How Many Miles Are Enough To Kill Electric-Car Range Anxiety?
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Range Anxiety
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Range anxiety, or the fear that an electric car will run out of charge before you reach your destination. is a real and present fear for many first-time electric car drivers and buyers.
Even though research clearly shows that present electric cars can satisfy the requirements of 95 percent of all trips made in the U.S., many car buyers say electric cars need to travel further per charge before they’ll consider buying one.
Of course, not everyone who thinks electric cars need to travel further per charge actually needs the extra range, but how many miles are enough to kill electric car range anxiety for good?
120 miles
At the recent Plug-In 2012 conference in San Antonio, many experts there admitted that a target range of 120 miles per charge would be more than enough to eliminate range anxiety in most drivers.
At highway speeds, that equates to around two hours of driving, more than enough to cover even the most extreme of daily commutes without requiring a mid-day charge.
With direct-current fast charging technology, a battery pack that large could easily be recharged in under an hour at a rest stop, theoretically making a 240-mile trip easily possible in one morning.
While that’s still a little short for the most intrepid of long-distance drivers, a 240-mile trip in five hours is about the limit of most what most drivers -- especially with young children or pets -- can handle.
Within reasonable costs
Current electric cars, like the 2012 Nissan Leaf, manage an EPA-rated 73 miles per charge.
With battery technology improving, building an electric car with a range of 120 miles per charge within the next few years seems technologically feasible.
More importantly, with electric car battery prices already dropping faster than analysts previously predicted they would, a larger capacity battery pack capable of 120 miles of range per charge is much more likely than it was even two years ago.
Will 120 miles be enough?
Talk to most current electric car drivers, and they’ll tell you that their car’s range per charge is more than adequate for everyday driving.
In fact, some advocates joke that the range of their electric car is ‘always enough’, because they modify their driving styles to match the type of trip they are making.
However, there’s a risk that, like computer hard drives, the more you have, the more you want.
As of yet, most electric cars cannot compete with most gasoline cars on range. The only one that can -- the 2012 Tesla Model S -- is prohibitively expensive for most Americans.
More range, or something else?
Do electric cars need longer ranges, or do car buyers need to be shown how electric cars already satisfy most of their driving needs?
Are more rapid direct current charging solutions needed instead of expensive, heavy, large capacity battery packs?
Or should automakers follow the lead of Tesla Motors, Mitsubishi, and Coda automotive, by offering a range of battery packs to consumers when they buy an electric car?
Let us know your thoughts in the Comments below.
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Have an opinion?
I think it is a short list.
I think that people will be convinced in several ways: seeing enough EV out on the roads every day, and talking to their friends and family and neighbors, and probably ~200 mile range.
I think that car builders need to realize that we can get that sort of range right now -- the car itself has to become more efficient. If the EV1 had the Leaf battery, it would go about 200 miles. The SIM-LEI / SIM-WIL cars are coming soon (hopefully) and they have 200+ mile ranges. The A2 with the Kolibri battery went 375+ miles.
Neil
No one here can say that someone who has to drive 75 miles in a leaf in the dead of winter will feel comfortable.
I am single and wouldn't have another car for long trips so if I were to invest in an electric car it would have to be a long range battery. I have no other choice and a long range battery that goes far in harsh conditions, at faster speeds than 55, and with heat or a/c it a must.
That's just me though.
But a fast charging battery would REQUIRE a more complex cooling system that (all Japanese designs are lacking) would require liquid cooling (all American designs have it).
http://www.toshiba.com/ind/data/tag_files/SCiB_Brochure_5383.pdf
http://gas2.org/2010/05/05/report-nissan-leafs-battery-costs-a-staggeringly-cheap-375kwh-to-produce/
Not quite the same as $700/KWH which was dropped by a manufacturer that isn't really interested in doing EVs where Nissan obviously is.
I doubt the cost added by BMS and cooling is so dramatic as Li suggests. Also BMS grows with pack size so isn't fixed overhead.
Fast chargers are electronic devices built with today's technology. It's not like we're waiting for a breakthrough, we already have the tech and it is mostly bog standard power electronics.
You'd probably need about 10,000 of them to get enough coverage to enable people to criss-cross the USA in their EV's. At a cost of $ 10,000 a piece, the total bill would be $100 million. I fail to see the problem for a 15 trillion dollar economy.
Moving the next generations of battery technology out of the lab and onto the street is the frustratingly slow process that will rather take decades instead of years.
The EVs are here already. They are just expensive. The fast charging network is non-exist...
And you seem to think that you can only place them at petrol stations. They can be placed anywhere, so no grid modifications are necessary. And even if a gas station needs to reinforce it's grid connection at some point into the future to add more chargers, that is hardly rocket science, is it?
