorn cam shaft, cam phasers, differentials, transmission problems and on.. and on…

These are just SOME of the repairs that are common to ONLY gas vehicles and you won’t have any of these problems with an EV.

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

These are just SOME of the repairs that are common to ONLY gas vehicles and you won’t have any of these problems with an EV.

And yet...

https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174/

You can theorycraft all you want. I have hard stats.

[-] UsernameHere@lemmings.world 12 points 8 months ago

You don’t have any stats. You have a link to a consumer reports article based off a survey…

Let me show you how flawed that is:

I’m going to hold a survey of my household to see how many people say you are wrong.

The results are in! 100% of the people surveyed said you’re wrong!

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Consumer Report's survey is considered one of the best in the business. The name speaks for itself.

If you don't want to believe it, then whatever. Feel free to give me the stats behind your discussion points.

[-] UsernameHere@lemmings.world 6 points 8 months ago

I already have. Here are the stats again:

Gas vehicles have complex combustion engines, transmissions, differentials, emission systems all of which require maintenance and can leak fluids that are expensive to fix. All of which are common points of failure. Everyone I know owns a car and all of their cars have had problems with one or more of these systems. These are all facts that are common knowledge and don’t need any supporting evidence.

EVs have 1 common point of failure. The battery. That’s because there isn’t anything else to break on them. They’re simple and durable.

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[-] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Sorry, fellow me/ee, disagree on complexity, having worked directly with both. Advantage of mechanical systems: theoretically predictable action, repeated endlessly so long as torque at the tires is req'd. Reality: tolerances in various parts open over time, resulting in a nonlinear decrease in efficiency and power. A symphony of hundreds of bolted joints, springs, tappets and valves, a sum of thousands of parts dancing while a complex ECU watches over the system. A single part or joint far enough out of tolerance will cause very, very expensive damage.

Battery powered vehicles: motor has full torque at close to zero RPM, all components in the control system are solid state, and software (always updateable) handles control decisions. Electric motor has 6 to 30 parts, based on whether liquid cooled or air cooled.

[-] HerrBeter@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

What do you mean with batteries will fail?

[-] dragontamer@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I mean just that.

The internal chemical structure of Li-ion is only designed to work for a limited number of charge/discharge cycles. As the chemistry is stressed out, the internal metals begin to form dendrites (or in more simple terms, spikes) internally.

We have reasonable estimates for how long this takes, but everyone's battery pack is different. And the process is invisible (you have to cut open & destroy a battery to figure out how much of these dendrites or whatever have formed). So the best we got are some computers slapped on the outside of the battery pack that measures temperature, voltage, current, and time to guestimate the effects from the outside.

As cells fail, modern BMS systems will reroute power away from degenerated cells. Its not that the problem was solved per se, its that modern battery packs have a bunch of extra cells waiting in reserve to pretend that nothing has happened to the end user. But this process eventually breaks enough cells that the whole pack fails and inevitably needs replacement.

Exactly when depends on how many cells were left in reserve, how much "fast charging" you do (which is extremely harsh on the internal chemicals), the temperature of the pack under use, and any aggressive driving you might do that heats up the pack more than usual.

Its... really complex. There's a lot of research going on right now to try to stop these dendrites from forming.

EDIT: In any case, Consumer Reports reliability surveys on various parts of say... a Toyota Prius Prime or other PHEVs. Go look at them all, see what parts fail. Its the battery.

Here's GM Volt. What's the problem? Oh, the EV Battery again, and looks like the EV Charger is also terrible cause GM must have messed that up too.

But yes, its the electrical parts that are more complex and prone to failure in almost all of these cars.

Here's Chrysler Pacifica. Oh boy, lots of parts of this vehicle is terrible. But as predicted, the EV Battery is among the worst of parts again.

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[-] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 5 points 8 months ago

Hybrids have been out for over 20 years, and this simply isn't an issue.

Furthermore, "a problem that doesn't exist for 99%" is false because this article is just talking about averages. When you look at the average mileage driven per state, it ranges from 9,900 miles to over 24,000 miles per year. There is no one size fits all solution. Would you rather someone drive an old Suburban 100 miles per day or a Prius prime 100 miles per day? It's that simple. These people aren't going to buy a BEV until the segment is nearly ubiquitous, if ever.

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[-] Blackout@kbin.social 29 points 8 months ago

I'm fine with an EV that only has a 100 mile range. Im just not willing to pay more that $15k for it. It obviously can be sold for that much. I don't need a seat warmer or even powered windows, just a box with windows.

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[-] unmagical@lemmy.ml 26 points 8 months ago

No I don't. I don't have a charger at my apartment and I'm not going to wait for a charge on a daily basis at a public charger for one of the more city focused EVs. I won't buy an EV that doesn't have the range of a "normal" car and I'm not alone on that.

I'm 70 miles from the slopes. There's no charging at the lots and the last thing I want to do after 6+ hours of skiing is to stop and wait for a charge on the way home. That means having to have at least 140 miles + some extra to get around done the next day before hitting up a charger.

The averages are one thing, but a car that meats an average need will have limitations on even frequently occurring exceptions. The average falls short of a round trip to the airport even. If a car can't get me to and from the airport in a single charge then I can't choose that car.

The article rightfully recognizes at the end that this really isn't an issue of reeducating the customer. This is a matter of providing a product that meets the customers expectations.

