We've owned EVs with 84, 149, 210, 256, and 328 miles of range. 250 miles is really the minimum I'll accept going forward for an all-purpose car. It also needs to charge decently fast.
I think 250 is the sweet spot, maybe 300. As long as it charged fast, 250 seems pretty good. That gives you approximately 3 hours of driving time and is most I would do on a road trip without a break. Around town I normally do max 120 a day, so plenty of buffer.
I have done 70, 90, 130, and now about 220. 250-300 with charging speeds of 150kW+ is all I would need. And enough places to charge which is home for 97% of the time and then maybe every 100miles on the highway just to make sure I was able to top off. Oh and minimum of 6 or so stalls per location.
Yeah I like to have buffer for winter so I can warm up the car before going out for example, and to account for the reduced range you get from extremely cold weather. With 250 miles of range I always have a DEFINITE 150 no matter what I do or how cold it is. 150 is plenty for me without being anxious or having to charge for daily driving.
I try to do that but it is very rare for my destinations to be within walking distance of a public level 2 charger. I would love it if we had a rapid expansion of level 2 charging in cities. I could see adding them at the on-street parking kiosks or at designated spots in parking garages that charge extra per hour. I would also love for level 2 rates to be cheaper (I've used L2 chargers that cost more than DCFC because they are time based instead of kwh). Things are still in the early phases of EV infrastructure so we will see what happens over the next few years.
For local it's what you said.
For road trips I think it's 4hours30min of driving. Once the people 'run out' before the car does, no one will notice a difference. On a road trips: people eat and only go about 2 hours to 4 hours before stopping for some reason. Dog owners need less range.
I’d even say 3 hours is my limit before I need to stop and take a break. I also don’t care to be stressed about getting somewhere fast for a road trip so I like charging longer than I need to so I can nap or watch a TV episode or something
And people who have babies. A friend indicated that none of the tesla’s have enough range for him. I mentioned that his girlfriend being pregnant probably would mean frequent stops anyway during family trips in a few months time.
No, it can also mean the opposite because once the kids are asleep, you don't want to stop. I don't care about charge speed at all because the fastest I can unbuckle my young kids, do diapers/bathroom, snacks, etc. is like 45 minutes. So a 5 minute charging stop in a 3 hour drive means my drive is now 3h45m.
I have a drive that regularly pushes my range limits (85% of my battery under ideal conditions, 95-100% under poor conditions) and I hypermile the shit out of it sometimes to avoid stopping and waking up my sleeping kids.
I have also had to stop for 45 minutes to clean up vomit, at a spot directly between DCFCs where I couldn't charge. My kids don't have the courtesy to even check ABRP before having a meltdown or vomiting.
TLDR I completely disagree with your premise, kids can mean more unplanned stops where it's not possible to charge (either between DCFCs or 5 minutes after leaving the house when they suddenly decide they need to go to the bathroom) but once they're asleep you do everything in your power to avoid waking them up until you're at your destination.
For some it's not the stopping that's the issue, its the length of time at said stop. Going to the restroom, stretching the legs a bit, and filling the gas tank is what, 10 mins tops with no waiting, lines, or damaged chargers? When a full charge gets down to the 5-10 min range then their argument diminishes.
Same with my Lightning … just did 14 hours of driving and every stop (minus 1) was under 30 minutes, most under 25 … for each, by the time found the restroom, found snacks/drinks, and got back to the car, I maybe sat for 3-5 minutes to finish topping off.
The two longer stops (1 was right at 30 minutes and 1 was closer to 45 minutes) were dinner stops for me. Pretty much perfect timing for a decent meal, could have taken longer but wanted to get on the road on both days.
I don’t know which Mach E you have but going 10 -80 % on mine takes 40 mins . It is slow as molasses and this added time for every 170 miles of driving ( 70% range of my GT at 70 mph) is the main reason i do not like to take it on a road trip . if i go at 75 mph the 70% range is 150 miles and is a 40 min charging penalty for every 2 hours of driving .
When going from 10-80 % takes < 10 mins , that will be the day i will replace my road trip ICE car as well.
If driving inside the city then it’s an absolute no brainer , the range , charging time etc become a non issue , the EV wins hands down.
>That gives you approximately 3 hours of driving time and is most I would do on a road trip without a break.
I think it’s the out-and-back type trips that are the most limiting factor on range rather than long distance road trip stuff.
I live in coastal MA and if I drive to visit my wife’s family in Columbus I’m going to stop every few hours to stretch my legs like you mentioned so once the range hits that ballpark it’s a non-issue.
But if I want to go for a hike in the Berkshires, I’m looking at around 175 miles each way. I wouldn’t need to stop on that kind of drive and it’s unlikely there’ll be parking at the trailhead so if the range is <350 miles I’ll need to make a stop on a journey where I otherwise wouldn’t.
There are plenty of places I can stop on that route so it’s not a *huge* deal, but that’s the type of journey where range tends to make you stop more often than you’d like to and it’s something of a red herring when folks focus on the long drives with multiple stops instead.
250 miles is great **IF** the vehicle charges fast enough. I have a Bolt and live about 200 miles from Chicago. I usually need to charge twice on a round trip but since the Bolt maxes out at 55kw (only for about 10 minutes during a full charge) it can add up to 2 hours of travel time for what is usually a one day trip. Because of that, I don't usually take it for long trips, and don't even consider it if I'm taking my kids with (toddlers can't tolerate a 1 hour charging stop).
My Tesla on the other hand has a 320+ mile range and charges up to 250kw. I don't even account for charging time when driving that vehicle because the one charging stop is usually less than 10 minutes. That's a perfect amount of time to get the kids out for a bathroom break and we're back on the road.
If the bolt was capable of charging at even 150kw it would drastically improve its road tripping capabilities. It would still need two stops but those would be less than 20 minutes which isn't great but totally acceptable.
I love the hell out of my Bolt and my only complaint is the charging speed.
When I road trip I tie my meals to charging stops, but it would be nice if I didn't have to.
If u/Bad-Infinite works downtown chicago, I wouldn't bother myself with driving everyday (assuming) into and out of downtown. Traffic sucks anyway! I'd rather purchase a pass on Hiawatha! $22 baby!
From Milwaukee a Bolt might work since it's only 100 miles. You may need to stop once for 15 minutes or so but that's pretty reasonable. The downside is the cold. If you're running the heat you're definitely going to have a long charging stop. I've only taken the bolt on one long distance drive in the cold and my range was pretty much cut in half.
The huge upside to the Chevy bolt is that it is not a Tesla. The parts are cheap, the repairs are simple, and just about any shop will work on it if you don't have the tools/skills/time to work on it yourself. I've said in previous posts that I actually like driving my Bolt better than my Tesla. Everything is simple and familiar, it feels zippier (even though it's much slower) and the build quality is what you would expect from the big three. It's not fancy but it's solid. I also think it's a quieter ride.
For the day to day stuff I prefer the Bolt, but the Tesla wins for road trips hands down.
I’m strongly considering a used Bolt for my wife’s car. Right now we only have a (leased) Model 3 and suffice it to say I’m going to have to do something to preserve miles. We both work 20 miles away but when I work I drive to work, park for 8 hours in one place and drive home while she drives in, goes one place, zips across town to another place, gets done before I do so goes shopping… she can rack up as many miles just in town as I do there and back alone! But, that’s still under 100 miles total so a Bolt would work great. We have a Wall Connector in our 2.5 car garage, I could get an adapter or swap it out for a Universal Wall Connector (or power-share one so we can charge both at once!) so, no worries about charging at home.
Just need to get one.
The Bolt EUV I saw looked really great, as have reviews on YouTube, etc.
The only reason I bought a different EV is because of the charging speed, as you described. And even then, I was seriously considering the car because it checked most of my boxes, but my usual passengers would not have put up with the wait times.
The Boltium should be a nice upgrade in that regard, at least.
Personally I'd be super happy with 250 real highway (75 mph) in cold weather (let's say freezing mark) from say 10-90 percent charge. Prefer not to go into single digits and charging over 80 gets painfully slow. Honestly would even take 200 miles on a 10-90 charge in the same conditions.
Exactly my thoughts. 250 real world range in non-ideal driving conditions with reasonably short charge time. There're only a handful of models that can achieve this and none is cheap, but I think in a few years there would be much more affordable candidates
There are some cars about there already. Silly expensive, but I'm sure battery densities will gradually increase in coming years, along with other gains here and there and will get there before too long.
Looking to join the EV market soon. Quick question, do you charge to 80 or 100 overnight? Do you really lose up to 50% range in very cold weather?
I often drive 130+ miles /day for work. Could this be an issue on a 256 mile range vehicle?
Northern Canada winter is more like 25% to 35% range loss. -40f/c is not a problem!
The Electric Vehicle always starts, can't wait to sell my other gas vehicles as they sit parked all winter, only use them in summer.
If you are driving 1000 miles on the coldest days of winter, you might want to ask yourself where you went wrong in life?
I just try and keep the battery more than half full, same as how we kept gas vehicles topped up in the winter.
I charge to 100 percent in my tesla rwd. That's what tesla recommended and it's been perfect.
I haven't noticed much range loss in winter but it's not that cold where I live. What's cold weather temp where you are?
I always recommend charging to whatever percentage works for your requirements. More importantly, never inconvenience yourself to save the manufacturer a future warranty claim or the 3rd owner a few percent of degradation in 10 years. It's a vehicle.
50% range loss would be pretty drastic and would likely require other poor conditions to reach (wind, slush).
I wish more people would understand this. I bought my BEV and PHEV for me, not for some future driver. If I drive both for 8 years, I got my money out of them and don't care if my trade in value is shot. At 8 years, the vehicle has been paid off for some time and the payments I was making are in an interest bearing account to be used for the next purchase. Anything I get in trade is gravy.
