I think 'range anxiety' is overstated for the more common, low range, EVs too. Realistically, if you are of a nervous disposition, your life/business/job/marriage depends on getting where you need to be on time or you just don't like EVs, then buy an ICEV. If you accept the limitations of EVs and, as jerry33 says, plan accordingly, they are a perfectly satisfactory alternative to ICEVs and come with enormous benefits. You can lead a horse to water... MW
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
The wrong focus on range anxiety?
- Thread starter gpetti
- Start date
It's a product of the media, car reviewers and misunderstanding. Everyone that owns an EV drives it every day without any worry about range ever. The people that are worried are those that don't have one. Car reviews always test the car to it's limit (which they should!), you see their worried expression as they try to make it, which is then stuck in people's heads.
The major difference is that an ICE is driven totally without looking at range and then, when it gets low, we start to think about it. So people assume the same driving habit, thinking you drive an EV until it's empty and then want to charge. And one thing everyone knows, charging takes hours. So they assume it's inconvenient to drive and EV and they 'never see any charging stations' so they assume you are out of luck. Of course only non EV drivers have these worries.
EV drivers do their daily driving without any worry, plug in at night and wake up to a 'full tank'. Every day. There is no worry.
The problem doesn't exist, it's only in people's minds because we are stuck the old way of thinking from more than 100 years of ICE cars. I think today's smart phones contribute to the worry. Every day we are faced with using a device that doesn't even last a day of worry free use and we are constantly thinking about, 'I need to charge it' or 'darn it will die on me any minute'.
Clearly one has to look at their own driving habits and see what fits. I observed my own daily driving habits and contemplated every realistic option on how I can make it work with an EV. After many months I concluded that only the Model S was going to work for me.
Now long distance traveling is a completely different problem. That's a real problem and even Tesla has not overcome it completely. But that's not range anxiety, that's a time issue.
The major difference is that an ICE is driven totally without looking at range and then, when it gets low, we start to think about it. So people assume the same driving habit, thinking you drive an EV until it's empty and then want to charge. And one thing everyone knows, charging takes hours. So they assume it's inconvenient to drive and EV and they 'never see any charging stations' so they assume you are out of luck. Of course only non EV drivers have these worries.
EV drivers do their daily driving without any worry, plug in at night and wake up to a 'full tank'. Every day. There is no worry.
The problem doesn't exist, it's only in people's minds because we are stuck the old way of thinking from more than 100 years of ICE cars. I think today's smart phones contribute to the worry. Every day we are faced with using a device that doesn't even last a day of worry free use and we are constantly thinking about, 'I need to charge it' or 'darn it will die on me any minute'.
Clearly one has to look at their own driving habits and see what fits. I observed my own daily driving habits and contemplated every realistic option on how I can make it work with an EV. After many months I concluded that only the Model S was going to work for me.
Now long distance traveling is a completely different problem. That's a real problem and even Tesla has not overcome it completely. But that's not range anxiety, that's a time issue.
It's all about one's driving patterns and needs. Every winter I drive 120 miles round trip on Saturdays and Sundays to the local ski hill. Adding 30% to that number for cold weather impact, or snow, or headwinds and I need a car with 160 miles of range. There's no destination charging available so that's my starting minimum. Many people have days like that and a short range EV will not work for them.
Trying to invert range anxiety and apply it to ICE's vs EV's seems kind of silly. Do people forget how easy it is to buy gas after only driving an EV for a few months?
Let's be realistic. I live in a small suburb of Boston (~6000 people). All the main roads out of my neighborhood have a gas station within a mile. I literally cannot go anywhere without passing a gas station.
Go watch the battery swap demo. The Audi driver finishes putting 23 gallons of gas in his car in 3 minutes. If you are really that late for work, only get 5 gallons in a minute (or better yet, get up earlier :wink.
If you run out of gas in an ICE (or get "range anxiety" for driving with the low gas light on), it's your own damn fault for not filling up or not watching the gauges. In all my years of driving, I've run out of gas once. And it was my own fault, for trying to get to a cheap station to save a couple of bucks on a fillup.
OK, I supposed driving through rural Montana at 2am with 1/4 tank could cause "range anxiety", but filling up beforehand is part of basic travel planning for a trip like that.
