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 was among those worrying about range until I spent 5 minutes thinking about what I actually do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
We’d still have my wife’s ICE van, we both work from home, and 99% of the time my work-related travel is local (within 5 miles). My wife’s van can pull the camper for our camping trips, or for our longer drives.
I have no good reason not to get an EV for my next car.
I was among those worrying about range until I spent 5 minutes thinking about what I actually do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.
I was too - that was until this year when I’ve had to do multiple 800km long trips and I’ve found out that mentally I can’t really do longer than 200-250 km without a 20 min break. With that in mind, most of the EVs would be perfectly fine for me.
This is still a problem when there is not enough charging spots for peak days.
In France most people go to summer vacation at the same time, and on those days when all the charging spots are taken and you have to wait 20 minutes for one of the owner to finish his break it’s a real problem.
I would actually consider if you actually need 2 cars at all given your description of the situation. If we’re worried about the environment flat getting rid of a car is a bigger win than an EV.
If a car sits in the driveway 99% of the year, it’s not hurting the environment for 99% of its existence. If they continue to use it as a daily driver, I agree with you. But keeping a second vehicle for situations where it is specifically suited isn’t really that big a problem.
Not driving a car for long periods of time is bad for the car. That means that they would replace it after a few years, and still have two cars, instead of keeping just the one. It takes a lot of resources to build a car, even more so for EVs.
I’ve very seriously considered that. Right now, we could probably go down to one car without issue. We have two reasons why I’d like to maintain a second, though. We have young kids, and we are already starting to run them around to different places at the same time. We’re looking to move soon, and the idea is to move outside of town where we have more room. That would make basically every drive longer, which would increase the likelihood of needing a second vehicle.
Either way, an EV should be fine. Depending on cost, I might stick with a small, used ICE this time, because I don’t need much. But I’m not at that point quite yet, so maybe things will change by the time I’m ready.
Because they are relatively new in the automotive world. I can take my '08 CRV to just about any auto parts store in America and get just about any part I need (or take it to about any third party repair shop with the same results). Good luck doing that with most EVs especially Teslas. Tesla is the most egregious example as they are anti right to repair and have seemed to take a page out of Apple’s book as far as locking down their supply chain for parts.
Hopefully this will get better with time as third party shops have time to acclimate themselves and their technicians to EV architecture, and EV-specific parts become more available. Though the latter I feel is highly dependent on manufacturers not trying to turn EVs into phones in terms of repairability/serviceability.
In the meantime, as an average Joe without a lot of money, I really like the idea of keeping my relatively low cost older ICE vehicles because if shit hits the fan, if I can’t fix it relatively cheaply, there will likely be multiple shops that can without it costing me an arm and a leg and/or taking weeks or months to wait on the manufacturer to supply the parts needed.
Because third party repairs are often unavailable or void the warranty. Cars are becoming a subscription service to dealerships.
Genuine question, not meant to be an insult:
If most of your trips are within 5 miles, why would you drive? It seems excessive when you could just walk, or cycle, etc.
Well, I’m in the midwest US, so winter can be a bit harsh for walking or biking (though not this year thus far). Most of the time I drive, I’m dragging kids somewhere. It’s inconvenient to walk with them.
I have been walking and or biking when it’s just me, and I don’t need to haul much. I’ve lost a lot of weight recently, so I can actually bike to work in the summer and not be a sweaty mess when I arrive, so that’s a nice change.
We are taking about moving outside the city to have more space, which means not driving will become less possible for almost everything. Today I have groceries, dentist, and doctor within half a mile, and I’ve walked or biked to those places many times.
Bottom line, most of the time I’m either dragging kids around or I’m in a rush. Driving is very convenient, and is hard to change.
I’m in the same boat. I make drives that require refueling even if I leave home with a full tank once every other year (Philly to Indianapolis). Even with a very high range EV, that would probably require multiple recharges each way, so that’s not a great use case for EVs, but you know what? That’s what rental cars are for. I’ll happily get an EV for the 99% of driving that I do within three hours of the Philly metro area and rent an ICE car for the at worst annual trip I take that isn’t convenient in an EV.
Of course, this is all theoretical for me because I drive a company car and so don’t have much choice in my vehicle, and I probably won’t have to buy my own car until that job perk goes away.
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.
As a EV owner I don’t worry about range that much but I’m constantly infuriated by the shitty charging experience. Charging at home is great but road trips are a constant pain in the ass. Let’s face it, most people are not interested in switching to EV at all and will find an excuse until ICE cars are banned (I’m looking at you people with two family cars and private garage). You want to convince the people actually thinking about it? Make charging work.
Plenty of people with two family and private garages have EVs, they get level 2 chargers or something like that hooked up for charging at home. You’re right about the charging experience though, it seems to me that too many people have EVs but not enough public garages or outside parking spaces have chargers.
Yeah my thoughts exactly. My comment was downvoted but said something similar. It’s all about charging being too slow, generally incompatible, and there not being enough of them. Once the infrastructure is fixed, acceptance will be much higher. There are so many things to like about EVs. Cheaper maintenance, cheaper operating costs, quieter, less pollution, much simpler design so less likely to break, better handling due to lower center of mass (generally), less consumables (like brakes … thanks regenerative braking), and darnit just plain fun to drive.
I have to disagree, people like you described are not aware of the charging infrastructure app ridden sign up and reliability bullshit. Fixing that isn’t going to make Karen who’s never owned an EV buy one.
Your suggestion will only help people who already own an EV and understand the struggle.
This sign-up pain is real. There should be a global standard that says everyone can use a contactless debit or credit card to pay ALWAYS, and the cost rate is the same as signing up to an account.
EU just passed a law to make chargers accepting credit card mandatory every 50km on main highways. It comes into effect in 2025. It’s a move in good direction but they really have to focus on availability as well. It’s crazy how long a charger can be out of service without anyone doing anything about it. It’s clearly an afterthought for all the companies involved.
I’m saying that Karen will not even consider EV because insert default excuse. People that do consider EVs will investigate the state of the infrastructure a bit and decide to wait. Play store and other pages are full of reviews. Also, anyone riding with me can see it’s state. You don’t have to own an EV to be aware of the issues.
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.
If they were to remove all gasoline infrastructure suddenly ICE range anxiety would be a major issue?
Yes… It would be an issue I you had a ICE car and couldn’t gas up in some states. That would be something you would have to account for. Same goes for not being able to charge an EV. Doesn’t really matter if it’s because some asshole did it for political reasons or not when you’re stranded on the side of the road.
