Are you still whining about your "range anxiety"?

[cometguy]

My range anxiety went away after my first road trip. I drove 270 miles to the middle of nowhere, with no charging at my destination and no fast chargers within 40 miles. It was a complete non-issue, and even racing through a stop I couldn't myself handle all of my typical road trip stop tasks before the car was beyond the SOC required to continue.

To be fair, though, as someone who does a lot of road trips and cares about their health... My stops do tend to be longer than the bare minimum because I like to stretch my legs and have actual fresh food. 15-20 minutes every couple hours is pretty normal for me in my gas vehicles too.

"middle of nowhere"?
try driving US 191 north from Wilcox, AZ, to state route 78 to US 180 in SW New Mexico to NM 12 to US 60 in west-central NM to Socorro, and then on US 380 to Lubbock, TX.... I've done this recently in a PHEV, where gas stations are sometimes 80 miles apart. Forget about Level 3 charging stations; even level-2 charging stations are pretty tough to find. There are lots of areas like this around the lower 48 states and the lower provinces of Canada. Try driving across Wyoming or the Dakotas or Montana far from any interstate highways....

I did a recent 7000-mile cross-country trip in my PHEV in three weeks; if I'd taken my BEV with me, I figured that it would have taken me at least 3-4 days longer, maybe more. Taking a BEV on long road trips like this takes focus off of other things on the trip and puts it onto planning and "worrying" about range and how far off your intended path you'll have to go to find a working charging station. On interstate highways, you can have long queues at certain times of the year, especially holiday weekends. But off interstate highways, there can be no DC fast charging for many hundreds of miles. Campgrounds often have level-2 charging if they're not full, but then you're committing to much longer charging sessions. If I took 3-4 extra days on my road trips just because I had to charge my BEV, we're talking a lot more money than paying for gas on the same trip if you factor in hotels and food (unless you camp out the whole time). And working people can't justify that kind of time, usually; it's more for retirees.

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[profdraper]

My car is fine.

This thread, though definitely gives me anxiety. ?

Agreed, but tends to be like this for any brand, all over the world, Tip; do *not read ANY UK EV fora. My god ….

 

[Snakebitten]

Now that I have traveled far enough from home to require DCFC, I know there are "types" of travel/routes that my GTPE would not put me through anxiety.

But still, there are travel/routes that it would be like a sick personal challenge to choose the Mach-E over one of my Powerboost. 600 mile range has its use-case.

 

[PharaohHound138]

When you've preconditioned the battery and cabin temperature in the Winter. Driven 80 miles to the airport, dropped off your better half then at 50 miles of the way back home the range and % isn't going to make it YES range anxiety is real and not a made up EV hater thing...
Had to turn off cabin heat to extend range and at 34F that wasn't fun, so much so that I offloaded my Mach-E asap and never looked back. I miss the instant response but that's it, I don't miss overnight updates that screw things up or a bouncy ride or a ticking timebomb in case the HVJB fails.... Range anxiety sucks and I had no idea EV's lost that must range in the cold, that wasn't common knowledge a few years ago!

Sound like an EV hater to me

 

[d^2x/dt^2]

Personally, I love my MME (and my Lightning) and am happy to deal with the occasional trip planning.

But as an advocate for EVs as piece of the puzzle for emission control and combating global warming, I think we have to take range anxiety seriously. I often describe the many advantages of my EVs but add, road trips are like a junior high science experiment. It isn't impossible to do, but most people don't want the hassle and many more are incapable. So it has to get better if we are going to reach a critical mass that makes EV infrastructure commercially viable and more widely accepted.

I'm not unhappy with current ranges but there is a definite range hit from uncertainty. Is the charger going to work when I get there, will there be a huge wait, etc. I'm looking forward to my recently delivered adapter as I think it will help. I've also been very impressed with some EvGo stations lately.

Despite our self image, most Americans aren't pioneers. I remain optimistic, but we need better infrastructure to move forward.

 

[Otto klub]

Sound like an EV hater to me

An EV hater would not have bought one. Though his experience may have made him an EV hater now.

 

[HuntingPudel]

I have decided that I’ll whinge instead of whine. I’m a contrary canine. ??

 

[PharaohHound138]

An EV hater would not have bought one. Though his experience may have made him an EV hater now.

Thus.......an EV hater

 

[spicy_taco]

Range anxiety may not be a daily issue, but it can be a real concern.

We took a trip to Lassen National Park this summer. I looked at available chargers in the vicinity of the park and there are no DCFCs. There seem to be 2 (yes 2) Level 2 chargers in the vicinity of the park, but nowhere where we were staying. Maybe we could have made the round-trip drive with a stop, but there was no way we would have had any power for the various drives around the park in the MME. So we took my wife's ICE.

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