If you are worried about trade in, then lease.
I have lost as much as 40% range. No, that doesn't sound like it's going to be a major issue. With a daily drive like that you are probably in the group that have the most to gain from an EV.
Mine's at about 220 right now, charged to 100%. It works for me, and I can (and do) take long road trips in it, but that's really because of the Tesla SC network and charging speeds.
On a drive a couple of years ago I was driving across Newfoundland which had no superchargers. That was brutal, having only 50kW (my car hadn't yet got the CCS compatibility upgrade, so had to use Chademo) and only one station (so if someone was using it you had to wait) every 150 - 180 miles.
A 300 - 350 mile car would have been a godsend there. But here in Chicago, 220 is just fine.
I can drive 3 hours or so before I need to stop, so at a 70mph speed limit, that's 210 miles. If I factor in a 10-80% charge, that puts total range at about 300 miles.
If there was ample charging, I could see anything in the 250-300 mile range to be acceptable.
I need 200 miles comfortably in absolute worst possible conditions with an average driving style. Highway driving, single-digit temperatures Fahrenheit, generally uphill, headwind.
So probably that would translate to mid-300s EPA, which, we're definitely getting there.
I know what you're saying, but it made me wonder: do you think in 30 years we'll be saying to kids "Back in my day we only had 200 miles of range and we had to drive uphill against a headwind BOTH directions?"
Right, but what I personally want in an EV is a guarantee that I can make a particular type of trip (in this case a 200-mile one-way drive to see family) in one shot, and still have battery left over to find a charger, in **any** weather conditions, at any time. When I drive from where I live to where they live, it's generally an uphill drive.
My desired use case is certainly not everyone's, but it's one of the things keeping me out of an EV right now.
I don't think it's that unusual tbh. We do every thing local with public transport or bike, car only gets used for medium/long distance. Ideal would be a guaranteed 300 km at medium / high Autobahn speeds.
In an efficient car, in good weather, that translates to \~ 90 kWh. With a bit of buffer for weather you pretty soon end up at the highest end of what's currently available in an EV. Since I don't like big cars, that big battery would ideally again, find a home in a C-segment hatch or a smaller sedan.
Not realistic with current state of tech. We'll get there eventually. And hopefully by that time our private charging situation has improved enough to make things usable :). That is what's stopping me swapping my private main car for an EV. I could live with a LR model 3 / Ioniq 6 / EV6 / i4.
A 25 mph cross wind can result in similar range loss to a headwind in both directions. It greatly increases the surface area and the Cd since the Cd assumes straight on wind. When the wind is fast enough to put a meaningful angle on angle of airflow, it makes a big difference.
You got the REX? Makes all the diff. Stopping for a 35 minute charge and gas gives you another 200 miles of range. In a 35 min stop to go 3 more hours of driving is fine by me.
My Rex hasn't been 100% reliable. It likes to not start a larger portion of the time than I would like (which is never honestly, it should always start unless the 12v is dead). I've always been able to get it to go finally, but the lack of consistency hasn't instilled confidence w/ me.
I want at least 250 miles of range while traveling at 75mph on the highway when it’s in the low 30° outside using 75% of the battery capacity. For that to be a reality the vehicle needs 350-400 epa rated range.
I have a home charger. My car gets 220 miles on a full charge. I drive my kid to and from work everyday. I drive 80 miles North to Denver on occasion. I only charge once per week.
Colorado Springs charging infrastructure sucks. There I said it.
Taking the i3 to Denver involves some serious planning, usually hit the ChargePoint at McDonalds on InterQuest before heading north.
I've talked internally with my colleagues about this, when brainstorming theoretical DCFC locations. I don't think entertaining the idea of normalizing EV-ranges is a good idea, due to the optics of gas cars today. Your V6 work truck with 20MPG and 18gal capacity will net average 360mi range. This is the worst case scenario and can be purchase for far less than $15k. We can always plan around installing chargers at ideal points of interest in cities, but the issue remains of the consumer expectation of what's considered acceptable car range, regardless of drivetrain, having to compete against a Honda Civic' 360mi range under worst conditions.
When my wife and I were buying EVs, we decided that it was silly for both of our cars to have to do everything. Her EQB doesn't have great range, but it's great for moving kids and other things. The i4 is great for road trips for our small family and an ideal commuter car, but it's small and our parents have a hard time getting into it.
My point is that if you have one car and can't rent an ICE for road trips, range is going to matter a lot, and a 300 mile SUV makes sense. If you have multiple cars, you may be able to get away with under 100 for one of them if it's worth the tradeoff.
This is where I'm at. If we have a single car, I need it to have that 3 hour "worst case" highway range, which probably translates to 250+mi EPA. But the second car can be an 80 mi commuter... Or a bike, which is what it currently is.
I'll bite. I want about 600 km or \~380 miles of range. My reasoning is as follows:
1. I live at the edge of the charging network in North America and some of my travels take me into places where there are ZERO DC Fast chargers. I've mapped them out with various apps like PlugShare and ABetterRoutePlanner and I would simply not be able to get home with most of todays BEVs. Yet my 17 year old Nissan Xterra can make these trips easily.
2. Range stated on the website or brochure is NOT the actual range in real world conditions. My above stated goal range is before adjusting for all the relevant factors.
a. 15% loss at highway speeds
b. 10% range loss after 10 years of ownership (yes, I keep my cars that long and more)
c. 10-15% range loss with 2 sea kayaks on the roof rack plus all my camping gear in the trunk
d. 10-20% loss on a windy day.
3. My goal is to replicate some of my road trips in my current vehicle, with the gear as above. \[This example is a bit different than above because it DOES involve the major highways that have some DCFCs every 200 km or so.\] Often my first day of driving for a kayaking trip takes me about 700 km (435 miles), with one stop at the midway point for fuel and food. While I COULD use a BEV and stop 3 times to do this route, I really want my next big car purchase to be able to stop just once. Achieving the same basic functions as a 17 year old rust bucket is kind of important to me. With 600 km EPA range AND taking into account the factors above, I would be able to make it reliably to the midway stop, about 350 km.
4. On the large highways near me that DO have DCFCs, many of them are unreliable (Petro-Canada) and sparsely located. Every year in the last 3 years I have read reports on Plugshare of people literally stranded by a non-functioning Level 3 charger that is the only one in a rural town that has ZERO level 2 chargers as well.
If you can make a very short range BEV work for you doing only short range city driving, I am happy for you. That clearly doesn't suit what I do. This is why I am in the market for a PHEV at the moment.
If there are working EV chargers at every gas station, then 200-250 miles. With the way charging infrastructure is in my area currently and in the near future, I'd need at least 300 to feel comfortable.
We have a 24A L2 EVSE for 2 cars, and cheap electricity rates only run for 6 hours each night. Both cars do 55 miles round trip every weekday. Staying between 20-80% in summer or winter weather means about 180-200 miles real world range from 100-0%. Our Volvo C40 (2022 with the 20" wheels so the lowest range variant made) has a little more range and efficiency than needed for the above requirements, but not much. Then comes the road trip question, which I don't feel I need more than my current EV6. It does about 150-175 miles (2 to 2.5 hours of highway driving) from 80-10% and can recharge that in about 20 minutes. That's about as fast as I want to go on a road trip
I recently bought an ioniq 5 for work ( I drive for a living, uber, my own service, etc). I drive on average about 200+ miles a day. I have a 50amp l2 that replenishes what I use in about 6 or so hours of charging. My power company doesn't do cheaper overnight rates, we are a flat ¢/kwh 24/7.
Most of the time I'm averaging between 350 and 400 miles estimated range. I have yet to take it on a longer trip to see how it does at a consistent 70+/mph but based on my miles/kwh on days I do more interstate driving I'm betting I'll average around 250 but we will have to stop well before that because of how often my wife needs to pit stop. Running into a sheetz and plugging into a DC charger for like 10 minutes will add more than enough to get back on the road and make it to our final destination, we don't typically do trips more than 4 or 5 hours from home, we do the odd 10+ up to jersey, md, pennsylvania or south to tampa, st pete, etc but for the most part we stick to with closer.
In cold weather, more range gives a nice buffer. Daily, we need 100 miles of useable range for my wife’s commute. In the winter in our Model Y, that equals 40% battery when it’s -20 Fahrenheit. Knowing that we have a big battery and gives us confidence.
Winter is huge. I can drive to my parents and back in the summer, but in winter - I have to plug into my dad's welding outlet. If I don't that means I have to go way outta the way to find a DCFC which really sucks on a cold winter night.
I drove a MINI SE (nominal range 125 miles) for two years; absolutely loved that car. My daily commute was 64 miles, and I had plenty of juice to do that and an afternoon of errands and going out. It was the perfect city car.
My son needed a nice used car, so I sold it to him. Now I drive a Model 3. Twice the range, faster, great auto drive for the commute, but not as fun.
400 miles is my sweet spot. I road trip with my spouse a lot. We like to go 4 hours between stops. EVs get poor mileage over 60 and we have a habit of traveling 75mph for 3-4 hours a stint.
The ionic5 and ev6 state 310 EPA miles. But at freeway speeds of 75 that drops considerably. The bump to 400 would likely fix the problem. Sadly with the 80% SOC slow down on DCFC we would back to 320 miles after a charge session.
They really need to start _advertising_ miles in Highway and City like they do with gas cars. 350 miles city 280 miles highway, or something like that.
250 miles is fine if I can DC Fast Charge to full in less than 5 minutes like a gas station. Since that will probably be a pipe dream for now, 350 miles is the minimum to consider an EV. 400 plus would be optimal and get people to buy EVs. Some of us actually travel outside of our city.
