Featured Americans insist on 300 miles of EV range. They’re right

I suspect it's not because the road trip or 300 miles of range (aka: "Freedom") is needed very often, if at all... But if there's an emergency in your family or perhaps a natural disaster with evacuations, that 300 miles of range is way more comforting than less than 100 miles of range of say a Nissan Leaf.

But most people who own a Nissan Leaf make sure they have a long range vehicle as a back up plan. A couple years back I helped a Leaf owner buy a used Hyundai Hybrid for this reason.

 

It is a well written, accurate article. However, I have four years of experience with a 2019 Tesla Standard Range Plus. Originally with 240 mile, there were times when I had to use slower, L2 chargers, because there were no fast DC chargers around. For example, assume each finger represents 80 miles of range so three fingers gives 240 miles range. Each finger represents about ~$1,000 of batteries:


To maximize battery life, we typically charge to a much lower value, about 160 miles. This is because the 2019, NMC battery chemistry ages rapidly at full charge. The higher internal cell voltage at full charge can permanently, chemically lock up a very small part of the lithium. This is how the NMC batteries degrade over time. Limiting the charge level lowers the voltage to reduce this aging effect. So most of the time we are charging to 2/3d charge level:


In daily use, we seldom use more than 60-80 miles on regular errands. Once home, the car goes back on the L2 charger and in two hours is back to the working range. This explains how the earlier, short range EVs worked around town:

Sorry about the fuzzy picture as it is hard to hold the camera still when you're laughing.

Bob Wilson

 

Excellent use of fingers... At first I was like, "Why is he making us look at his fingers?"

But then I scroll down to the one finger punch line and you immediately got my upvote!

 

Dude’s giving us “the finger”! I can’t believe he’s getting away with it!!!

 

Article: "300 miles advertised range is absolutely necessary because it's never just 300 miles"

Okay, why not put some effort into working out a new metric that can help us make better decisions?

I'm okay with 100 miles of range. At 25mph with the heat cranked, for example. And that's really different than 100 miles using any of the range test standards that have been floated thus far.

Can't we just adapt to rating these things in kilowatt-hours or joules per squeeze or orphan hearts per chain or something? I'm really okay with learning something here, and much less okay with promoting a worthless metric.

 

Plenty of us frequently travel greater distances than that. Especially those of us no longer tied down to that evil pre-retirement thing known as "a job". In my case, an all-weather range of under 400 miles would have serious impact not only on our road trips, especially the winter ski tours, but also on me having been able to regularly assist dad and help out on the family farm-ranch over the past decade, with work shifts averaging about every six weeks. A few weeks back, one relative skipped his memorial service in part because her EV didn't have the range to get there in a day, on a route very poorly served by public chargers, thus needing an overnight lodging each way. That is why I'm in the market for a PHEV, not a BEV, for the next primary travel vehicle.

If I were still working and commuting, a 100 mile EV would be just fine for one car in the family stable, and I'd have had one long ago. That will also be considered again when the spouse is ready to replace her decades-old daily driver. 200-250 EV miles would greatly increase our everyday utility, offsetting more of the "H" portion of the desired PHEV, but just won't be enough for our primary travel vehicle until there is a great expansion of the off-Interstate supercharger network.

 

An EV includes the charging network(s). Sad to say, the CCS-1 networks are marginal today as this recent failed Cannonball run shows:

Nearly a dozen people participated in this failed attempt.

In contrast, knowledgable reviewers keep a Tesla in their personal 'fleet' because sometimes they have to be somewhere. The Tesla Supercharger network gives the reliability others miss.

Bob Wilson

 

You need 300 miles because in winter it will only be 200 because of the cold.

 

I was taught supply and demand in business 101...

 

"All of these factors together can easily reduce the usable range on a 250-mile battery down to 90 miles."

That's...um...they didn't actually cover all those factors.

In a less patient mode, I'd have stopped reading the article there, but it does bring up valid points. I've just see them used as counters to EV opposition, not rationalizations for longer range.

Fair to criticize the current state of public charging infrastructure. I don't think those insisting on needing a 500 mile range BEV are considering a PHEV, or even a hybrid, until then, though. They'd then find fault in the car if a 500 mile EV came along. While the article has some good points, most of those agreeing with it are doing so as it allows them to continue using their ICE.

Those, like you, in which an available BEV won't work, and are considering other options, are a minority in the US.

