That's the point the end user shouldn't have to do all of that to determine how much range they would get. Granted it is a reality but the point is its nowhere near accurate. I'm a prime example of I went with SR+ and saw the rated and knocked off some range for realism and it's still far far below that. If it's rated at 270-310 depending on what source you check I shouldn't be below 50% batter driving 30 miles a day for 4 days.
All the fiddling with battery degradation, cold weather, preheating, climate temperature, seat temperature ect is nonsense for large adoption of EV. ICE drivers or most of them think hey I have a 19 gal tank and get on average 20 miles to the gallon (which isn't actually correct on the surface) I can drive for a week or week and a half without filling up. The convenience of charging is cool and worth it but when you start doing longer drivers it becomes a hindrance.
Again we are talking about NEW prospective buyers not current ones and why the range is a problem, the range amount itself isn't a problem if it wasn't a bunch of figuring out to know your actual range.
Exactly! Why do I have to learn new things? I don't want to have to fiddle with plugging in and out every day for 5 secs. I want to go to the gas station once a week, and stand there holding that dirty smelly fuel pump handle for 3 mins in the fridgid cold. I'm used to it. It's not fiddly. It's always the same. Always cold, always dirty, always smelly, but never fiddly! Okay, maybe it is a little fiddly when I'm trying to top off the tank, and damaging the vapor collector.
Okay, that was sarcasm. The point is, driving an EV does require learning some new things. We had a lot to learn when we first started driving a car, but that was so long ago, we've forgotten! We've become accustomed to it. Now, we have to break a few old habits and learn a few new ones. That's the way of it. Just like I had to stop using the Crackberry and start using an iPhone. What?!? No keypad?
The thing is, we've already learned a lot of the new habits. The car is more like a smartphone. It likes to be plugged in at night, like your smartphone. We know our smartphone doesn't like the cold, the car doesn't either! Heck, we used to watch those old Sears Diehard ads, so we already know that batteries don't like the cold. It was fiddly then, as it is now. We know that smartphones slow their charge rate as they get full. The EV does that too! Smartphones last longer if we don't charge them all the way up every day. Who knew? EVs are the same way! We already know so much about how to live with an EV.
As far as fiddling with preheating, climate controls, seat temps; we do that in our ICE as well, if you've got a fairly modern one. Those were features, as not every ICE has the ability to remotely preheat, and adjust all the climate settings. The fact is, you don't have to do any of that, but if you are concerned with range, then those are some of the things you can concern yourself with. If you don't want to fiddle with things or learn new things, or care about range, then just drive the car normally, and charge as necessary. No one is forcing anyone to change their habits, but they might want to learn some new ones. Totally up to them.
Personally, I have no issue with cold weather range. In my old ICE, it took 5+ mins to start getting any heat out of the car, and even then, it wasn't exactly hot. I'd turn on the seat heater and steering wheel heater. It takes 10mins to get where i"m going, so it wasn't like I got much heat out of the ICE before I got to my destination. In fact, I just kept my winter coat and hat on, because, it took 5+mins before the car would start to warm up. In order to match that, I'd have to leave the heat off in my Tesla for half my trip, and when I do that, I get the EPA rating for range, since I am driving surface roads between 45 and 55mph. For me, winter range is pretty much like summer range.
Now, on longer trips than 10mins, if I set my thermostat for 64F at a fan speed of 3, I barely use more energy than the car expects. I get great winter range. Why should I set it any higher? I've got a seat heater, a steering wheel heater, my winter coat on. It's plenty warm.
Here. I drove 133.6miles to the ski resort and back, mostly 55+mph, but a 30mile stretch at 80mph. I used 45.2% SOC for 133.6miles. That's 295miles of estimated range. I was about 5% below EPA-rating. This was mostly at temps below freezing, but above freezing at the end of day. The thing is, I didn't use any heat, since I was dressed in my ski gear. I used the seat heater and a heated steering wheel.
How is winter driving different than summer driving? Mostly HVAC. If you don't need heat, or excessive amounts of heat, then winter range is pretty much the same. At least it is for me. We know that batteries are sensitive to heat, so just be sensible about the usage of the HVAC. How different is that to people trying to save gas by minimizing the use of the AC in an ICE? It's the same amount of fiddlyness. Fiddle long enough, and it'll become second nature, a habit, and you'll wonder at how it ever was an issue.
We're human, we learn, we adapt, and we kick and scream the whole time while learning and adapting.