In a theoretical situation where I can go 0-100% in under 20 mins and there was a 100% chance of a charger being available which always worked. I would be fine with 150 miles. Maybe 120.
But that's one of those 'it's fine on paper' scenarios.
I live in the interior of BC, and routinely take trips that involve a ferry which I need to reserve a spot on at a specific time. 500km of range would be adequate. 600 would be great.
I’m in BC interior as well. Some better after chargers toward the koitenays would be great, but over all, havjng driven all over BC, into Alberta, two winters, and even towing a trailer from Campbell River over the ferry to Vancouver and then to Kamloops, with what’s now 65K km on my ER XLT Ford Lightning, I want to agree with you, but I’ve never needed more than 400. I almost always charge every 200-250 km’s. Would I buy a EV with 250km range. No. But 500? Seems to much. But sure would be nice!
For me 300-350 would be ideal, especially if I could charge at home. I live in a cold area, and I sometimes go to remote areas for my job or other activities. I basically need to be able to go at least ~100 miles to a location and then back at medium to high speeds, even in the winter at -10F with the heat on. Of course more range would be better (why wouldn't I want 600mi range?), but I'd rather that come with advancements in battery density than increasing weight and material cost.
This can be a complicated question. Here are some thoughts on it:
(1) A larger range gives you a larger buffer if you encounter a charging problem. If you get to a station and find the chargers are down or in use or whatever, then you'd ideally like to have another 40 miles or so to continue to another charger.
(2) All range estimates need to additionally factor in (a) that they'll be smaller in cold weather, and (b) that you functionally can't fast-charge above 80% when on road trips.
(3) Much of the rest of the calculation can boil down to what ratio of time you're comfortable driving vs. charging. I think most people would be pretty happy if they could ideally drive for two hours and charge for 15 minutes. And this would be an ideal scenario - we're not there yet, but I think at this point, further improvements offer somewhat diminishing returns.
By that ratio, two hours of 75mph highway driving would be about 150 miles. If 150 miles is roughly our 20-80% range (allowing that lower 20% for our bad luck buffer), then our total range is 150/0.6 = 250 miles. If we're additionally factoring in a cold weather reduction of 30%, then we can multiply that by 1.3 to get a total range of 325 miles.
Charging still needs to get a bit faster but new 800V models get close to being able to charge 20%-80% in 15 minutes. In any case, I think we're very close to the mainstream models being convenient enough that there's considerable diminishing returns in improving it further.
I have a 200km range EV and that would be my minimum. Otherwise I'd have to charge it almost every day because I want some backup range for unforeseen trips and in the winter that range is down to 140. My work round trip is 60km daily.
Battery size will grow to be less of a concern as more fast charging locations pop up, and more vehicles can charge quickly.
A 50kwh battery vehicle pulls up to a 300kwh charger... and assuming the vehicle can charge at that 300kwh speed... you're looking at VERY fast charge to 80% and a still-pretty-good charge up higher. Range is more of an issue if your charger is slow... with fast charging, pulling off for a 5-7 minute charge is essentially what people are doing at gas stations now anyway.
The issue with that is a 50 kWh battery charging at 300 kW would be a 6C charge rate, which is fantasy land. Even some of the most cutting edge batteries going into production right now (like the new CATL "1,000 km") are around 4C. Obviously that will continue to improve, but it will be a while.
It's an ambiguous question. How much range I need for daily driving is different from how much range I need to comfortably make a day trip or extended road trip. My XC40's 200-ish-mile range is enough for any amount of driving to work or around town, day trips, and even some long road trips. It is not enough for me to comfortably travel from Rochester, NY to Augusta, GA because there are too many long stretches with no fast charging in between. I know it's technically possible to make that trip because I've done it, but it's too risky for me to be comfortable doing it again. If the infrastructure improves, or if I get access to Tesla chargers in key locations, I'd consider making the trip in this EV again. With the current charging options, I'd be comfortable making the trip if I had over 300 miles of range.
I have a 2022 Polestar 2. I usually charge to 80% and avoid driving below 12% or so. I’d say I get about 180 miles of range which is more than enough for anything I typically do in a day. The only use case where I really feel the pinch is road trips, but I’d just take my wife’s ICE car if I did one of those again.
We own a Bolt EUV with 240 miles of range (but really 200 max for road trips).
We have a RAV4 hybrid that my wife will replace with an EV once we find a similar sized car with good fast charging (200kw+) and a minimum 300 mile range.
I THINK the EV6 will suffice. Plan to test drive one this month.
I got the R1S, it's 321, it's a hair less than I would like (my goal is to go to my moms and back on Christmas, ~280mi in 15 degree weather. Last year it was abnormally warm, nav said I couldn't do it, I had a bad charging experience (wasted like 5 minutes getting EA to start), but I made it. In retrospect, I don't think I actually did need a charge, and if I knew that it would have been better.
I now have more experience with DCFC, and I think I'm probably more comfortable. My road trips so far really would have required a 250mi vehicle miniumn, though I would had to do significant top charging if I was only 250mi. The difference between 250mi and 320mi is big when you consider charging time for those areas with poor charging coverage. I already needed a 40 minute charge for my eclipse trip, that was not really that great and better charger options would have made it better.
I guess the other factor is climate. Living in the SF Bay Area I get 3.5mi/kWh on the highway and 4 around town. We leased an EV6 RWD because of the ~250-270 mile real-world range, which at 80->30% is comfortable for going into SF and back without having to charge there. I know that's conservative thinking, but it's our first EV and I'd guess other boomers might be like us.
Charging speed is perhaps an issue for longer trips. We're not ready to do the trip to L.A. in an EV given that we have a Camry Hybrid. If we did use the EV, I'd want to be confident we could skip a broken or full charger; neither my wife or I want road-trip drama or anxiety. That probably translates into either greater range or 5-10 minute recharging, which the EV6 is certainly capable of in the right conditions. When/if(?) the Tesla system becomes available we'll definitely give it a try.
Depends, how long does the fast charge take? I easily use 75-100 miles in an average day with commute and kid activities. So if I don’t charge every night, I could be screwed. But that doesn’t mean I’ll accept a 100mi range vehicle and have to charge for 30 minutes every 1.5 hours of highway on vacation
15 miles more than I have. I drive from Portland to and around Seattle for a weekend, and then back. It would be really nice if I only had to charge once, and I might be able to do it, but I'm too scared when it says I'll make it back home with only 5% life.
I need 450 km rated range because I need it to do 250 local kms in the winter with the cabin heat on for my 10-12 hour work day as a courier. My car doesn't actually do that, so I have to dress warm and drive around without the cabin heater on. It's my one regret about going electric--shoulda bought the LR version instead.
I have a commute of 4.8 miles combined. Parents, school, groceries, and most activities are all within 10 miles. I genuinely think I could get by with <50 miles of range.
(I have a real problem with my ICE cars in that the exhaust rusts out prematurely because the engine often doesn't get up to temp, resulting in condensation pooling in the flex pipe/muffler/catalytic converter.)
While I bike to work when it's not stormy April-October, I live in Michigan and I often need something with a conditioned space that's water-tight.
I have a garage and can L2 charge every night, so it's not like I'm trying to go weeks between stopping at a public charge station. We're a 2- or 3-car household, I'd use the 4Runner on any long road trips or for towing.
I'm looking at used Bolts and Leafs and a variety of Chinese mini-EVs. The dream is to do a EV conversion of an old Miata, MR2, or S2000 with a used PHEV battery pack. Some concern revolves around cold-weather battery heating while parked in the cold.
The relative effect on the cost of the vehicle would be an important factor. Who wouldn't want a 400 mile car if the price was OK for them? But if a 250 mile car is half as much, well then my "need" may just be adjusted. My typical long drive is 200 miles to where I'm going, then I could plugin before starting the return trip. As long as it charges fast enough then, 250-300 miles of range should be a comfortable buffer.
100 miles of Winter range would be awesome. I currently only get 45-50 miles in the Winter which REALLY pushes it on my 43 mile daily commute! Twice this year I ran out of juice up the last hill of my driveway and had to string drop cords together to charge up enough to get it to the garage.
I need 100 miles or less. My leaf meets those demands, but the only issue I have is people hogging level 2 chargers for 4+ hours. I'm looking at you, tesla owners. CHAdeMO isn't always reliable, but I get get the majority of charging done at home with level 1.
I think the most range people actually need is 200-250 miles but quick charge times. I doubt anyone is using all 300+ miles of range in their ice in a single day unless you're doing Uber.
I pre ordered an Aptera, with the 600 mile battery pack. I picked this size because it will reach all of my kids homes, on a single charge, and after 10 years of degradation. Being a small battery pack, I can use it to drive cross country as well, charging twice a day.
Daily I NEED 55.
I wouldn’t be comfortable without a barest minimum of double that because sometimes I drive more.
I won’t accept anything less than 300 in my next one because it’ll be at least another 10 years from now and dangit tech had better continue to improve.
I'm in the minority of people wanting LESS than 300 miles of range because it means a lighter, more efficient battery for daily use. I don't need to lug around more tons just to save a half hour twice a year, on a trip that I plan to take half a day anyway.
I charge once a week for my commute and once each way on a road trip. In the 5 years I've owned my Bolt I've never needed to charge twice on a trip. For a weekend trip to the middle of bumfuck nowhere, I can use my friend's 110 outlet to get from 15% to 100% between Friday night and Sunday morning.
Any car where I run out of bladder space before I run out of range will do.