The majority still seem to think every car in the household has to do everything. Telling them they are right doesn't help.

The old EV conversion community had a rule of thirds in regards to range. You need enough range so a third covered the trip from home, a third for the trip back, and a third for errands and the unplanned.

The average round trip commute in the US is 55 miles(sited in the article*). Apply the rule of thirds, and 90 miles would be plenty. All but two BEVs currently available in the US have a range of over twice that. Many have three times or more. On top of that, the official range from most brands is under reported. BEVs already have the range to work for most people in the country.

*I think they confused minutes with miles. Average distance is 41 miles reported elsewhere.
15+ Average Commute Time Statistics [2023]: How Long Is the Average American Commute? - Zippia
Raw data is likely here.
https://nhts.ornl.gov/

 

i thought the article was well done. we've grown up knowing that every car in our stabile will take us where we want to go without hassle.
with the current battery technology, we can either own more than one for various uses, or we need one that can do anything. (short of a rental for every road trip)
more charging stations and faster charging will solve some of these problems, but for now, they are still problems for the average driving public

can a 250 mile bev actually be reduced to 90 mile under the most difficult trips? i think so, but it is likely a worst case scenario.

 

Is that towing a boat to a frozen lake?

Mike

 

For my household's travel style, where the journey is at least as important as the destination, the Tesla Supercharger network is still full of holes. E.g. the scenic northern non-Interstate route (SR20 / US2) from here to Duluth, which I first queried and talked about here in 2015, and a couple times since, is only slightly improved in 2023. The Minnesota portion is now fully covered, but for the 1480 miles (not counting any of the desirable side trips) from Burlington WA to Grand Forks ND, there are no Superchargers. Not even in Kalispell!

At least the TransCanada Highway appears to be covered now. But international border crossings just to get to a Supercharger, don't work for everyone.

 

Not with the factors they mentioned.

 

^ That thar. ^

When you can only have one car, it does make sense to get one that covers the most situations.

But once we needed more than one car anyway? I've realized that there's a lot of money to be saved with different cars for different tasks.

 

epa range = 250
degradation = 225
max charge 90% = 202.5
min reserve = 180
heat/a/c/rain = 126
speed/hills = 90 miles

which are impossible?

 

The 90% max charge is something only Tesla calls for regularly, as just about everybody, and I say that not being intimately familiar with very EV out there, has already included that limit within the buffer, and that 250 range already includes that 90% limit. Since the shortest range Tesla is 272 miles, the 250 start point includes it.

Then from the Edmund's range test, the manufacturers have baked the reserve into the published range. Besides Tesla and Lucid. So claiming 250 miles can be under 100 seemed too much to me with their on quantified factors. But I guess it could happen worse case. I did once see a 30% efficiency loss in the 2005 Prius; doing 90mph with the A/C on.

 

We were having some range anxiety/issue on the way home from Ventura a few Fridays ago. I charged the EQB up to 110 mi estimated range, considering I used 100 mi of estimated range to get the 80 miles there. My lead footed son asked to drive home, and hit up to 84MPH. He ate up so much range that with 50 mi to go the EV gauge said 59 mi range. We had to stop to recharge.

My wife drives it to and from work and the app shows estimated range with 100% charge of 292 mi, EPA/Monroney shows 245 mi range. She seems to be the queen of squeezing more range out of it, but still I wish for something with more range.

Ideally we’re supposed to charge to 80% and only 100% when needed (to use immediately). I am paraphrasing the manual. And sometimes should leave SOC less than 20% overnight. I believe this is for it to test battery capacity. But yeah that 80% takes things down further (if I want to keep the battery healthy)! View attachment 240907

 

My rule of thumb for my G3 Prius with a medium load, a gallon of gas (~50 miles) is worth about 10,000 feet of elevation, +/- about 15%. While 10,000 feet of net mountain climb would be unusual on a single fuel tank or battery charge, 4-6,000 feet of climb would be fairly common, costing 20-30 miles of range. While downhill can regain that on ideal terrain, unfavorable terrain or non-hypermilers limit how much is regained.

With bare and dry roads, severe winter cold will certainly cut significantly into range, even without cabin climate control. Then change the road to very wet or snowy or slushy, cut even more. Then a stormy head- or cross-wind ...

Typical conditions should be not be anywhere near this bad. But occasionally, the stars line up unfavorably.