Getting national coverage with fast chargers is easily accomplished before 2020.
When it come to range anxiety - I don't want to have to think about it at all 99% of the time I.E. I have more that twice the number of mile available than what I'm likely to need. 200 miles seems like a good number.
What I really want is a 200 mile range in addition to a very small, wimpy, light weight, perhaps inefficient, range extender that can barely push me down the freeway at 55 MPH - shoud I ever mess up. Then I would never have range anxiety!
To start with, you should not apply ICE thinking to an EV. ICE thinking is: drive 'till empty, then fill up.
The normal way of operating an EV is to drive it during the day and plug it in when you get home. So you start every day with a full battery. At a 120 mile range, most people would be able to complete 350 days per year without ever needing a fast charge. On the remaining days they would need to do some fast charges. Add up all the time and even with 30 minute fast charges you would save time with an EV.
If I do long trips, my pauses for eating, stretching legs, attending other biological needs tend to be 10-20 minutes. So if they could halve the fast charge times to ~15 minutes, that would suffice. 5 minutes seems to be more in the "wouldn't it be nice" zone.
To really alleviate range anxiety for even the most suborn EV diehard, you'll either need 500 miles or for DC chargers to become as ubiquitous as gas stations. For people that live in the midwest its entirely possible to drive 300+ miles without going through a city or hitting an interstate.
2/3 of Volt miles are pure electric; which is interesting given the Volt's "battery only" range of 35-40 miles. From VoltStats.net ~25% of Volt drivers manage to drive 90% electric miles (with >50% of drivers accumulating >80% electric miles). What% with 3x range?
A statement was made today by Renault and LG Chem on their development of next-generation of battery technology. Sounds like we'll see some changes in battery production between 2015 & 2017.
http://media.renault.com/global/en-gb/renaultgroup/Media/PressRelease.aspx?mediaid=33184
Wondering how manufactures will featurize battery packaging. Will they offer us today's 20 - 30 kWh at cheaper prices, or will they offer 40+ kWh at todays prices with larger options?
I worry a bit on energy density, though. That is moving to 2-3 times the denisty of today's Li-Poly batteries. Without safety precautions, we don't want to increase the volatility of packs to get this benefit. Today, all the EVs have safe batteries - and they get safer as you move to lower energy-density cells (A123, LiFEPO4 and Li-Ti). Going the other way - what will we get?
People that require a higher mile range would be better served by a range-extended model such as the Volt or C-Max Energi.
Few weeks ago, over 100,000 customers lost power in the mid-atlantic area (MD, PA and VA) for over 3 days after a thunderstorm. If you have an EV as your sole transportation, where would you charge your EV in those days? Take days off from work? Sure, it would be okay if you had a full charge (300+ miles). But what if you are running close to low and you were home charging, the power was knocked out at night and you can't go to work for 3 days?
That is the problem with EVs...
link: http://www.nissan-global.com/EN/NEWS/2012/_STORY/120530-01-e.html
However we have 10 KW of solar panels on our porch roof. Right now the system is not grid independent. It needs battery backup and a small propane generator and some changes in how it is hooked up to keep working if the grid goes down. But it could be grid independent and we could charge our EV during the day.
I have noticed, through several power outages, that the days following a hurricane are generally quite sunny. Same with days following heavy winter snow storms.
Ah, yes Al Bunzel explained it before I see as well
We have got to step beyond the old paradigms of depending in the power companys and look to ourselves for energy independence.
If you are going to the shopping mall for the A/C then plug in at the shopping mall. Almost all shopping malls are starting to add chargers too.
In the future when it becomes an option, after charging up at work or the mall you can then come home and plug in the house and have power at home for the night making sure you leave enough power to drive back to work or the mall the next day.
Like others have said. If there is NO power anywhere then your ICE can not get refueled either. Pumps are electric.
lack of range is never gonna be what keeps the ev industry down.
PRICE is the only real deterrent today.
Ever heard of ZAP?
so yes, lack of range is never gonna be what keeps the ev industry down.
Electric car can't do that. That is reality and its limitation.
Unless we go with "battery swap"...
There are places out in the big empty part of the US which will probably not be EV capable for a long time but a hybrid will do the job just fine.
Other mileage information just now coming in is similar. Range anxiety hundreds of thousands (or more) of miles of electric driving has so far been mostly unfounded.
EVsRock!
http://www.evsroll.com
as you stated, unfounded.
i was a highly paid professional systems analyst. knowing how systems work, and what it takes to get them to work comes second nature to me.
the range we have today more than suffices to bring the ice cars to their knees.
price is our ONLY deterrent.
you might counter with "but there are some people who wont buy an ev today, because of its range".
and you would be absolutely correct.
and then i will repeat to you that "price is the ONLY deterrent".
now the person who fully appreciates what i am saying is the person i will hire as a systems analyst.