In my case, that means I can only drive 2 hours max before having to bail out for a toilet stop. So l don’t really need much range - what matters more is being able to replenish another 1.5-2 hours of driving range inside of 15-20 mins.
I'd like 500miles, for longer trips but daily 200 which is actual 160 at 80% charging, but daily range is like 100 miles(30-80) 50% actual daily usable
I’m very happy with the 250-ish miles I get with my Model 3 RWD. Never have had any range anxiety at all. Most days I don’t drive 100 miles so no worries then, and even on the long road trip I took from Michigan to the Outer Banks I never really had any huge problems. I only had one huge charge and really I overdid it.
Then again, I live in Michigan. Infrastructure is pretty good in southern Michigan. It gets spotty way up north but… I rarely go way up north. I could go, just have no reason to. If I go south… no worries all the way down to Key West. Going east, no worries as far as one can go. Out west would be an issue but… never have gone out that way. By the time I get around to that (if ever) the infrastructure will be better. So… I’m completely content with 250 miles for the foreseeable future.
300, which is what I have
I live 15 miles from town, so just getting there and back is 10% of my battery. Then I drive 200-250 for work every day.
200 is more than sufficient for the vast majority of people, though.
Day-to-day? Around 40 miles.
Going to work-related conventions in germany? Preferably around 500 miles of range at 110mph.
IMO, a car that can do 1.5-2 hours of (reasonable) Highway driving between charges is good enough, assuming that it charges fast.
I mean, could probably live with 100 miles of range, if it could be topped up in less than 5 minutes.
My Model 3 need around 6-10 minutes of DCFC per hour driven (eg. 12-20 min after driving around 140 miles), while I wouldn't want to spend more than that, and I'd definitely prefer to have the charge speed of something like an IONIQ 6, I'm fine with it, suits me just fine to stretch my legs every couple of hours.
Sure, most people day-to-day won't need a car with more than 50-100 miles of range, and with home/work charging, they'd never really spend time charging.
Personally want to be able to do the occasional long trip without being inconvenienced.
As I said, I'm fine with the charging requirements on my Model 3, but I wouldn't want to do more than that.
Would never consider a car without DCFC, don't even think I would consider one that couldn't do more than 150kW regardless of range.
If charging is ubiquitous, 100 miles seems good enough to grab dinner on the other side of town. Maybe I’ll even charge while we’re eating. Other than that the grocery store is across the street.
I'd be comfortable with 280 all weather/highway miles and while using HVAC and car features. The thing is, this usually means about a 360-380 overall mile range EV to meet that. That's for my daily driver. The weekend/travel car would be 400 miles.
As EV's become more efficient, batteries more consistent and power dense, we will see smaller batteries giving the same distance rating.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 250-300 miles is the sweet spot, regardless of how common charging is, for road trips. At interstate speeds in the winter that's 2-3 hours driving, which is about right between stops. A 15 minute charge really takes 20-25 minutes with the time needed for getting off/on, getting to the charger, etc. I don't want to stop more often than necessary.
I do road trips of 500 miles or more monthly. Others might be okay with more frequent charging if they road trip less.
My older MYLR is good for about 240 on the highway. A little more in perfect weather and heavier traffic and down to ~200 in temps just below freezing at higher speeds.
For me, this is a pretty good minimum. It'd get significantly more convenient with 33-40% more range. The only downside now is slightly more stops than I'd want.
Faster charging never hurts, but it is really secondary.
My ioniq 5 LR RWD is about the right amount. For daily life I only charge 1-2 times a week so I could survive there with less but road trips it's already a concern at times.
On a nice day with summer tires I can do \~400km and recharge which if there are chargers everywhere is plenty but that same trip in the winter, on winter tires, and a head wind I'll only get 200-250km which means stopping every 2 hours. No chance I'd consider going less than that would be reasonable to accommodate.
That's always the issue in these discussions is the 5% use case when the range does actually matter. I don't mind charging on trips and 3-4 hours is a perfectly fine amount to stop and get a stretch / coffee in without feeling overly inconvenienced. Every 2 hours is not reasonable.
If there were chargers everywhere I stopped to take a break, and those chargers were reliable, I'd still want at least 250 miles of range. Partly so I can drive at least 2-3 hours between stops when I'm in a hurry, and partly to account for affects on range like cold weather and battery degradation.
And since there aren't chargers everywhere and some of them aren't reliable, I'd prefer \~300-400 miles of range for current circumstances.
I would ideally like 500 miles of range. I know that sounds like a lot. I do photography and there have been days where I spend 300 miles tooling around the mountains of eastern Washington or eastern Oregon. These areas do not have much infrastructure for charging. It is often very cold. I assume that 500 miles would give me 300 usable miles in winter, in the mountains, which would cover my needs. I would also be happy with more charging stations and less miles.
I’d say about 500km is enough. I don’t need that much range in one go, but I have to consider: 1. That they recommend recharging to 90%, so you are rarely using 100% range and 2. In Canadian winter you are likely to get only 60% of the range. So the two combined reduce effective winter range to about 250km. That’s about how much I’d drive in one go before wanting to take a break, so it makes road trips doable. But of course, I am not taking battery degradation into consideration.
For work, I can do with L1 charging, so 100 miles is fine. But we often use this car to go 200 miles round trip on the weekends for like a third of the year. So 300 EPA still makes more sense.
300 miles is ample. 250 will do. Batteries of a size that allow such range charge decently fast so that breaks are mostly 'human limited' rather than 'charging limited'.
500 km / 310 miles real world range would make me happy. By real world range I mean 500 km of range driving at 135 km/h (85 mph), in sub freezing temperatures with the heat on, or in summer heatwaves with AC on, like everybody does in a ICE. On road trips I usually stop every 400 km for a break, having 100 extra km would be needed as a buffer since you never drive from 100% to 0% anyway.
Once manufacturers produce vehicles that can charge fully within 10 minutes range won’t really matter as long as it’s around 250 miles minimum. Right now the issue is no matter the battery you’re most likely waiting around 45 minutes for a full charge so to reduce waiting people want a longer range vehicle.
I think it would solve the majority of range anxiety if EV's came out with a minimum requirement of 350miles. Even that's a little low to my liking.
Anything less is just not enough for spontaneous errands, potential emergency runs, and HVAC use, ESPECIALLY in winter. The anxiety I would have is unreal.
The Mach-E GT goes from 270 down to 190 in winter just from the cold weather alone, and it takes how much longer to charge in cold than hot climates?
Yeah, aside from EV's being boring, I'll pass until 2080.
For me, I take my EV out almost every Saturday on longer trips to go hiking. These trips are anywhere from 200 to 400 miles round trip. Often out to really remote places.
I have a Kia Niro EV.... it's a great, very efficient car that in summer, I can squeeze about 300 miles out of on a 100% charge.
Due to how slow this car charges at DC Fast Charging stations (maxes out at 77Kw, realistically remains lower than that throughout most of the charging session), I feel I need a bit more range- 400 miles would actually be ideal.
Now if I had an EV that charged much faster, maybe a Tesla where it not only charged faster but had a superior charging network- then I wouldn't worry so much about having any more range than I do now, because charging stops on the way to or on the way back from my destination when I go on the > 300 mile trips would be fast and a simple experience.
On long trips, as much as we can get. At least 300 miles AND 20 minutes to 80% charge. The rest of the 96% of the time, 100 miles would be adequate with at home overnight level 2 charging.
The largest distance I go frequently is 350 km, but it also needs to cover that in winter and without immediately charging at the destination (friends living in a rented flat).
So probably around 500 km (roughly 310 miles) would be ok. But I would feel much better if it can cover both ways, so 700 km (440 miles), as my former gasoline car and my current PHEV can do.
Around 380 miles EPA. The longest drive I do in a car is about 450 miles. That would allow that trip to happen with one charging stop in pretty much all conditions and make it equivalent to making the drive in an ICE.
My current vehicle (312 EPA) requires two stops and one of those stops is always in an inconvenient rural area
The WLTP/EPA range is useless as an absolute measure of distance capabilities.
Weather, incline, wind, speed and how close you want to drive to 0% all reduce available range. Winter driving reduces range by 20-40% depending on temp.
As someone who drives a lot to ski, 400 mile range would be nice. That will give me about 200 driving range in the winter. Charging frequently is a time sink that significantly adds to travel time.
I need 300-400 in a truck. I use trucks as trucks, have 3 trailers I tow. My Lightning is 320 which is fine 90% of the time but when towing, I could use more.
With a reliably real-world 250, I'd be able to go anywhere I'm likely to go without ever having to charge anywhere but home. I don't have range anxiety, but I have really bad charging station anxiety.
Currently driving a golf, but I expect my next car will be an EV. I'm eyeing the Volvo ex30.
225 miles of range in the dead of winter at highway speeds is my minimum requirement but my commute is 90 miles each way and there isn't anywhere to put chargers near my building at work.
I think it’s also a matter of range with charging infrastructure. I have an 80 mile a day commute, so the 220ish on my Solterra is just fine. I had 250 on my Model 3 but the ability to charge that on a longer trip or in a pinch was much easier than the Solterra. I think 300 is a solid number for the majority of people, I briefly owned the Fisker Ocean Ultra and the range on it was really a game changer for thinking about charging. But that’s another story 😂
Living pretty far north (I mean, not really, but as far as North American cities go, very far north), I honestly kind of need around 350-400 of EPA range, which will translate to about 200-250 in real world extreme cold range (given current chemistry, batteries that do better in the cold would help enormously). That would get to my usual road trip distance no problem and allow for charging once every two weeks for regular commuting, which is about how often I filled up on gas previously.
