Fear Mongering About Range Anxiety Has To Stop — CT Governor Calls Out EV Opponents::Several state governors are fighting fear mongering as they attempt to reduce transportation emissions in their states.
I’ve had an EV for 9 months now and I’ve actually experienced far less range anxiety with my EV than with my previous ICEs. This is due to the fact that because I can charge overnight in my garage I almost never leave home without a full battery. Versus before with my ICEs where I’d often be driving across town on fumes because I’d forgotten to fuel up the night before.
I drive in the city/urban areas the vast majority of the time so 200+ miles of range is plenty for my day-to-day needs. I’ve honestly never run into a situation where I’ve been worried about running out of juice; I rarely even get below 50%.
As for longer drives, I’ve done several 600+ mile road trips without issue. Sure, charging takes a bit longer than fueling up at a gas station but the opportunity to stretch my legs, rest in the car, or get a bite to eat does wonders for reducing road fatigue. As for finding charging stations, I’d recommend planning your route beforehand but the charging network is dense enough in my region to where I can usually choose to skip a station if it’s too busy and try the next one.
This has been my experience too, I’ve put 90k on my EV in the past 2 years. I’ve never experienced range anxiety, and I live in Australia which is a similar size to USA and we do regular road road trips of 5 plus hours.
Road trips in EVs are actully more chill because the car informs you where and when to charg and you never wait more than 30 mins to complete a charge, which frankly is how long you should be resting between 3 hour driving stints anyway. Evs actually discourage driver fatigue which has to be a plus no one mentions too.
Every single range anxiety issue I’ve read about has been from a person who almost certainly doesn’t own, and hasn’t driven an EV or has some weird preserve petrol agenda.
Where I used to live and work near Hartford range anxiety wouldn’t be an issue. Where I now live and work in Oklahoma it still is an extremely big issue. A friend in CO with an EV wanted to come visit but couldn’t make the drive in one day due to charging options. Hell, if I want to go on a 4 hour drive to Amarillo I need to carefully plan my fuel stops because there’s hundred mile stretches where I can’t even fill up my Ford Focus, let alone charge a Tesla. Range anxiety is a legitimate concern for much of the country.
For much of the country in terms of land maybe, but not in terms of people. Most people live in or near high population areas where using an EV is fine. The person in question saying that fear mongering needs to stop was the governor of Connecticut. Connecticut is not Oklahoma. There is zero reason to fear monger range anxiety in Connecticut.
But even for people in places like Oklahoma, there’s a couple things you should consider. First is, don’t rush out and buy an EV just because you feel like you’re being told to. Only buy an EV once your existing vehicle is no longer viable. Buying a new car when your old one still works is not very green. But definitely consider an EV when the time comes, even if you have range anxiety. Why? For one, the money you will save on gas can allow you to rent a gas car for those long trips you need to make and then you don’t have to put those extra miles on your own car. Remember, tires are expensive and wear down with miles driven. Or, with the money saved from gas, you could take a bus, a train, or possibly even an airplane. Or if you really don’t want to do any of that, you could probably find a buddy who still has a gas car and trade for the week. Just because you buy an electric vehicle, doesn’t mean you are now locked out of ever using a different kind of transportation. But number 2? Over the coming years, EV infrastructure will be constantly increasing. Yeah, some states are being regressive at the moment, but they will turn around. So even in places were range anxiety is legitimate, it won’t be a problem for much longer, except in those edge cases where even a gas car currently has issues, but since even a gas car has issues, it doesn’t make a difference. And third? There are so many companies working on battery tech right now, it’s crazy. Some are working on higher energy density so we can get longer range, others are working on better materials so we can stop using unethically acquired minerals, some are working on making batteries that function better in the cold. None of this helps the car you buy today, but it will help the car you buy in 5 years.
There’s a reason I specifically opened with how in CT it isn’t an issue before explaining that in the majority of the country (notice I said country vs the population) it still is. Like the CT governor you still seem to not quite grasp the reality of what it is like to live somewhere other than a built up urban area. There are no buses here, there are no trains here. If I wanted to rent a gas car, I need to drive 120 miles to the city because there isn’t a rental option in my town (which actually qualifies as a “city”. It’s an hour drive to the nearest movie theater. While NYC alone has more people than the entire state of OK, there are still millions of people living here that simply can’t get by with an EV for day to day lives, let alone if they want to make a trip by any transportation method. Add in the fact that even with current developments and proposals battery energy density is a hard limit of physics and chemistry, unless a completely new method of energy storage is invented it will always be 1/100th of what gasoline has meaning EVs will continue to be absurdly overweight. Don’t worry, I’m not in a rush to sell any of my ICE vehicles, at this point I might literally hold onto them forever because there isn’t a single car being made new right now that I like better than anything I currently own.
some states like Tennessee have removed EV infrastructure the charging stations
how is range not an issue
In your example it sounds more like Tennessee is the issue, not range anxiety. If they were to remove all gasoline infrastructure suddenly ICE range anxiety would be a major issue? No, it is the people removing the infrastructure.