I couldn't agree with your analysis more. I've never had to even worry about whether I would have somewhere to fill gas ever before. Even if I was running low, I knew that I can find a gas station at any point in time. People are exaggerating how big of an issue filling gas is. Seriously, it takes so little time. I guess the range anxiety point is a lot more amplified for me since I don't always have the ability to charge at home (4 cars in the house and only 2 car garage) and I am constantly on the go. I am constantly thinking about whether I will have enough charge for the next day, as well as where I can fill up. My workplace has chargers but typically someone is always plugged in there so it's quite the gamble for me to get a charger spot. Sometimes, I have to check back 4-5 times a day just to try to catch an open charge spot.
Why? It stuck because it's a good term. And then it led to the term gas anxiety, which is what PHEV drivers suffer from.
Mostly that's true provided that your EV can get you to work and back two or three times without recharging. If it can't, then every time there is a power outage, bad driving conditions, or you get called back it's a problem. This is the number one reason I purchased a Model S. There is no range anxiety.
NigelM
Recovering Member
Heh, while driving electric for 4 years at some point in time I realized that life is easier plugging in my phone and my iPad every night just like my car; now I never run out of juice on any of them.
I get it that a lot of people here feel the issue is misrepresented by ignorant masses and sensationalistic media. I get it that some dislike the term used. I sympathize with these views because there is history and reason behind that critique. But frankly I don't see how it helps the issue to go to another extreme and claim "Everyone that owns an EV drives it every day without any worry about range ever. The people that are worried are those that don't have one."
Because, certainly, that is not true.
Nor is long-range travel "not range anxiety, that's a time issue" merely.
Those claims, to me, suggest a person with access to more mature than average EV infrastructure and/or warm weather region. For example, current Tesla drivers are probably skewed toward more well-off people with garages and HPWCs - that is, and especially going forward that won't be the reality for all EV drivers. What if you have to park on a public street for the night? Or an apartment building parking area without electrity or permission to build? Also, not all people have and will have access to faster home chargers, so not all will be able to fill the battery within the time of every night.
Then there are the day to day variances and the weather factor. EV range expectations can be quite unpredictable. If the day gets filled with lots of cold starts and criss-crossing from meeting to another in traffic, range may become an issue. The smaller the EV range, the faster it does. With gas you just use 5 minutes to fill up, and range goes beyond any EV, but with an EV you need charging infrastructure that may or may not be there and you need time. If charging isn't readily available in the area, range anxiety ensues.
This brings me to my final point, which is long-range range anxiety. I claim it exists and not just because of lack planning or as a question of time, but as a combination of reach and infrastructure. Sure, if your long-distance routes are covered by an even workably sufficient public charging infrastructure, then it becomes a question of time. But I return to my point of that being a person with access to a more mature than average EV infrastructure.
What if the place you want to go has no public chargers or private ones that would be accessible? Then it becomes a question of reach, of range charging, range mode, AC off, question of weather, prayer and... yes, range anxiety. The fairly good range of especially the 85 kWh Model S certainly puts a lot of places within reach, but without destination or available on-route charging, reaching for the fringes of that range certainly creates range anxiety. And it isn't a simple "just don't do it" either because estimating EV range is hard and very dependent on multiple external and changing factors. A drive within safe reach one day is range anxiety the other, plenty of stories of that on TMC.
Here is one EV driver that certainly experiences range anxiety from time to time.
- - - Updated - - -
Say... What?
3s-a-charm
Active Member
Funny I was just thinking that yesterday... and I don't even have my Tesla yet! Was driving my ICE and getting a feeling of aggravation looking at the needle reaching "E" and thinking I have to stop somewhere for gas and it's cold outside and I'm in my suit and I just don't want to! Then I realized I have "reverse range anxiety".
Funny I was just thinking that yesterday... and I don't even have my Tesla yet! Was driving my ICE and getting a feeling of aggravation looking at the needle reaching "E" and thinking I have to stop somewhere for gas and it's cold outside and I'm in my suit and I just don't want to! Then I realized I have "reverse range anxiety".
That's a clever wording.
I hope you have warm garages at home and at work to charge in, though, because with an EV you would be "gassing up" in the cold twice a day or so.
Similar "it's too cold" does reduce the chance of plugging in.That's a clever wording.