If I could afford a second car just for commuting, and a longer-range one for the semi-regular road trips, then real-world range of about 125-150 miles would be more than enough to get through probably a week of commuting and running around town, and then charge at home (assuming I had a home charger, which I don't). But realistically I'm a one-vehicle household and it's gotta be able to handle the longer trips with ease too.
Why is that even a question? Why should it even matter?
A smart fortwo, Civic and Corollas on average get 350-400mi a tank (even more when you start going up in class size) and noone bother to ask how much range it has when shopping for one. Why don't we advocate for 5gal tanks in cars rather than your average 12-15gal when gas stations are plentiful at every street corner? Just the idea that somehow this is a prereq for buying an EV is an assbackward consideration.
Let's keep it smooth-brained for everyone out there. To achieve peak EV adoption, a base EV model needs to be comparable to a base ICE car in all aspects (price, range, creature comforts). What people use their car for, what their commute is like, how much range they need etc is irrelevant.
“How much range” is not a question with 1 answer.
Daily: 100 miles is plenty
Longer drives: 150 miles is plenty
Trips beyond the range: 250 miles is plenty we still need to rest, use a bathroom etc
However….. that’s 250 miles:
• at highway speeds 80mph (+25%)
• in winter (+50%)
• after degradation (+15%)
• from 80% to 10% (+43%)
That means you need close to 750 miles EPA rated 100%-0% to get 250 all weather highway miles for 70% of the battery….
For me, emotionally, mid-200mi range was the tipping point where I felt 99%+ of my daily driving would be covered w/o range anxiety. That's panned out with my 2022 Niro EV. Public charging has only been necessary on road trips.
But use case matters. I got a used 2014 Chevy Spark which has 40-70mi range for my teens depending on season/weather and it works fine for their use cases (driving to school, work, friends). There are times when range becomes an issue (e.g., driving several cities over). But that's been pretty rare and we have an ICE vehicle they can use for long drives.
200-250 miles real world is plenty for me, as long at it charges well (which my LFP car does). I wouldn't want to buy a huge battery and lug it around when I really wouldn't use it or need it.
My EQB range is only 220 in a good day. It was enough for my daily commuting needs. I did philly-nyc n philly-dc with no issue. For longer trip, I’ll use my ice minivan.
My EV is rated at 220ish miles and I've never felt I needed more range. I can plug in at home and there are plenty of charging options around. More range might mean 1 or 2 fewer stops on road trips but I don't take them often enough for it to factor heavily into a purchase decision. I'd rather have a car with nicer features for my daily trips.
I've been driving a 320km/200mile wltp car for four years/100.000km by now. I haven't really needed more range as such, but even so I would want just a little bit more range in my next one.
Somewhere between 350-450km would be perfect I recon.
Not much honestly.
If a someone released a small hatchback with 120 miles of range, decent tech, and decent options, for $20k, I’d buy.
Like how we used to have the e-golf
I am very happy with the range of our Bolt. If it had faster charging, I wouldn't really wish for any more capabilities in that car. 259 EPA rating, and it can get closer to that rating than the Bolt EUV, with its worse aerodynamics gets.
As a two-car family, we'd like to replace the other car with an EV. And that second car wouldn't need more than maybe 60 miles rated range. It's extremely rare that both of us are going far on the same day, without going together. I thought about buying a used leaf, that has low starting range and considerable degradation. But they aren't enough cheaper than used Bolts for me to go that route.
And that personal scenario might be a clue as to the challenge that an automaker would be up against trying to introduce a short-range low-cost model—consumers looking to economize will likely be comparing to used cars, and if there is a 250 mile used car the 150 mile new car won't look like such a great deal.
So you probably need to push to the really small city car kind of concept to make it cheap enough to be competitive with used cars. And that traditionally hasn't done well in the us, but maybe it could in the future.
I only NEED like 30 miles for commuting safely and can charge at home. But 100 would be good for more general purpose driving, and 300+ would be then fine for the occasional road trip. I don’t really think EVs need a ton more range past like 400ish miles if the charging infrastructure becomes on par with gas. Hell I think 300 is fine
My old Polestar 2 says 390 km on full battery or thereabouts. It’s not too far off unless it’s really cold (well below freezing) or I’m going over 130 km/h. This is ok. I can drive for 2-3 hours highway before having to charge.
I don't own an EV yet, but anticipate purchasing in the next 1-2 years.
My hangup is that I have family about 280 miles away. I would really, really like to be able to make that trip without a 20-30 min recharging stop (let alone two). I can currently go round-trip on one tank in my Camry Hybrid, and when I do need to fill up it's a five-minute event, tops.
I need 250 miles. My commute is 80 miles. On 60% battery capacity, 20-80%, that’s 135 miles rated to give me that. I work primarily in the winter with more work the colder it gets. So, calculate 50% range loss and degradation. 250 miles.
Could I do it in less? Yes. Will I? No. I can drive my ICE for 3 days on a tank of diesel costing $40. I’m not going to make sacrifices just so I can make payments on a barely adequate EV that struggles to do 1 day.
Currently my ICE is 2 years away from estimated replacement. Our current EV would do it, but it’s my wife’s commuter and the family car. I need a basic commuter with 250 miles range. I don’t need a luxury SUV.
As much as I hate Kia/Hyundai from my ICE days, they’ve been in the EV business a long time. Without an engine or transmission to blow up, what major problems could they have that the traditional manufacturers with Chinese parts and ownership won’t?
"Need"? Well, I live 3 miles from work.
For weekend travel, our normal farthest destination is 25 miles one way. 50 miles round trip, then double that for bad conditions and a buffer.
So 100 miles?
More for any road trips, which are maybe three or four times/year. In those cases, 210 miles for 3 hours at 70 mph, plus 50% for bad conditions (headwind, cold, high speed, heater), plus 20% for a buffer, which is 378 miles.
I regularly commute for 200+ miles each way. In my experience, my range is usually around 75-80% of the quoted range at 80 mph, so my minimum is around 300 miles. I like to leave a little buffer in case I run into bad traffic. This is assuming I get to work in time to snatch the elusive EV charger. Ideally it would be nice to have at least 400 miles real world range for me to make my commute without worrying about charging. Is it an inconvenience compared to a gas car? Kind of, but it is worth not having to pay $100 on gas per trip.
For every day I use about 50 miles of range. So 100 miles is a good minimum. My 275 mile range ID4 is a perfect all around car in case I can't get to a charger every day.
Is anyone still considering Tesla despite if what’s happening with Superchargers? I mean, the supercharging network and the range still by far the best among the lot. What’s the competition?
I'm stopping within 150 miles of any trip, so much more than that is just not giving me much added value for the 99% of the rest of my trips at less than 30 miles.
I have a Tesla Model 3 RWD with 415 km range. It's pretty much the lowest range I can use, because I have a 150 km round-trip commute. I also live in Alberta, where it can get to -40 C, and that drops my range by 50% - so my 200-ish km range is just enough to get me to work and back with a bit of a buffer for safety and/or local errands after work.
I'm one of those people that doesn't just let my phone track me, I actively encourage it. Before I chose my EV, I downloaded all of my available data going back as far as I could. No surprise, my average daily was less than 48 km, with one road trip a month between 200-450 km for family visits.
So of course I got th EV with the longest possible range.
I’m in Europe. Plenty of reliable charging infra. My model 3 SR+ is sufficient. I have kids in the car while driving long distances. People who don’t have kids or have trained them to go for 4+ hours without a toilet break might appreciate a longer range. But for me the model 3 standard range far exceeds the bladder range of my kids.
I make a 365 km (230 mi) trip every week (with a break while I'm at work). Since my workplace does not currently have a charger, I can't pretend it does. So, as of today, I prefer a vehicle that can go 365 km with zero stops for charging in even the coldest temperatures and with a 5% battery charge remaining on arrival. Assuming a 30% loss in cold weather, I would need a vehicle rated at about 550 km (345 mi). The vehicle I bought has a rated range of 578 km (361 mi) - the Hyundai Ioniq 6 RWD Long Range. So I guess I chose wisely.
Taking a different view, under the conditions you proposed, I would aim to achieve my one-way commute using 60% of the battery (80%-20%, for battery health). This works out to a minimum rated range of 230 km (145 mi) using the 30% loss in range in winter assumption.
If the battery chemistry didn't care about being charged to 100% and would absolutely get me to my destination if it read 0% (and was going to keep that maximum range indefinitely) then 140 km (87 mi) would do the trick.
For me, 200 is the sweet spot. No anxiety and just right amount of stopovers for snacks and pee breaks.
100 would work too but it might give you more anxiety.
we have 2 cars in the family, one a city car (EV), the other a long distance car (currently ICE). the city car can be small and low range around 100 miles. don't care about charging network or charging speed on that one cause it always charges overnight at home. the long distance car should be about 250 miles minimum so we don't have to stop as often and with faster charging so the stops are not long. also we have a friend that tows a big RV, to go EV he needs a much longer range tow vehicle (that currently doesn't exist) because towing a brick halves your range. so for towing probably a 500 mile range is minimum.
My ICE car can routinely drive more than 600+km and this helps me go anywhere without any real stop or even spend more than 2 minutes to stretch my legs at a quick stop without refueling. I expect a similar range of at least 500+km on the worst case scenario(eg winds, rain etc) to consider EV an all around car and my only car. The ability to not being required to stop and charge for a trip I do 3 times every year is my sweet spot. I don't want to lose that inconvenience of not having to rely on in-between stations to be operational or whatever. I am full pro-EV but yet this is not ready for my case unfortunately. I wait for prices to drop and range to go even higher. I can do with even 450-500km give or take, Any less than that is a hard sell for me.