[-] sic_1@feddit.de 12 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I think the main problem with the article is that, yes, most days we only need range for short distances, that's where those numbers come from. But occasionally we have an appointment in the next city that's over a hundred kilometers away and we don't have time to charge the because we need to return with the same mileage. Like if we want to visit granny in a village a few hundred kilometers away with no charging spot anyway near.

So we don't need hundreds of kilometers of range every day. But we need it occasionally.

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[-] HollandJim@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

I get what you mean, but I hate to have to point out the obvious… You’re up a mountain. When you drive back down, the car is going to regenerate the energy back into the battery, you might find that you recover a considerable amount. Was amazed how much I was getting back in my ID.3 just going down some very big hills in Belgium. And 70 miles is not a lot… It’s what, 120 km? I don’t know many cars that do less than 2.5-3 times that amount, and constantly regening down means you probably get a good quarter of that back

My battery is pretty modest… 58 kWh usable, and in the warm months that’s about 4 1/2 days going round-trip between where I live to Amsterdam. Maybe 60 km round-trip. In the winter take off a day. I do not get the charge at home as I am in the apartment as well, but it is easy to find a charger at my destination and plug in there. I think you’d be surprised how little it matters about the charging.

[-] amorpheus@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

When you drive back down, the car is going to regenerate the energy back into the battery, you might find that you recover a considerable amount.

On the flip side, going up needs additional energy to begin with, so overall it's bound to be less efficient than its typical mileage.

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[-] JoBo@feddit.uk 23 points 8 months ago

This is such a bone-headed approach. Averages are meaningless. People don't have one car for short trips and a different one for long trips.

You're worried about range but did you know that range is only a problem for 3% of the journeys you make? Just stop visiting people, going on holiday, or travelling for work and it's fine!

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[-] JPSound@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago

This study is brought to you by greedy corporations in an attempt to justify shitty products for large sums of your money.

[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I want to buy electric when my ICE vehicles die in 10-15 years. But if I were in the market for a car today, I wouldn’t purchase electric. The fuck am I supposed to do when I visit my family 200 miles away from home? In the winter, when battery performance sucks, and with a loaded car and 4 passengers?

[-] Nomecks@lemmy.ca 16 points 8 months ago

Stop half way, charge for thirty minutes and smell the roses? We've been programmed to all be type-A drivers, where the journey is just a burden. I drove 600 miles in my EV, made three stops I wouldn't normally make along the way and saw some new places.

[-] DrinkMonkey@lemmy.ca 6 points 8 months ago

Not even. We exclusively roadtrip in an EV now. The whole family gets out to pee, grab snacks, and by the time we are ready, so is the car. As the driver, if it’s mealtime I might eat the harder to manage portion before we leave, and we aren’t rushing, but there was certainly no time to smell roses!

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[-] Kit 8 points 8 months ago

Rent a van or take a train for such trips.

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[-] GlitterInfection@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

So you're saying that the people who don't average longer driving range needs are the ones who bought EVs?

That tracks.

It absolutely doesn't translate to any useful information for everyone else, though.

[-] hikaru755@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago

Also, average drive length is completely irrelevant for this question. People are not worried about their typical daily trips when evaluating a new car's range, they're worried about the occasional longer trip they might have to make and not having to have a separate car or other accommodation for that.

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[-] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago

But that cross-country trip I make every few years! Am I supposed to like borrow a regular car or something?

[-] hark@lemmy.world 11 points 8 months ago

I went with a plug-in hybrid and it feels like the optimal solution at this point in time. I get enough electric range to cover my commute and local driving (i.e. maybe 90%+ of my driving) and gas for when I need more range. I barely burn gasoline and the battery is on the smaller end so it didn't take so many resources to manufacture. The downside is having the complexity of both IC and EV drivetrains within the same vehicle, but so far it's been pretty low maintenance (about 6 years so far).

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[-] guyrocket@kbin.social 10 points 8 months ago

I think owning a commuter car with shorter range and renting anytime you need longer range makes a lot of sense. I don't know why more people don't do it.

[-] Xtallll 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Because it doesn't make sense, if a rental car is $59 a day, and you leave town one day a month, an take 1 week of vacation, that's 18 days a year, or $1062 extra cost per year, over the life of the car that's $10-15k so unless the commuter car is at least $10,000 cheaper it doesn't make sense.

And if you need it more than one day a month the math falls apart really quick, 2 weekends a month is $3k a year or at least $30,000 over the life of the car.

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[-] HansSlonzok@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago

I drive every month over 1100km one way and then few days later back home. It's almost impossible to do it with EV

[-] Technikus5@feddit.de 9 points 8 months ago

But that makes you:

1.) not an average motorist, in no country 2.) not really the target group for current EVs

There will never be a perfect solution for everyone, but that doesn't mean that most people couldn't just switch to an EV without any problems at all

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[-] yesmeisyes@sopuli.xyz 5 points 8 months ago

We drove 4260km last september with a tesla model 3 standard range in 7 days. Mostly used superchargers and the car decided most of the charging stops. We had a small child with us so the car was always charged up faster than we were ready to continue the journey. We also slept in the car for 5 nights of the 6 nights.

So yeah at least in the fennoscandia area there is absolutely no point for most people to have a huge battery because charging stations are everywhere.

The car was also a joy to drive especially on the narrow and twisty Norwegian roads.

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this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2024

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