I hope you have warm garages at home and at work to charge in, though, because with an EV you would be "gassing up" in the cold twice a day or so.
For goodness sake, plugging in to a public charger takes less than 20 seconds to wave the card, plug in the adapter, then plug it into the car.
On the original topic, range anxiety is a real thing. Everyone plays the "what if" game when considering an EV. There are trips I have made without my family that require long recharge waits (Detroit to CT through southern Ontario) that I would never make with my family. The inconvenience is too great. And with a short range EV, it becomes a regular concern rather than a twice a year concern.
My experience is different.
But first I need to stress my comment referred to where readily cabled, free to operate HWPCs or superchargers aren't at hand. I think 20 seconds is unrealistic in those cases as well, in cold, but it is certainly faster if the cable is hanging there in the charger and you don't have to do anything to make the charging start. If you have to connect your own cabling or operate the charger in any way, in the cold, perhaps in the dark, things can take quite a bit more time.
Let's not forget that this was in response to 3s-a-charm's "don't even have my Tesla yet! Was driving my ICE and getting a feeling of aggravation looking at the needle reaching "E" and thinking I have to stop somewhere for gas and it's cold outside and I'm in my suit and I just don't want to! Then I realized I have "reverse range anxiety"." If he is in his suit in a Tesla, and it is cold outside, he will need to charge it a lot more often than he will have to visit the gas station... Hence why I said hopefully he has a warm garage.
Here is my view on how charging Tesla out in the cold goes, in places where you have to provide the cable:
Pop the charge port open from the inside to keep warm to the last. Notice that it didn't open because it is frozen shut. (Happens a lot.) Go out, push the rear of the charger port - to create pressure countering the magnet - while fiddling with your smartphone to open the charge port. Or whatever tricks you personally use to open the port if frozen. Apparently you can also do the magnet release with your keyfob in the next update I don't yet have, so that helps a little. UMC is another alternative but requires plugging in first and a little unreliable. As the task requires precision, gloves may need to come off. This may take a few tries to get the pressure on the port and the timing of the magnet release just right. In any case, I will easily have spent that 20 seconds just to get the charge port open, because it freezes shut a lot. I would say, often a minute passed by this point.
But even if the charge port isn't sticking, there is stuff that will take more than 20 seconds. Then you open the frunk or trunk or whatever to get the charging cable. On a gas tank the cable is already readily in place, you just connect. Also pretty much every gas tank door in ICE car is easier to operate in cold compared to the Tesla charge port. Hopefully snow or ice doesn't mean your frunk or trunk neads cleaning first, before you can access them safely. To get gas you don't need to open these areas. With ice or snow the electric trunk may refuse to open altogether. Then you pick up the cable that, if the car was cold, is frozen to this long unboiled spagetti. If you need to swap the UMC head, depending on the charger, easily one has already spent two minutes depending on how hard or easy it was to open that charge port. By this time gas would have been flowing already.
You do all this while carrying the cable, trying to keep the cable ends from hitting the snowy ground and the cable from messing you suit.
Finally starts fiddling with the charger, one handed when joggling the cable with the other. How does it operate? If it is just your outside charger at home or office and it is a wall socket, this will be fairly quick. Unless you are in one of those countries where polarity matters and you notice you plugged it in the wrong way and UMC blinks red - you need to do it again. Hopefully the socket's protective mechanisms aren't frozen and won't give you a hard time when plugging in and hope it isn't too dark to see the socket properly to plug in. This is of course easier at a public charger, if it is lit and uses a connector designed for EV charging, but other caveats follow below - and in any case, in many markets one still charges using traditional sockets quite often and they are not the easiest to operate in cold, in dark, with gloves on. By the time you are done plugging into the wall, you may notice the car has locked as you moved away from it and the charge port - luckily not closed at least in older cars - and you have to fiddle with unlocking the charge port again. One might remedy the latter by connecting the car end first, but that's not recommended by Tesla.