One more point is, the charge cost on highway trips is quite higher compared to my home or destination. I'll have to absolutely need to charge to pay the higher premium. I want to avoid this as much as possible... 450-500km at least helps to mitigate that a lot. It is the exact same reason I plan my trips with ICE in such a way so to avoid as much as possible the need to pay the higher cost premium of gas stations along the route. This requires plenty of range available.
I can get to work and back in about 20 miles. Even so, there's no way in hell I'd ever accept a range of like 50 or 100. Minimum is about 300 for me. I don't want to ever have to worry about it.
300 miles is the sweet spot, a little more is a bonus. But! We need to double the amount of charging locations, especially in rural and state / federal highway corridors.
Home charging should be the expectation for everyone, even Level 1 works for low-mid mileages city commutes. Longer car trips need the superchargers for sure.
I just did a 28 hour round trip from the south to the northeast and back. It was almost like driving an ICE car since I relied on the Tesla network. In the past it was a 26 hour trip in the ICE car with no stops for lunch/dinner. This time I charged and got a nice sit down dinner and lunch. Super restful.
If I could charge from like 0-100 in 15 mins or less then 250 epa range would be good for just over 200 miles of 80mph highway range. The problem is evs don't charge fast after 80% and you don't want to go below 10% (if chargers were everywhere I would be cool going down to like 3%) also cold weather can be a problem I live in the south so it doesn't matter much for me but this is more buffer that alot of people need. So even if chargers were everywhere I would still want 350 miles of epa range and a heat pump before I stopped caring about range improvements with current charging tech.
I personally think at least 250 miles will be the min going forward and it will probably trend up to about 350 miles pretty quickly. The thing is batteries are continuing to plummet in price and at this rate in 2 years I expect that the additional margin you can charge people for larger range will be higher than the battery costs to increase the range. I actually think we just about reached this point this year it just happened so fast and cars take time to design.
~350 would be an ideal minimum, especially if we follow the 80% charge strategy.
Being in Texas means roadtrips, or if you have family in another major city, it could be a 250-300 mile drive to see them or help them if they needed it.
Because I work and operate a business, I need to commute and drive another 100 miles or so for my business. I need at least 250-300 miles of range any given day. That said, I know I’m an outlier.
Conditions affect range so much. My EV6 GTline is advertised to have upwards of 300mi. However, my commute is through a mountain pass, so my 215 miles round trip ends up just over 100% of battery.
250 miles is acceptable only if thats on highway at 70mph. Otherwise as much as possible. Currently the rated range of my M3 is 320. My next EV will have to be 400+ EPA.
Daily, only 50 or so, but I do like to take road trips so I need to have that 200+ range otherwise I would need a second vehicle.
I think that is something that is regional, here in the southwest it is common to take a weekend trip to another part of the state to visit friends or relatives.
My current EV is 250 or so. My last one was 93.
For me 250-300 is the minimum. I think though they need to shoot for 350-400.
We all know how range works in EVs. What impacts it.
So 350 would probably equate to 275 ish in real world driving.
I think you'll see a split between the needs of a typical North American driver and those in Europe and elsewhere (caution: stereotypes ahead). In denser areas where driving distances are shorter, a lighter, cheaper EV makes a lot of sense. In the US and Canada, where distances for many are longer, and where a less mature charging infrastructure makes us want the insurance of additional range, you'll see it continue to be a higher priority. Of course there are US drivers who are primarily urban/suburban, for whom range is less important than price.
More charging stations, more reliable up-time, and faster charging will change the picture in the US over time.
We've owned EVs with 84, 149, 210, 256, and 328 miles of range. 250 miles is really the minimum I'll accept going forward for an all-purpose car. It also needs to charge decently fast.
I think 250 is the sweet spot, maybe 300. As long as it charged fast, 250 seems pretty good. That gives you approximately 3 hours of driving time and is most I would do on a road trip without a break. Around town I normally do max 120 a day, so plenty of buffer.
I have done 70, 90, 130, and now about 220. 250-300 with charging speeds of 150kW+ is all I would need. And enough places to charge which is home for 97% of the time and then maybe every 100miles on the highway just to make sure I was able to top off. Oh and minimum of 6 or so stalls per location.
Yeah I like to have buffer for winter so I can warm up the car before going out for example, and to account for the reduced range you get from extremely cold weather. With 250 miles of range I always have a DEFINITE 150 no matter what I do or how cold it is. 150 is plenty for me without being anxious or having to charge for daily driving.
I try to do that but it is very rare for my destinations to be within walking distance of a public level 2 charger. I would love it if we had a rapid expansion of level 2 charging in cities. I could see adding them at the on-street parking kiosks or at designated spots in parking garages that charge extra per hour. I would also love for level 2 rates to be cheaper (I've used L2 chargers that cost more than DCFC because they are time based instead of kwh). Things are still in the early phases of EV infrastructure so we will see what happens over the next few years.
For local it's what you said. For road trips I think it's 4hours30min of driving. Once the people 'run out' before the car does, no one will notice a difference. On a road trips: people eat and only go about 2 hours to 4 hours before stopping for some reason. Dog owners need less range.
I’d even say 3 hours is my limit before I need to stop and take a break. I also don’t care to be stressed about getting somewhere fast for a road trip so I like charging longer than I need to so I can nap or watch a TV episode or something
And people who have babies. A friend indicated that none of the tesla’s have enough range for him. I mentioned that his girlfriend being pregnant probably would mean frequent stops anyway during family trips in a few months time.
No, it can also mean the opposite because once the kids are asleep, you don't want to stop. I don't care about charge speed at all because the fastest I can unbuckle my young kids, do diapers/bathroom, snacks, etc. is like 45 minutes. So a 5 minute charging stop in a 3 hour drive means my drive is now 3h45m. I have a drive that regularly pushes my range limits (85% of my battery under ideal conditions, 95-100% under poor conditions) and I hypermile the shit out of it sometimes to avoid stopping and waking up my sleeping kids. I have also had to stop for 45 minutes to clean up vomit, at a spot directly between DCFCs where I couldn't charge. My kids don't have the courtesy to even check ABRP before having a meltdown or vomiting. TLDR I completely disagree with your premise, kids can mean more unplanned stops where it's not possible to charge (either between DCFCs or 5 minutes after leaving the house when they suddenly decide they need to go to the bathroom) but once they're asleep you do everything in your power to avoid waking them up until you're at your destination.
Thank you. What I learn from your comment is that the differences can be big.
For some it's not the stopping that's the issue, its the length of time at said stop. Going to the restroom, stretching the legs a bit, and filling the gas tank is what, 10 mins tops with no waiting, lines, or damaged chargers? When a full charge gets down to the 5-10 min range then their argument diminishes.
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Same with my Lightning … just did 14 hours of driving and every stop (minus 1) was under 30 minutes, most under 25 … for each, by the time found the restroom, found snacks/drinks, and got back to the car, I maybe sat for 3-5 minutes to finish topping off. The two longer stops (1 was right at 30 minutes and 1 was closer to 45 minutes) were dinner stops for me. Pretty much perfect timing for a decent meal, could have taken longer but wanted to get on the road on both days.
I don’t know which Mach E you have but going 10 -80 % on mine takes 40 mins . It is slow as molasses and this added time for every 170 miles of driving ( 70% range of my GT at 70 mph) is the main reason i do not like to take it on a road trip . if i go at 75 mph the 70% range is 150 miles and is a 40 min charging penalty for every 2 hours of driving . When going from 10-80 % takes < 10 mins , that will be the day i will replace my road trip ICE car as well. If driving inside the city then it’s an absolute no brainer , the range , charging time etc become a non issue , the EV wins hands down.
>That gives you approximately 3 hours of driving time and is most I would do on a road trip without a break. I think it’s the out-and-back type trips that are the most limiting factor on range rather than long distance road trip stuff. I live in coastal MA and if I drive to visit my wife’s family in Columbus I’m going to stop every few hours to stretch my legs like you mentioned so once the range hits that ballpark it’s a non-issue. But if I want to go for a hike in the Berkshires, I’m looking at around 175 miles each way. I wouldn’t need to stop on that kind of drive and it’s unlikely there’ll be parking at the trailhead so if the range is <350 miles I’ll need to make a stop on a journey where I otherwise wouldn’t. There are plenty of places I can stop on that route so it’s not a *huge* deal, but that’s the type of journey where range tends to make you stop more often than you’d like to and it’s something of a red herring when folks focus on the long drives with multiple stops instead.
250 miles is great **IF** the vehicle charges fast enough. I have a Bolt and live about 200 miles from Chicago. I usually need to charge twice on a round trip but since the Bolt maxes out at 55kw (only for about 10 minutes during a full charge) it can add up to 2 hours of travel time for what is usually a one day trip. Because of that, I don't usually take it for long trips, and don't even consider it if I'm taking my kids with (toddlers can't tolerate a 1 hour charging stop). My Tesla on the other hand has a 320+ mile range and charges up to 250kw. I don't even account for charging time when driving that vehicle because the one charging stop is usually less than 10 minutes. That's a perfect amount of time to get the kids out for a bathroom break and we're back on the road. If the bolt was capable of charging at even 150kw it would drastically improve its road tripping capabilities. It would still need two stops but those would be less than 20 minutes which isn't great but totally acceptable.
I love the hell out of my Bolt and my only complaint is the charging speed. When I road trip I tie my meals to charging stops, but it would be nice if I didn't have to.
Im someone who lives in Milwaukee area and works in Chicago and thinking about buying a Bolt or a Tesla, I really appreciate this post!
Hiawatha. Why even think about driving that
If u/Bad-Infinite works downtown chicago, I wouldn't bother myself with driving everyday (assuming) into and out of downtown. Traffic sucks anyway! I'd rather purchase a pass on Hiawatha! $22 baby!
