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

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by MicroWave to c/evs

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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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[–] [email protected] 61 points 9 months ago (8 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

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.

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[–] FireRetardant 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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 9 points 9 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (8 children)

US transit that could efficiently take you to every city you may need to go to in the US would be absolutely insane to try and pull off. It's great for countries the size of one or two of our states, but try to imagine what a transit network to get you from Clarksville Iowa to Clinton Missouri would actually look like. It would need to be insane.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] AA5B 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I would have seriously considered this when I was married. That’s a perfect choice for a two car family. I already had the smaller, more efficient, cheaper car for my commute, and splurged on the other car so the whole family would be comfortable on trips. Same thing.

Of course now that it’s just me, and only one car, that car has to cover almost all of my use cases.

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[–] dragontamer 27 points 9 months ago (1 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).

[–] Contestant 8 points 9 months ago (10 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%

[–] dragontamer 7 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

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 9 points 9 months ago (17 children)

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

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[–] RubberElectrons 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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 6 points 9 months ago (45 children)

What do you mean with batteries will fail?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 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.

[–] phoneymouse 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yeah. Average trips most days amounts to not needing much.

But that's just most days. To be a replacement for a vehicle it has to also handle the rest of the days, and if it can't, that means you'll have to have two vehicles instead of just one, and one of them will have to be an overpriced 1,100 pound giant battery, or an ice vehicle.

In other words, saving the planet with ev's means you'll have to own more vehicles.

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[–] Mango 18 points 9 months ago

OP: Your car should only get you to work and back because what else are you good for?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (5 children)

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 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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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[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer 12 points 9 months ago

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

[–] hark 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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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[–] eran_morad 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (9 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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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[–] JPSound 9 points 9 months ago

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

[–] GlitterInfection 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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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[–] HansSlonzok 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 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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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

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