Now, in the case of a public charger, it may require more than that. You may have to open some cover, plug in, close some cover, but you may also have to swipe a card, type a code, send a text, select a mode, set a timer, pay, just like you would when gassing up on an automated tank. Depending on the charger and on how familiar you are with its operation, this can take a while or a longer while. And if the green light doesn't start blinking after it all, you need to go check the connections and the charger, and release already locked charge ports on one or both ends to get the cable out... which may involve more fiddling with various gadgets to get both ports unlocked. And let's face it, charging issues at public chargers especially are note exactly rare and in most cases the solution is the re-connect, so this happens more often than one would like.
You also need to make sure your cable is lined up nicely and may have to bend over to adjust it on the ground, not very nice with your suit pants sticking against your skin in the cold. Hope you wear long undies! Finally, when calculating the operating time required for charging, one has to factor in the removal procedure as well: When you are done charging, much of this happens in reverse. You may need to do something to release the public charger, perhaps unlock some cover, swipe some card, send some text or whatever, and then release the Tesla end of the cable if it didn't happen automatically for whatever reason. Last you roll up and pack up the cable, which may be by now covered in snow and all sorts of icky stuff from the ground, so perhaps you also need to clean it up a little before fitting it in to the frunk/trunk, which hopefully isn't by now covered in inches of new snow and ice.
I would say EV charging in the cold - if you have to hook up both ends with your own cable - on average takes roughly a comparable time (as an operation from the driver) as filling an ICE tank. Maybe not exactly the same, but a comparable operation nevertheless. Surely in warm climates and at superchargers this is much faster, or with a HPWC in a warm garage, but if one has to rely on plugging in, running and then re-packing a cable in the cold, let alone operate a public charger system, it isn't much different time-wise from visiting an automated gas tank.
The difference is on an EV you have to do it more often, because of lesser EV range and because that cold is also eating into your battery. One thing you don't have to do, compared to filling a gas tank, is stand around waiting for the gas to flow, so it is a more involving and active process allthroughout. The moment the green light starts blinking in the Tesla is a moment of joy, because it means you can finally run into the warm and go unfreeze your fingers. If it starts blinking.
YMMV, as chargers and cables and sockets of course vary from market to market, but I would say the effects of cold are universal in cold (and often dark) areas and do impact the speed and pleasantness of plugging an EV in and out. Something to factor in, if one doesn't like "filling up" in the cold and doesn't have a warm garage.
May someone kindly direct me to a forum that's used by ICE car drivers where I will find multiple threads of the following kind:
- Will I get from A to B with one tank of gas?
- Will I still get there if it rains? What about elevation?
- Where can I fill my car at my destination?
- Will the nozzle be compatible with my car?
- Will I be able to pump more than 5 l/h?
- Will my pumping be affected if there is someone else filling his car at the same station at the same time?
Unless you find a forum that caters to people who organize expeditions to the remote corners of our planet such a forum is probably hard to find. That's because usually finding a gas station and filling your car isn't an issue, doesn't matter if you are driving a 30 year old delivery van or a new supercar.
I could leave my desk now, take any ICE car from the pool and go all the way to Madrid, or Belgrade, or Bucharest, or Copenhagen, and the one thing I wouldn't have to worry about is where to fill the car on the way.
My wife and I have often decided spontaneously on a Saturday morning to go to Italy or to France. We just dropped an overnight bag into the trunk and off we were, checking into any hotel we liked wherever we ended up. That's the flexibility you usually associate with having a car.
There are no less than six filling stations diectly on my 40km commute and another dozen or more within a couple of minutes of detour. There may be many frustrations during that commute, range anxiety isn't one of them. I suppose that if you have issues to keep your car filled for the daily commute, then you shouldn't get a BEV either.
Being able to charge your car at home is convenient, but it doesn't cause range anxiety for ICE drivers.
To invent supposed issues of ICE cars doesn't promote the adoption of BEVs by more people.
- Will I get from A to B with one tank of gas?
- Will I still get there if it rains? What about elevation?
- Where can I fill my car at my destination?
- Will the nozzle be compatible with my car?
- Will I be able to pump more than 5 l/h?
- Will my pumping be affected if there is someone else filling his car at the same station at the same time?
Unless you find a forum that caters to people who organize expeditions to the remote corners of our planet such a forum is probably hard to find. That's because usually finding a gas station and filling your car isn't an issue, doesn't matter if you are driving a 30 year old delivery van or a new supercar.