From what I read online, Tennessee anxiety ought to be much more widespread than it seems to be.
I drove half way across the country and back last summer in my EV and it was great, except for a couple of the stops being in shady locations.
EV rest stops still have a little ways to go to becoming more convenient, but there is no range issue.
Yup, we did 2 x 5200+ mile round trips this year with zero issues. I think the problem is that people don’t like the fact that you actually have to think a tiny bit and plan a tiny bit sometimes instead of just jumping in the car and going until it yells at you to stop and get gas. People in this country, especially the anti-ev crowd, really dislike having to think for themselves.
There’s no fear mongering about it! I’m anxious about the range of an electric car and not having a quick and convenient way to refuel if I near empty.
Honestly, track how far you normally drive and you’ll see you don’t go that far. My PHEV has a paltry 26 mile range and we use electric only 90% of the time. An EV with 200+ miles wouldn’t be an issue unless you travel for work.
People really like to overestimate how much range they actually need on a daily basis.
I drive maybe 200 miles a week. Almost all EVs could easily get that range in spring/fall. And even in the worst of winter as long as I have 120 volts to keep the battery warm I’ll make it through the week no problem.
Honestly big fast charger networks aren’t the biggest hurdle. We need basic 120v or 240v outlets ran to every apartment/town homes parking spot. With essentially a trickle from 120v you’ll be fine for 90% of your driving needs.
I love it when ev drivers act like the rest of us are just fucking stupid.
Even when you plan ahead on a road trip there’s a pretty high chance half the chargers are down and there’s a queue of cars waiting. Made it to the next stop on my last trip with 4 miles to spare. That was a nerve-wracking drive.
Now I gotta check plug share to see recent reviews on stations and decide whether or not to take my ev.
I’ve owned an electric since 2013, never run into a down charging station. Early on, I’d run into single chargers that were occupied, but that’s it.
Not saying it’s not possible to have a broken station, just never hit it. But I, like most people, charge at home, 95% of the time.
I’m still new to EVs but with the convenience of charging from home, my battery is just never low. Think of it like charging your phone: start every morning with a full charge and you just don’t have to worry about it
(Actually have mine set to stop charging at 80% and I don’t drive much at the moment so don’t plug-in every night)
Sounds like you are fear mongering.
From TFA:
While 76% of future EV owners worry about range, nearly 59% of current EV drivers report none.
So 41% of EV drivers worry about it? That’s an issue! I’m guessing only 5-10% of ice drivers every worry about running out of gas.
How about trains? Americans are too used to their cars for those long-range trips. Make them unnecessary. Build out the infrastructure. Have your car for local trips, switch to trains for anything else.
The Biden administration is working on improving train infrastructure but if you look at the map of what they’re adding, it’s limited to a very small section of the country. I mean, it’s like cross country but it’s such a massive country that it’s still super limited.
funny how biden said rail workers are not allowed to protest and ask for higher wages and better worker rights in general then bam comes out with expanding train infrastructure
someone is definitely looking out for his actual constituents
Corporations are people too. Please think of the bottom line and its feelings would ya
Here’s the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
Corporate personhood or juridical personality is the legal notion that a juridical person such as a corporation, separately from its associated human beings (like owners, managers, or employees), has at least some of the legal rights and responsibilities enjoyed by natural persons. In most countries, a corporation has the same rights as a natural person to hold property, enter into contracts, and to sue or be sued. Granting non-human entities personhood is a Western concept applied to corporations.
Ideally I’d like trains for local trips and high speed rail for longer distances. I’d prefer to not own or use a car at all but most cities would have to be torn down and rebuilt to achieve this.
Same, but tearing down and rebuilding cities is a feature, not a bug. Well, except for the carbon emissions involved in doing that.
but most cities would have to be torn down and rebuilt to achieve this.
We did it once, we can do it again!
I don’t disagree but I also don’t think it will be something that can be done very quickly. While switching propulsion systems in cars can be fine till the time that they are not needed.
