Recurrent, a firm that tracks range and battery health in thousands of EVs, crunched the numbers and learned that electric car drivers only use a small fraction of their batteries each day.
“Data from over 40,000 EVs shows EV owners in the U.S. are leaving a lot of the range they pay for on the table,” the firm said in a report released this week.
Cars with an EPA-rated range of 350-375 miles—some of the rangiest in America—still only averaged 40.9 miles per day. Taking the weighted average across all EVs suggests that drivers tend to use 12.6% of their car’s rated range daily, Recurrent found.
Here’s how usage stacked up across vehicles with different ranges:
I’m charging my Model Y off a 110 Volt outlet in the garage that adds about 3 miles of range per hour of charging. If I run the vehicle down to 20%, it takes about 20 hours of charging time to bring it back to 80%.
I’ve yet to pay for any charging outside my home in the nearly 5 month I’ve owned the vehicle..
I’ve seen this as an argument for PHEV with 30-ish EV-only range. But there is a problem with that. It requires daily charging to 100%, which is generally considered harmful to a lithium ion battery. It’s a bad habit to form.
People seldom use all the range of their ICE cars too but nobody asks for smaller gas tanks. And even though filling up gas is fast they don’t want to do it every day due to inconvenience. You don’t have that issue with EV if you can charge at home overnight. But I think most people still want the ability to travel far on some days, even if that’s only 80-90 miles that day and infrequent. Heck, a day trip from Austin to Fredericksburg, something easily done with zero thought, would require nearly a full battery in my ZDX. And in-between, only 1 fast charger station. And in Fredericksburg the few fast chargers are not convenient for tourists. Dropping daughter off at STEM camp at TAMU required about 80% the battery round trip. Plenty of chargers in College Station, but NOTHING in between Austin and them.
What relevance does is any of the above? None of us with ICE vehicles come any where close to the range in our daily usage either.
My ICE car can go 400 miles on a full tank - that doesn’t mean that I am “leaving a lot of range that I pay for on the table.”
My wife drives less than 25 miles total in her EV to and from work daily yet today she will be driving 3+hours round trip to drop my son off at college (without a charge). It is times like today that her range matters - and why she purchased what she has - it has nothing to do with a daily commute.
This is the worst analysis, and I see it over and over. I also don’t need a passenger seat for 95% of the trips I take, but am I going to buy a car that doesn’t have.a passenger seat? I don’t need the cargo space in an SUV, but a lot of people seem to haul it around empty for that once-in-a-while time when they do need it.
I have an EV. The great majority of my trips are 20 miles or less. But several times I year I go on longer trips which do require over 300 miles of range. Do I want to stop every 100 miles and recharge?
The Bucees in Giddings, Hwy 290, has Tesla chargers. This is ‘not too far off the straightest route’.
The Bucees in Bastrop, Hwy 71, has Tesla chargers. This is further off the straightest route. There is an EV charger just west of the Bucees. I don’t know the brand.
Some HEB’s are now beginning to have EV chargers - I’ve seen Tesla at a couple.
I don’t know of any Tesla chargers or other EV charger points along the Hwy79 route.
The lack of charge points along Hwy79 and Hwy95 have informed my decision to NOT get a BEV… yet.
Yeah, 79 is our preferred route, since we start on the north side of Austin. Past 130 there is nothing until you hit Hearne, with 10 180kW Shell Recharge stations.
Buc-ee’s going so much into EV charging is encouraging. They have a mix of Tesla (always open to any EV) and Mercedes-Benz (also open to any EV). Some locations have both (see: Temple).
The HEB in College Station has Tesla (open to all EVs), as does a BBQ joint. Target has Electrify America. In total, College Station has at least 26 DC fast chargers open to any EV, which floors me honestly.
If I had to do it again, would not do a round-trip where the estimated arrival percentage was 20% or less. Gives little room for error. Like the time we got diverted due to a large, bad accident. Or if you want to detour simply for good ice cream…
I give you Temple, TX. With the absurdity of 68 V4 250kW Super Chargers, as well as 10 Mercedes-Benz 400kW chargers. Yes, 78 DC fast chargers at one location.
(Then there is Buc-ees in Hillsboro, which would be a great location for us, that has had a partially installed set of SuperChargers since at least Thanksgiving, and is still not operational).
There is a newer class of Lithium batteries called LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate I think) and those like to be charged to 100%. They are lower cost, lower energy density, a little safer, allow more lifetime charging cycles, and apparently like to be fully charged (remain healthy).
Yes, LFP batteries. Lower energy density, less range, longer lasting, less risk of fire, no nickel, no cobalt. The high demand for batteries is funding a lot of research. I’ve heard that Tesla is working on an aluminum based battery.
I thought about it at the beginning when I was terrified of “range anxiety”. That proved to be unnecessary, and I have traveled to 10 states without incident. Once, at the very beginning, I got down to 5%, but otherwise have had no trouble. And I find there are superchargers popping up everywhere. There was a stretch across Kentucky where they were sparse, but that’s filled in somewhat - and there are more coming.
Daily might be bad, I guess, but my Hyundai advises to charge to 100% once a month, the manual doesn’t really say why. On other boards I’m told that “supercharging” to 100% is what’s harmful (even though they are programmed to slow down as they get over 80%), but that slow charging as I do in my garage then it’s not a big deal. Anyway, before I start out on a longer journey I charge to 100%; I’ve talked with several people who do it regularly.