I have used only 6.1 Gallon of gas in my Volt for 1975 miles. In my case, my EV percentage is even better than 2/3. But in those 4 times that I needed gas, Leaf wouldn't get me home. Please don't tell me to "rent" a car... Car rental counters don't open at night and I can't exactly plan all my trips days ahead...
Does not compute.
Perhaps you, I, and others can eventually persuade him that great EVs are here now and getting much better in a quicker time frame then he seems to think. Next gen Leaf for Xiaolong Li???? :)
I fully support Tesla and has defended Tesla in just about every comment section everywhere. In my view, Tesla is as close as an EV gets. (except for its price. Lacking of charging infrastructure is NOT Tesla's fault).
Well, that is the issue. In order to make EV popular so most consumer will buy (instead of just few segment of the market), it will have to become more worry free and practical.
I already said in the other comment section related to Nissan Leaf that if Nissan comes with a better battery with capacity warranty, better cooling system, 6.6KW charger and hopefully an universal EVSE for the same price, you will see me driving a Leaf as well...
obviously your needs are such that you won't be an early adopter.
but we all will own one, eventually.
1) A real 100 mile range would do it. Not the 73 that the Leaf has.
2) A real Fast Charging infrastructure. Dallas and Houston already have a city wide fast charging infrastructure, when is the rest of the nation going to catch up with the progressives in Dallas and Houston? ;-) https://www.evgonetwork.com/eVgo_Charging_Stations/
price is the only thing holding back sales.
and that is the result from 2 important reasons.
1) cost of battery
2) lack of supply. gm, ford, and toyota are all doing what they can do delay things. none of them have or plan to have evs that they actually want to sell.
this lack of supply certainly plays a role in keeping the price of an ev high.
gm is tied to big oil. i dont know about ford and toyota.
tesla and coda are too small to have much effect by themselves. nissan is the only major player who actually wants to sell evs now.
the snowball is gonna take longer to make it down the mountain. and i dont think theother players will make changes until absolutely forced to do so.
i think an ev that was cheaper in price than an ice, but could only go 50 miles would be a huge seller. it would fit the needs for over 50% of the vehicles on the road today.
many, many, MANY people can get by with a vehicle that only goes 50 miles on a charge. many households already have multiple vehicles.
some are used for school transportation, work transportation, running errands, going shopping, etc. few families have a need for more than one long-range vehicle.
take with a grain of salt about "what people wont do". someone with even the remotest understanding of the human equation knows that "what people wont do" turns into "what people are doing" faster than we change underwear.
the more evs on the road, the more that people realize how useful they are.
wilma tells betty how she uses her ev to run errands in bedrock. soon betty (who would never buy an ev that could not go 250 miles on a charge) buys one to do her errands.
all this because of word of mouth from someone known to someone else.
this is not rocket science. it merely takes an inkling of the human equation, along with some real life experience.
http://www.hybridcars.com/news/ge-wattstation-vindicated-nissan-accepts-blame-leaf-charging-problems-49171.html
if gm got off their big oil behinds and actually did something constructive, i would be okay with them - even if their vehicles had problems.
the point is - one can not have a problem with their ev, until they actually have an ev.
gm, ford, and toyota (3 of the biggest) are putting some major delays in the ev system by refusing to join in.
and if they did, perhaps nissan would be even more motivated to fix their problems.
so please gm, ford, and toyota - join in the ev community and start producing evs like you want to sell them.
at this point, ONLY NISSAN has done so. so they get 100% of the big company credit.
coda and tesla have joined in with their cars, even if they are just small fish.
i highly suspect that nissan will update their battery system in the future for better temperature management.
and i also suspect that current owners who have problems will be compensated in one way or another.
typo above - correct : so we don't thiNK about the range at all.
Electric technology as it is is probably just fine if your frame of reference is, say, the eastern seaboard megalopolis. But America is a big place. If I can't drive 400 miles, charge up fully in under 5 minutes, and then drive another 400 miles, then electric cars simply aren't ready.
there are all sorts of people commenting on how they wont buy one until it does such and such.
most of this is just talk. but for all those for which it is actually true, it does not matter.
over 50% of the vehicles today could be replaced by an ev that gets just 50 miles per charge. people would buy them like hotcakes, if the price was cheaper than an ice.
in every other aspect, evs are already better than ices. if they were cheaper as well, then 50-mile range cars could and would replace half the vehicles owned today.
heck, and then look at europe. you go 50 miles and you are in another country.
once again, PRICE IS THE ONLY DETERRENT.
