One of the most important factors holding back acceptance of electric vehicles (EVs) is “range anxiety,” drivers’ anxiety that they will run out of juice before they can reach a charger, the same fear that did quite a bit to cause EVs to lose out to the internal combustion engine over a century ago. As the the range of today’s EVs is extended by technological improvements, there are ever louder suggestions that this fear is overdone.
But then there is also the awkward fact that “range” might not be exactly as advertised.
We found that cold weather saps about 25 percent of range when cruising at 70 mph compared with the same conditions in mild weather. In the past, we found that short trips in the cold with frequent stops and the need to reheat the cabin saps 50 percent of the range.
Unlike a gas car, where the heat is free, coming from the engine, an EV has to produce cabin heat and manage an optimal battery temperature with energy that comes from the battery, in turn reducing range.
We expected that mild weather in the low 60s would provide the greatest range. But actually, the warm 80° F temp provided the longest range of the three tested conditions.
This test shows that EV range isn’t an absolute metric. Weather, hills, speed, traffic, cargo, passengers, and climate settings have an impact . . .
Another difference between ICE (internal combustion engine) cars and EVs is that during constant cruising, an ICE car attains its best fuel economy. An EV, on the other hand, isn’t at its optimal efficiency when cruising on the highway, with limited opportunity to benefit from regenerative braking—energy that’s recouped from braking and coasting that gets directed back into the battery. Because the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) range is based on a mix of city and highway driving, the expectation for a test like this is that the vehicles will underperform their rated range at a constant highway speed.
More on the impact of the cold here, plus discussion of the fact that, if you wish to preserve battery life, it’s better not to charge it to 100 percent. An 80 percent maximum is recommended, although if you do so from time to time (if, say, a long drive is ahead), it’s not going to “hurt” the battery. In defining range, it’s probably also better to knock off the last (say) 10 percent: Most drivers won’t feel comfortable letting their remaining capacity fall below that.
Range will also fade over time, although this won’t be much of an issue with EVs in their first years of use.
Electric cars have only been on the road in any numbers for a little more than a decade, so we’re only now gathering data on how they perform after the odometer clicks into six figures. With some Teslas and Chevy Bolts well over 100,000 miles (or even 200,000 to 300,000 miles), early indications are that EVs in general lose range by about 2% to 3% a year. Or, some experts say, the loss could be more dramatic if drivers fast-charge their cars often. But some drivers say their high-mileage cars are still pretty close to full capacity.
Beyond the difficulties that drivers without a driveway or garage may face in charging their EVs at home, there are the difficulties associated with finding a charger on the road. A range of several hundred miles may, to some, sound impressive, but it won’t do a driver much good if, at the end of those 200 miles, there’s nothing there.
“We’re really at the point right now where we have to address these issues before we get further along in EV adoption,” said Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive research for J.D. Power. “The mindset is changing, from the early adopters who expected some bumps in the road, to the mainstream consumer who is not willing to overlook those problems.”
What Gruber doesn’t say was that, for the most part, (typically affluent) early adopters of EVs have not had to worry too much about range. They tend to have garages, or driveways (in both cases locations where they can install their own chargers), and they tend to own other, traditional cars. Their EVs may be good for the daily run to work or the stores, but long drives are generally reserved for their cars powered by internal combustion engines. The more EV users there are, the more pressure there will be on public charging resources, and, as the range of EV owners broadens beyond the more affluent, the more dependent the typical EV driver will be on the EV that may, in their cases, be his or her main car.
Bloomberg (emphasis added):
J.D. Power regularly surveys EV drivers in the US about their charging experiences, working in collaboration with the PlugShare app that many drivers use to locate stations. Two years ago, 14.5% of respondents said they’d been unable to charge at a public station. Now it’s 21.4%. “It’s definitely heading in the wrong direction,” Gruber said . . .
There isn’t a single reason for EV charger failures. Some of the problems, particularly with older machines, can be chalked up to a new technology going through the usual learning curve of improvements, all while sitting outside, exposed to the weather. There have been cycles of needed upgrades, such as replacing modems to deal with 5G wireless internet service. The myriad networks, retail outlets and garage owners who own the machines don’t always stay on top of maintenance. And chargers must communicate with a rapidly expanding variety of cars.
To that end, the precise scope of the problem isn’t known. EV drivers face a complex landscape of competing charging companies, each with its own stations and app, and there is no central repository of data on station performance. One widely cited 2022 study of fast-charging stations in the San Francisco Bay Area (excluding Tesla Inc.’s Superchargers), found that about 25% of the 657 plugs weren’t working. While J.D. Power doesn’t disclose reliability rankings, Gruber said the worst-performing charging company leaves drivers unable to plug in about 39% of the time.
There is also the little matter of charging time. Compared with stops at the gas station, even the fastest chargers take their time, and even “fast” chargers (they are all considerably slower than a gas pump) will take longer with the cheaper EVs on which the development of an EV mass market will depend.
A little quirk of EV charging is that it’s typically much faster to add a few miles of charge to a big battery than to a smaller one. That’s because longer-range batteries are made with materials better suited to fast charging. Also, once a battery is half full, the charging rate begins to slow, so smaller batteries spend less time adding miles at their maximum charge rate.
What this all means is that 10 minutes at a highway charger might add 160 miles of driving to a long-range Kia EV6, but just 32 miles to a base Nissan Leaf. Drivers have to plan their pit stops accordingly.
Oh.