The irony of using a Bolt EV in the accompanying photograph. A car with some of the slowest DC fast charging, and a battery that’s been reduced to 80% capacity for three years by the company who makes it.
It’s actually a great example.
Bolt has about 250 mile range and it’s great for everything not too far, and even ok for infrequent road trips.
And your claim about 80% reduction is false and misleading.
Why do you hate EV’s?
I own a fucking Bolt. I don’t hate EVs. It’s difficult to get the advertised range when GM insists on binding it with a software update that prevents charging above 80% as a workaround while they are still sorting out their battery recall years later.
https://electrek.co/2023/06/14/bolt-battery-recall-diagnostics/
That’s a precationary limit because of a pending recall. The batteries aren’t degraded to 80%.
You can’t use it above 80%, the reason you can’t doesn’t make a difference for your ability to drive the car.
Right and for newer vehicles there is a couple of 2020 Bolts and a 2022 Bolt EUV for low $20k or under in my area. If I travel a little bit away from my area I have found 2017 Bolts for $15k.
As mentioned they’re not great for road tripping because of their slow L3 charge speeds, but perfect for me to use for my commute or local-ish running. It or a EUV will probably be my replacement for my ‘08 Rabbit whenever it goes, but I only put on about 3k miles a year on my car soooo it might be a while. I also need to see if i can put a family of 5 in one (reverse car seat, booster, and older kiddo in the back). I think they’ll do it.
Why aren’t plug in hybrids getting pushed harder?
Because then car companies have to maintain two systems and the complexity increases. I’m very happy with my plug-in hybrid. I’m running 100% electric in my day-to-day driving and on longer trips the amount of gas used varies. If I’m careful then I can go a year without a trip to the gas station. I wish more companies went this route, but they want to keep their profit margins up. I’m just waiting for the flood of cheap EVs that will eventually come in when more and more companies enter the market. Chinese EV companies are looking to enter other markets and this should drive prices down, but legislators are proposing tariffs to keep prices up.
Does the unused gas not cause problems after that long, or is the moving vehicle enough to keep it happy?
I drive a chevy volt which includes measures that protect against that, including burning off gas if it’s been too long. In fact, I could’ve gone more than a year without a trip to the gas station, but the limit for gas to sit in the tank is about a year.
That’s cool, didn’t know they did that. Thanks!
On paper they are the best of both worlds. In practice it is the worst of both worlds. Yes range is no issue but you need to go to gasstations and still need to charge your car most places you go if you want to reap the benefits. I honestly prefer non plugin hybrids to plugin hybrids in this regard. But i much rather bite the bullet and drive electric, even if i have to stop and charge on roadtrips. The increase in comfort of electric driving is worth the downside of longer traveltime to me.
And that is from a drivers comfort point of view. Maintenance is the same story. Having all the downsides of a combustion engine in a car that could have been an electric car.
You get the benefit of the vast gasoline network but you also get the maintenance of both ICE and electric systems.
Plus carrying around the weight of both the batteries and the ICE with its tank of fuel.
how about evs arnt the fucking solution and build some fucking decent infrastructure
Ehhh. For the range-anxious until charging infra catches up, there can be PHEVs.
I’ve been excited to have my next vehicle be a BEV for a while now, but having rented a Tesla while on vacation in Michigan (where the infra wasn’t exactly good for it) I understand why people might have reservations about jumping in with both feet. Also now that I’ve interacted with the vehicles and got a better idea of Tesla as a company, I won’t be buying one.
For the moment, given my use cases (I periodically have to drive between western WA and central UT) my next vehicle will likely be a PHEV unless there are real breakthroughs in EVs (fuel cells? swappable battery standards?) or charging infra where I need it.
can we just start calling it tardtalk
Range anxiety is basically a myth or at least a real anxiety masquerading as range anxiety. Who hasn’t been out on the boonies somewhere late at night running out of gas and wondering if you were going to make it to a gas station … the real anxiety is refuel anxiety. As soon as universal fast electric charging stations are ubiquitous this “range anxiety” will suddenly disappear. Most ICE cars only have around a 300-400 mile range tops (unless maybe the hybrids) and that is never talked about. It’s not range that is the problem.
Heck 95% of my driving would be more than ok with 50 mile range if I could charge at work and it only took a few minutes to charge. An ultra capacitor car would likely fit this bill.
Well dang … unpopular opinion I guess.
But I stand by what I said. I just want an EV thats cheap with fast & ubiquitous charging. Give me those 3 things and even with crappy range and I’d dump my ICE car like yesterday.