if prices were cheaper, they would be sold like hotcakes. and in the interim, our batteries would be making advances.
once we got fully entrenched in the ev-cycle, we might need to start catering to more special needs, like a long-range vehicle, etc.
but it would be a complete wasted effort to do so, now. nothing else matters until the prices are reduced enough to appeal to average joe.
it is about as simple as the nose on our faces.
i would be absolutely thrilled to see a 50-mile range ev that was priced at 12-15 thousand. it would be like the bug of the 60s, when every 4th car on the road was a vw bug.
so with battery improvements that are lighter and more efficient, it will be easier and cheaper for consumers to choose how many battery packs they want in their vehicle.
and something that can be changed even after the vehicle is purchased, should they desire to add battery range in the future.
therefore you have not seen the number of articles written about range, nor have you seen the number of responses.
what that tells me is that people still dont get it.
and while this confusion continues to exist, i will continue to remind people that range has no importance today.
PRICE IS THE ONLY DETERRENT.
does that answer your question ?
my vehicle went out on me a little over 2 years ago. i had hoped it would last long enough for me to transition directly into an ev.
but the ev industry wasnt there yet, and the prices are too high.
i found an excellent used vehicle for $8,000 out the door. i only drive about 5,000 miles in a year. so this vehicle will probably last me a long time.
and while it does a good job, i will keep it. i dont prefer to change vehicles once i am used to the one that i am driving.
range is a real non-issue for me. but that is true of a lot of people. and this large group would be where the early adopters came, if prices were equal.
With a drop in battery prices and increase in oil prices, as well as an increase in Level 2 and DC EVSE public chargers, adoption will surely rise and anxiety will turn into a comfortable driving experience.
The benchmarks have been set, the only direction to go is better mileage, more chargers, and less anxiety.
200/20 = 200 mile EV range with a 20 min full charge time
1) 200+ miles
Enough for 90%+ Americans. Some of the rare, long distance scenarios/wants commenters wrote above of course won't be satisfied. But that's fine. 200 miles will allow the speedster to drive fast for a 150 mile commute and for only one stop on the way to Vegas or San Diego from LA.
2) 20 min charge time
High capacity public charge time for EVs need to be more near fossil fuel refill times. EVs will likely still take many hours to charge at 240V no matter the range but that's fine cause they'll be at home at night usually
I think many commenters are living in a fantasy land if they think EV prices are going to come down significantly let alone at all. Just the mere facts of inflation and ever vanishing financial incentives will very likely keep US EVs above the $30K mark. But that's OK. Other incentives like carpool lane access, free parking, longer warranties on the drivetrain, as well as the obvious much lower costs of fuel n maintenance will eventually persuade more Americans to obtain EVs.
With all that said, I hope that a 200+ mile range EV for under $40K happens with the next few years. The 20 min public charge time, also widely available, will likely take longer. Hopefully both will be widely available, affordable, and in many EV models NLT 2020.
I already drove from St Louis to Chicago in my ICE but used 300WPM as a bench mark to see if my 265 (EPA 85KW Tesla S) would make the distance. It would not by the way. I stopped at EVERY charger along the way, to the frustration of my wife, and ALL of them were 208volt 30amp. That would take HOURS to charge up enough to make Chicago. NO fast chargers.
The East and West coast EV drivers should remember that there are people living in the middle of the country. I have to drive 80 miles just to spend 6 hours canoeing down a river then drive home. There are no 50amp RV chargers at canoe rental places, they are at the campgrounds...30 min walk.
I am an EV enthusiast and I am buying an EV. I want EVs to be successful so I listen to the needs of those who have good reasons for not wanting one.
Many people drive pickup trucks because they can not get up their driveway in the rain without 4 wheel drive. EVs can do this... however those drivers drive 2 hours to work each day and there are NO fast chargers on construction sights... period. there never will be. There is no infrastructure at a construction sight, it is being built.
Think BIG picture here folks. These guys spend a lot on those trucks 60+k.
So why did he get a gas-electric hybrid for a short commute while someone like me with a longish commute gets a pure "range anxiety" electric? Because he takes long trips and I don't! (My Ford is a second car, purely for commuting purposes!)
In short? Different strokes for different folks, people!!
BUT... We DO NEED to drive (sorry) the tech that gets people off of gas-powered cars. Because if we boycott Chick-fil-A for its supposedly anti-gay stance, shouldn't we be boycotting gas from OPEC countries that KILL gays??
I own a 2012 imiev and I'm in the 40 miles per day club. No anxiety here, winter or summer. I plug-in at work 110V and at home 240V.
Get creative and make it work. Some call it anxiety, I call it fun (challenge)!
Have an opinion?Join the conversation!