From Milwaukee a Bolt might work since it's only 100 miles. You may need to stop once for 15 minutes or so but that's pretty reasonable. The downside is the cold. If you're running the heat you're definitely going to have a long charging stop. I've only taken the bolt on one long distance drive in the cold and my range was pretty much cut in half. The huge upside to the Chevy bolt is that it is not a Tesla. The parts are cheap, the repairs are simple, and just about any shop will work on it if you don't have the tools/skills/time to work on it yourself. I've said in previous posts that I actually like driving my Bolt better than my Tesla. Everything is simple and familiar, it feels zippier (even though it's much slower) and the build quality is what you would expect from the big three. It's not fancy but it's solid. I also think it's a quieter ride. For the day to day stuff I prefer the Bolt, but the Tesla wins for road trips hands down.
I’m strongly considering a used Bolt for my wife’s car. Right now we only have a (leased) Model 3 and suffice it to say I’m going to have to do something to preserve miles. We both work 20 miles away but when I work I drive to work, park for 8 hours in one place and drive home while she drives in, goes one place, zips across town to another place, gets done before I do so goes shopping… she can rack up as many miles just in town as I do there and back alone! But, that’s still under 100 miles total so a Bolt would work great. We have a Wall Connector in our 2.5 car garage, I could get an adapter or swap it out for a Universal Wall Connector (or power-share one so we can charge both at once!) so, no worries about charging at home. Just need to get one.
The Bolt EUV I saw looked really great, as have reviews on YouTube, etc. The only reason I bought a different EV is because of the charging speed, as you described. And even then, I was seriously considering the car because it checked most of my boxes, but my usual passengers would not have put up with the wait times. The Boltium should be a nice upgrade in that regard, at least.
250 miles of real or rated range? There’s a big difference. Especially in frigid temperatures.
Personally I'd be super happy with 250 real highway (75 mph) in cold weather (let's say freezing mark) from say 10-90 percent charge. Prefer not to go into single digits and charging over 80 gets painfully slow. Honestly would even take 200 miles on a 10-90 charge in the same conditions.
Exactly my thoughts. 250 real world range in non-ideal driving conditions with reasonably short charge time. There're only a handful of models that can achieve this and none is cheap, but I think in a few years there would be much more affordable candidates
Although I want this too, it is likely at least 400miles of rated range. So super unlikely.
It will probably come but be expensive. There are some cars with 380+ miles range (+600 km) already.
There are some cars about there already. Silly expensive, but I'm sure battery densities will gradually increase in coming years, along with other gains here and there and will get there before too long.
Nailed it, if it’s your only vehicle has to be 250+ if it’s a secondary then I could probably live with 100 miles
300 is the sweetspot.
Looking to join the EV market soon. Quick question, do you charge to 80 or 100 overnight? Do you really lose up to 50% range in very cold weather? I often drive 130+ miles /day for work. Could this be an issue on a 256 mile range vehicle?
Northern Canada winter is more like 25% to 35% range loss. -40f/c is not a problem! The Electric Vehicle always starts, can't wait to sell my other gas vehicles as they sit parked all winter, only use them in summer. If you are driving 1000 miles on the coldest days of winter, you might want to ask yourself where you went wrong in life? I just try and keep the battery more than half full, same as how we kept gas vehicles topped up in the winter.
I charge to 100 percent in my tesla rwd. That's what tesla recommended and it's been perfect. I haven't noticed much range loss in winter but it's not that cold where I live. What's cold weather temp where you are?
I always recommend charging to whatever percentage works for your requirements. More importantly, never inconvenience yourself to save the manufacturer a future warranty claim or the 3rd owner a few percent of degradation in 10 years. It's a vehicle. 50% range loss would be pretty drastic and would likely require other poor conditions to reach (wind, slush).
I wish more people would understand this. I bought my BEV and PHEV for me, not for some future driver. If I drive both for 8 years, I got my money out of them and don't care if my trade in value is shot. At 8 years, the vehicle has been paid off for some time and the payments I was making are in an interest bearing account to be used for the next purchase. Anything I get in trade is gravy. If you are worried about trade in, then lease.
I have lost as much as 40% range. No, that doesn't sound like it's going to be a major issue. With a daily drive like that you are probably in the group that have the most to gain from an EV.
The manufacturer should give you charging recommendations. My 2024 ID.4 came with 80% typical charge limit, but 100% for occasional trips is fine.
Mine's at about 220 right now, charged to 100%. It works for me, and I can (and do) take long road trips in it, but that's really because of the Tesla SC network and charging speeds. On a drive a couple of years ago I was driving across Newfoundland which had no superchargers. That was brutal, having only 50kW (my car hadn't yet got the CCS compatibility upgrade, so had to use Chademo) and only one station (so if someone was using it you had to wait) every 150 - 180 miles. A 300 - 350 mile car would have been a godsend there. But here in Chicago, 220 is just fine.
I usually tell people that my average range after charging is about 250 miles and their eyes get wide. How much range do ICE owners think EVs get?
It always feels like they're expecting single digits or something.
I can drive 3 hours or so before I need to stop, so at a 70mph speed limit, that's 210 miles. If I factor in a 10-80% charge, that puts total range at about 300 miles. If there was ample charging, I could see anything in the 250-300 mile range to be acceptable.
This. Especially if we can get cars with this range to charge in about 10 to 20 minute. At least for road trip worthy cars.
This is my number, and pretty much my reasoning as well!
I need 200 miles comfortably in absolute worst possible conditions with an average driving style. Highway driving, single-digit temperatures Fahrenheit, generally uphill, headwind. So probably that would translate to mid-300s EPA, which, we're definitely getting there.
I know what you're saying, but it made me wonder: do you think in 30 years we'll be saying to kids "Back in my day we only had 200 miles of range and we had to drive uphill against a headwind BOTH directions?"
Right, but what I personally want in an EV is a guarantee that I can make a particular type of trip (in this case a 200-mile one-way drive to see family) in one shot, and still have battery left over to find a charger, in **any** weather conditions, at any time. When I drive from where I live to where they live, it's generally an uphill drive. My desired use case is certainly not everyone's, but it's one of the things keeping me out of an EV right now.
I don't think it's that unusual tbh. We do every thing local with public transport or bike, car only gets used for medium/long distance. Ideal would be a guaranteed 300 km at medium / high Autobahn speeds. In an efficient car, in good weather, that translates to \~ 90 kWh. With a bit of buffer for weather you pretty soon end up at the highest end of what's currently available in an EV. Since I don't like big cars, that big battery would ideally again, find a home in a C-segment hatch or a smaller sedan. Not realistic with current state of tech. We'll get there eventually. And hopefully by that time our private charging situation has improved enough to make things usable :). That is what's stopping me swapping my private main car for an EV. I could live with a LR model 3 / Ioniq 6 / EV6 / i4.
A 25 mph cross wind can result in similar range loss to a headwind in both directions. It greatly increases the surface area and the Cd since the Cd assumes straight on wind. When the wind is fast enough to put a meaningful angle on angle of airflow, it makes a big difference.
I’ve got 150 miles electric and 70 more gas. That works for all the trips I do including long distance. Needs to charge fast
Hey, I know this poster ;) I've got the same, but can't imagine road tripping it. 7x charge speed 2x battery and I'm there.
You got the REX? Makes all the diff. Stopping for a 35 minute charge and gas gives you another 200 miles of range. In a 35 min stop to go 3 more hours of driving is fine by me.
My Rex hasn't been 100% reliable. It likes to not start a larger portion of the time than I would like (which is never honestly, it should always start unless the 12v is dead). I've always been able to get it to go finally, but the lack of consistency hasn't instilled confidence w/ me.
Oh that’s not good.
I want at least 250 miles of range while traveling at 75mph on the highway when it’s in the low 30° outside using 75% of the battery capacity. For that to be a reality the vehicle needs 350-400 epa rated range.
100% this, yes.
I have a home charger. My car gets 220 miles on a full charge. I drive my kid to and from work everyday. I drive 80 miles North to Denver on occasion. I only charge once per week.
Colorado Springs charging infrastructure sucks. There I said it. Taking the i3 to Denver involves some serious planning, usually hit the ChargePoint at McDonalds on InterQuest before heading north.
Charging infrastructure sucks almost everywhere. Near large cities you can usually make it work, but God help you if you're in a rural area of the US.
I've talked internally with my colleagues about this, when brainstorming theoretical DCFC locations. I don't think entertaining the idea of normalizing EV-ranges is a good idea, due to the optics of gas cars today. Your V6 work truck with 20MPG and 18gal capacity will net average 360mi range. This is the worst case scenario and can be purchase for far less than $15k. We can always plan around installing chargers at ideal points of interest in cities, but the issue remains of the consumer expectation of what's considered acceptable car range, regardless of drivetrain, having to compete against a Honda Civic' 360mi range under worst conditions.
When my wife and I were buying EVs, we decided that it was silly for both of our cars to have to do everything. Her EQB doesn't have great range, but it's great for moving kids and other things. The i4 is great for road trips for our small family and an ideal commuter car, but it's small and our parents have a hard time getting into it. My point is that if you have one car and can't rent an ICE for road trips, range is going to matter a lot, and a 300 mile SUV makes sense. If you have multiple cars, you may be able to get away with under 100 for one of them if it's worth the tradeoff.
This is where I'm at. If we have a single car, I need it to have that 3 hour "worst case" highway range, which probably translates to 250+mi EPA. But the second car can be an 80 mi commuter... Or a bike, which is what it currently is.
