Why I Don't Have Range Anxiety

[JoeS]

I'm reviving this thread in order to emphasize a study that I refer to all the time when citing Americans' "typical" driving patterns.

Here are the highlights: http://www.solarjourneyusa.com/EVdistanceAnalysis.php

Here's the full study: http://www.solarjourneyusa.com/HowFarWeDrive_v1.3.pdf

I'm still attempting to refine my response to the question "How far can I go in one of these?". Among the dozens of answers (I try to tailor my response to the demeanor of the questioner) are:

"Over 200 miles a day"
"Anywhere between 50-100 miles on one charge"
"EPA says 62 miles on one charge"
"Usually 80 miles on one charge, if I needed to"
"How far can you go in your ICE?" (almost no one knows)
"How far do you drive in a typical day, let's see if this would work for you?" (most non-commuting people are clueless)
"How many cars are there in your household?" (and then I show them that one being an EV would work for them)
"Before I answer that, how often and how far do you want to drive over 80mph?" (lets them know our iMiEV is not a golf car)

The concept of "opportunity charging" as a range-extender has somehow not penetrated, with an ongoing belief that one needs to run the EV to empty and only then charge.

I point out real-life examples for our region: "drive 50 miles to San Francisco and then plug in and do your shopping/business/lunch and she's fully charged when you're ready to come home."

As an aside, it's amazing how many people think you have to go to a special charging station or else have a very expensive home installation. Cell-phone charging analogy works well, as does pointing out the convenience of home charging and that I normally use a conventional 120vac outlet.

Educating the populace is perhaps the most notable need in order for EVs to even be considered as viable transportation.

[JoeS]

Reviving this old thread. I re-read what I had written just a few months after getting my first i-MiEV four years ago, and little has changed.

Having started off focusing on hypermiling, I've now reverted to my old carefree leadfootin' ways - jackrabbit starts at traffic lights to show that the i-MiEV is no slouch, and on the freeway going with the normal flow of speed-limit-exceeding traffic. Range is simply not an issue for the majority of driving we do, which is local and rarely exceeding 40 miles/roundtrip. My solar-generated electricity is 'free' (fully amortized), so kWh cost is not an issue.

For longer destination trips I've come to heavily rely on the DTG feature of my GPS, and invariably use it. The large numeric Distance to Go on the instrument panel screen of my older Garmin 200- 300- series GPS (shown upper-right in the photo below) is a great pacifier as long as the number shown is under RR. The beauty of all this is if the numbers are close then it's simply a matter of employing a few hypermiling tricks well ahead of time.



Both PlugShare and ChargePoint provide real-time charging station availability status. I especially like PlugShare's station comments section. Not only does this enter into trip planning, but the real-time status also allows us to alter course during a longer trip.

A little off-topic, I'll say that what has changed in the intervening years is that the cellphone charging analogy now sinks in: when I was recently being hassled by a particularly belligerent acquaintance regarding having to wait for the car to charge up, I finally retorted "I didn't realize you like to stand there watching your cellphone charge!" - people relate to plugging in their cellphone at night.

Edit: Added "My solar-generated electricity is 'free'..."

[BarryP]

Now when people ask “what’s the range”, I answer with “Good question! We wondered that too since we drive 1000miles/month! And our electric bill has gone up $12/month” That get’s their attention. And then they start doing their math. I help out “Like most people here we drive about 30-35 miles/day. In the summer we get a comfortable 72 miles per charge. And that drops to 52 miles/charge in the winter. So we’re easily covered all year”

My wife (she drives it 90% of the time) got rid of her range anxiety by hitting the turtle on our first week of ownership. Somehow she learned fast to charge it every night. And as Joe pointed out on the first post “fueling at home is priceless”
-Barry

[BenBrown]

I was stunned to find out a faculty member at one of the colleges I did a ev presentation at, went out and purchased an i3/rex. She was so pleased with the car after several weeks and several training lessons at the dealership. She decided she was going to try something she had seen, but didn't understand, on her own. Charge her car! She finally had to ask the college service garage how to do it (seeing how they were charging a staff car.)

They had sold her the car on the fact she'd never be stranded with gasoline back up, capitalizing on range anxiety. I have to believe the only time she ever charged before that was when someone else did it for her at the dealership!!! My friend at the garage who had converted his Saturn Vue to electric offered to show her how to charge her car. This is how much the general public understands ev's in my community... Sad.

[PV1]

I guess that speaks well to the capabilities of the i3's range extender .

I can't remember if I've chipped in on this thread (admittedly, haven't read the previous pages), but I don't have range anxiety because:

1. I know exactly how far I'm driving
2. With Plugshare, I know where I can charge. Things are grown out enough in my area that most trips are covered by at least 2 charging locations.
3. I leave myself a cushion in most instances (ie. efficient driving on the outbound leg to save charge for the return trip if I can't charge).
4. I can (almost) always slow down or find a different route if RR gets too close to my remaining distance.
5. With CaniOn, I can now see how much turtle range I have left (cell voltages and SoC).
6. I hit Turtle on day 4 of ownership on a whim trip to get pizza. Drove 3 miles with it on at 40 MPH. Made it without issue. The thing that had me worried wasn't the fact I was low on charge, I didn't have the cord with me .

Of course, everybody asks how far the car goes on one charge. My response is 60-70 miles (sometimes I throw in the 62-mile EPA rating). Then I get the "What do you do when you run out of charge?" Well, first off, I haven't run out of charge in 3 years and 30,000 miles of driving, and second, what does an ICE driver do when he/she runs out of gas? Beside the point, who purposely runs their vehicle out of fuel?

[freqflyer]

I still have some range anxiety when driving up to San Francisco is that I must be able to charge in order to get back. On a couple occasions plugshare showed availability of spots only to find them full (cars there not charging) when I arrived. fortunately I was able to find a space in a different parking lot, but still concerning. I don't want to being a suitcase each time in case I need to stay at a hotel.

[JoeS]

Had an email from freqflyer recently - he bought a BoltEV!

Just a short update to this thread, since it originated five years ago.

First off, I no longer hear the concern that the battery should be fully discharged before being recharged - we can thank the modern smartphone experience for that.

Having DCQC rather than only L1/L2 puts a different spin on answering the usual question of "how far can you go?". Among my I answers I now often say "over 300 miles in a day - how often do you drive down to Los Angeles?"

Another answer I often employ is to point out that a typical automobile spends over 22 hours/day parked, so why not plug it in while it's just sitting there?

Education of a clueless populace continues...

[rkarl89203]

True about the misconceptions of the general public.
On a different sites' forum I was asked about my upcoming route 66 trip."How far on a charge?"
I said 70 miles, plus or minus 10 more or less, depending on driving style.
Their reply was a condescending "oh. In the old days a 70 miles trip would have been a big accomplishment.."
I of course had to educate them on the concept of opportunity charging.
Sheesh. If you stop for more than 1/2 hour, find a plug.
So simple.