I could leave my desk now, take any ICE car from the pool and go all the way to Madrid, or Belgrade, or Bucharest, or Copenhagen, and the one thing I wouldn't have to worry about is where to fill the car on the way.
My wife and I have often decided spontaneously on a Saturday morning to go to Italy or to France. We just dropped an overnight bag into the trunk and off we were, checking into any hotel we liked wherever we ended up. That's the flexibility you usually associate with having a car.
There are no less than six filling stations diectly on my 40km commute and another dozen or more within a couple of minutes of detour. There may be many frustrations during that commute, range anxiety isn't one of them. I suppose that if you have issues to keep your car filled for the daily commute, then you shouldn't get a BEV either.
Being able to charge your car at home is convenient, but it doesn't cause range anxiety for ICE drivers.
To invent supposed issues of ICE cars doesn't promote the adoption of BEVs by more people.
Last edited:
Perfectly said....TM is in the infancy of addressing this in three very pragmatic ways - extending battery life to approach an ICE threshold (300 miles); the supercharger network; the battery swap program. That said, these are all emerging technologies that serve no one if positioned as even scratching the surface as compared to the current practicality of the ICE vehicle. Having a vehicle that requires a backup plan for simple driving chores isnt practical for everyone...
Funny enough, on Sunday I was out in my P85D for a drive to lunch that turned out to be a little more than that...110 miles later I am back at the house and receive an invite to an event. The event is worthy; however, round trip is 110 miles and the MS is sitting with 77 miles of range...it instantly becomes a boat anchor and I have to turn to the ICE (which needed gas that was 3 miles down the street). I didnt even have the luxury of anxiety over range - it just became something that I couldnt use for a drive that I wouldnt give a second thought to with an ICE.
I decided to test this today, how long does it take to charge a Model S in a charger where you have to cable in yourself. I did it in a well-lit, dry public charger in above freezing temperatures, so no snow, ice or darkness interfered with this. It was a free public AC charger with two types of sockets and no need for any operating, beyond opening and closing its cover.
Type 2: 1 minute 35 seconds
UMC: 1 minute 25 seconds (including swapping heads)
This was the whole cycle to start and stop charging. First I opened the charge port door from inside, then started the clock and raced to the trunk where the cables were on top, picked the cable (and in the UMC case swapped the adapter) and left the trunk to close. Then quickly went to the charger, opened it, plugged in, walked to the car's charge port, plugged in, waited for green light, locked car, then immediate to simulate returning and unplugging, unlocked car, went to the charger, unplugged from charger, went to the charge port and unplugged from car, rolled the cable, opened the trunk, put the cable in trunk on top without being neat at all about it, closed trunk and stopped the clock once bending over the driver's seat. Swapping UMC heads didn't add much time, but the Type 2 process was longer because there was a small twist in the cable I had to straighten on the ground. I was quick in my movements, but normal - not gymnastic or acrobatic.
So, roughly plugging in and out a Model S with a cable from the trunk takes a minute and a half - or 45 seconds each way.
Without issues, that is. On a later charge the Type 2 refused to disengage from the car after removing it from the public charger, so I had to put down the cable and go click the touchscreen (later an update hopefully lets me do this from my keyfob). And a bit later with the UMC I ran into the issue of charge not starting, which required again unlocking the port (this time it worked from the cable) and plugging in and out. Each of these kinds of events easily add 30 seconds to the process. Let alone if the charge port is frozen or the trunk is snowed in or plugging in to the charger and rolling the cable is hampered by darkness, ice and snow, or you need to operate the public charger (start, stop, set time/mode, pay, etc.) which can add minutes to the operation.
NigelM
Recovering Member
And I'm guessing significantly longer to write the post. Sorry, I'm not sure what the point is.
And I'm guessing significantly longer to write the post. Sorry, I'm not sure what the point is.
Just exploring and commenting on what it takes to operate the charging of an EV - especially from the angle brought up in 3s-a-charm's post - cold weather can adversely affect our willingness to "fill up". There was commentary on whether or not filling up ICE is more unpleasant than charging EV in cold. I wanted to offer some actual measurements to the speculation.
It isn't always necessarily an insignificant task to plug in. I think especially people in cold climates (where coldness alone demands constant charging) may be affected. Then again, on the upside, in some countries people are already used to plugging ICEs into heaters.
Similar threads
