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.
Hybrids are a bad solution since it won’t address the problem fully
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
There’s no perfection in engineering. Just a series of compromises. Anyone who is an absolutionist is going to have a bad time in engineering, policies, and politics.
Agreed.
Which is why converting 100-million ICE cars to 100-million Hybrids is our best chance for reducing our fossil fuel consumption.
We are Li-ion limited right now, and will continue to be Li-ion limited for the near future. Hybrids are magic technology because not only is Li-ion chemistry available, but also cheaper/easier to manufacture NiMH (Nickle Metal Hydride), which grossly reduces fossil fuel consumption on the order of 30% to 40%. (50mpg vs 30mpg is 40% savings).
You wish to deny the intermediate step just because… of your weird obsessive compulsive desire of perfection? We all know that 100-million EVs is out of the picture, even on the scale of 10 years of progress and production. We’re literally going to run out of Lithium by 2025 and become production constrained.
When the battery tech is ready. Sodium-Batteries are coming as are Silicon-Lithium, both of which will improve our chances. There’s also recycling centers that aren’t functional yet before Li-ion is a truly green solution.
How many EVs do you think can be made in the next 10 years? Now multiply that by 5 to 20 (because PHEVs / Hybrids use 5x to 20x fewer batteries than a pure EV). How much fossil fuel savings do we get from 20x more Hybrids (or 5x more PHEVs) ??
Its an intermediate step, but economically speaking its a necessary economic step because its more efficient to transition from ICE -> Hybrid/PHEV -> EV, than to not do so. Especially given the economic realities of spinning up Li-ion production.