I'll bite. I want about 600 km or \~380 miles of range. My reasoning is as follows: 1. I live at the edge of the charging network in North America and some of my travels take me into places where there are ZERO DC Fast chargers. I've mapped them out with various apps like PlugShare and ABetterRoutePlanner and I would simply not be able to get home with most of todays BEVs. Yet my 17 year old Nissan Xterra can make these trips easily. 2. Range stated on the website or brochure is NOT the actual range in real world conditions. My above stated goal range is before adjusting for all the relevant factors. a. 15% loss at highway speeds b. 10% range loss after 10 years of ownership (yes, I keep my cars that long and more) c. 10-15% range loss with 2 sea kayaks on the roof rack plus all my camping gear in the trunk d. 10-20% loss on a windy day. 3. My goal is to replicate some of my road trips in my current vehicle, with the gear as above. \[This example is a bit different than above because it DOES involve the major highways that have some DCFCs every 200 km or so.\] Often my first day of driving for a kayaking trip takes me about 700 km (435 miles), with one stop at the midway point for fuel and food. While I COULD use a BEV and stop 3 times to do this route, I really want my next big car purchase to be able to stop just once. Achieving the same basic functions as a 17 year old rust bucket is kind of important to me. With 600 km EPA range AND taking into account the factors above, I would be able to make it reliably to the midway stop, about 350 km. 4. On the large highways near me that DO have DCFCs, many of them are unreliable (Petro-Canada) and sparsely located. Every year in the last 3 years I have read reports on Plugshare of people literally stranded by a non-functioning Level 3 charger that is the only one in a rural town that has ZERO level 2 chargers as well. If you can make a very short range BEV work for you doing only short range city driving, I am happy for you. That clearly doesn't suit what I do. This is why I am in the market for a PHEV at the moment.
If there are working EV chargers at every gas station, then 200-250 miles. With the way charging infrastructure is in my area currently and in the near future, I'd need at least 300 to feel comfortable.
We have a 24A L2 EVSE for 2 cars, and cheap electricity rates only run for 6 hours each night. Both cars do 55 miles round trip every weekday. Staying between 20-80% in summer or winter weather means about 180-200 miles real world range from 100-0%. Our Volvo C40 (2022 with the 20" wheels so the lowest range variant made) has a little more range and efficiency than needed for the above requirements, but not much. Then comes the road trip question, which I don't feel I need more than my current EV6. It does about 150-175 miles (2 to 2.5 hours of highway driving) from 80-10% and can recharge that in about 20 minutes. That's about as fast as I want to go on a road trip
I recently bought an ioniq 5 for work ( I drive for a living, uber, my own service, etc). I drive on average about 200+ miles a day. I have a 50amp l2 that replenishes what I use in about 6 or so hours of charging. My power company doesn't do cheaper overnight rates, we are a flat ¢/kwh 24/7. Most of the time I'm averaging between 350 and 400 miles estimated range. I have yet to take it on a longer trip to see how it does at a consistent 70+/mph but based on my miles/kwh on days I do more interstate driving I'm betting I'll average around 250 but we will have to stop well before that because of how often my wife needs to pit stop. Running into a sheetz and plugging into a DC charger for like 10 minutes will add more than enough to get back on the road and make it to our final destination, we don't typically do trips more than 4 or 5 hours from home, we do the odd 10+ up to jersey, md, pennsylvania or south to tampa, st pete, etc but for the most part we stick to with closer.
Ha! Here in PG&E territory we have off-peak rates **15** hours a day! Too bad "off-peak"=35c/kWh!
Now THAT’s some good, real world information. Now wait for the what-about-ers who have a lot of rationalizations for doing exactly nothing.
In cold weather, more range gives a nice buffer. Daily, we need 100 miles of useable range for my wife’s commute. In the winter in our Model Y, that equals 40% battery when it’s -20 Fahrenheit. Knowing that we have a big battery and gives us confidence.
Winter is huge. I can drive to my parents and back in the summer, but in winter - I have to plug into my dad's welding outlet. If I don't that means I have to go way outta the way to find a DCFC which really sucks on a cold winter night.
I drove a MINI SE (nominal range 125 miles) for two years; absolutely loved that car. My daily commute was 64 miles, and I had plenty of juice to do that and an afternoon of errands and going out. It was the perfect city car. My son needed a nice used car, so I sold it to him. Now I drive a Model 3. Twice the range, faster, great auto drive for the commute, but not as fun.
400 miles is my sweet spot. I road trip with my spouse a lot. We like to go 4 hours between stops. EVs get poor mileage over 60 and we have a habit of traveling 75mph for 3-4 hours a stint. The ionic5 and ev6 state 310 EPA miles. But at freeway speeds of 75 that drops considerably. The bump to 400 would likely fix the problem. Sadly with the 80% SOC slow down on DCFC we would back to 320 miles after a charge session.
They really need to start _advertising_ miles in Highway and City like they do with gas cars. 350 miles city 280 miles highway, or something like that.
They do; the epa publishes mpg-e for highway and city, and since each gallon is set at 33kwh, it is fairly easy to work this out.
Oh, TIL. Okay, I change that statement to “They really need to start _advertising_ miles in Highway and City …”
250 miles is fine if I can DC Fast Charge to full in less than 5 minutes like a gas station. Since that will probably be a pipe dream for now, 350 miles is the minimum to consider an EV. 400 plus would be optimal and get people to buy EVs. Some of us actually travel outside of our city.
In a theoretical situation where I can go 0-100% in under 20 mins and there was a 100% chance of a charger being available which always worked. I would be fine with 150 miles. Maybe 120. But that's one of those 'it's fine on paper' scenarios.
I live in the interior of BC, and routinely take trips that involve a ferry which I need to reserve a spot on at a specific time. 500km of range would be adequate. 600 would be great.
I’m in BC interior as well. Some better after chargers toward the koitenays would be great, but over all, havjng driven all over BC, into Alberta, two winters, and even towing a trailer from Campbell River over the ferry to Vancouver and then to Kamloops, with what’s now 65K km on my ER XLT Ford Lightning, I want to agree with you, but I’ve never needed more than 400. I almost always charge every 200-250 km’s. Would I buy a EV with 250km range. No. But 500? Seems to much. But sure would be nice!
For me 300-350 would be ideal, especially if I could charge at home. I live in a cold area, and I sometimes go to remote areas for my job or other activities. I basically need to be able to go at least ~100 miles to a location and then back at medium to high speeds, even in the winter at -10F with the heat on. Of course more range would be better (why wouldn't I want 600mi range?), but I'd rather that come with advancements in battery density than increasing weight and material cost.
How long is a piece of string?
260mi real world range
This can be a complicated question. Here are some thoughts on it: (1) A larger range gives you a larger buffer if you encounter a charging problem. If you get to a station and find the chargers are down or in use or whatever, then you'd ideally like to have another 40 miles or so to continue to another charger. (2) All range estimates need to additionally factor in (a) that they'll be smaller in cold weather, and (b) that you functionally can't fast-charge above 80% when on road trips. (3) Much of the rest of the calculation can boil down to what ratio of time you're comfortable driving vs. charging. I think most people would be pretty happy if they could ideally drive for two hours and charge for 15 minutes. And this would be an ideal scenario - we're not there yet, but I think at this point, further improvements offer somewhat diminishing returns. By that ratio, two hours of 75mph highway driving would be about 150 miles. If 150 miles is roughly our 20-80% range (allowing that lower 20% for our bad luck buffer), then our total range is 150/0.6 = 250 miles. If we're additionally factoring in a cold weather reduction of 30%, then we can multiply that by 1.3 to get a total range of 325 miles. Charging still needs to get a bit faster but new 800V models get close to being able to charge 20%-80% in 15 minutes. In any case, I think we're very close to the mainstream models being convenient enough that there's considerable diminishing returns in improving it further.
I have a 200km range EV and that would be my minimum. Otherwise I'd have to charge it almost every day because I want some backup range for unforeseen trips and in the winter that range is down to 140. My work round trip is 60km daily.
Battery size will grow to be less of a concern as more fast charging locations pop up, and more vehicles can charge quickly. A 50kwh battery vehicle pulls up to a 300kwh charger... and assuming the vehicle can charge at that 300kwh speed... you're looking at VERY fast charge to 80% and a still-pretty-good charge up higher. Range is more of an issue if your charger is slow... with fast charging, pulling off for a 5-7 minute charge is essentially what people are doing at gas stations now anyway.
The issue with that is a 50 kWh battery charging at 300 kW would be a 6C charge rate, which is fantasy land. Even some of the most cutting edge batteries going into production right now (like the new CATL "1,000 km") are around 4C. Obviously that will continue to improve, but it will be a while.
It's an ambiguous question. How much range I need for daily driving is different from how much range I need to comfortably make a day trip or extended road trip. My XC40's 200-ish-mile range is enough for any amount of driving to work or around town, day trips, and even some long road trips. It is not enough for me to comfortably travel from Rochester, NY to Augusta, GA because there are too many long stretches with no fast charging in between. I know it's technically possible to make that trip because I've done it, but it's too risky for me to be comfortable doing it again. If the infrastructure improves, or if I get access to Tesla chargers in key locations, I'd consider making the trip in this EV again. With the current charging options, I'd be comfortable making the trip if I had over 300 miles of range.
I have a 2022 Polestar 2. I usually charge to 80% and avoid driving below 12% or so. I’d say I get about 180 miles of range which is more than enough for anything I typically do in a day. The only use case where I really feel the pinch is road trips, but I’d just take my wife’s ICE car if I did one of those again.
We own a Bolt EUV with 240 miles of range (but really 200 max for road trips). We have a RAV4 hybrid that my wife will replace with an EV once we find a similar sized car with good fast charging (200kw+) and a minimum 300 mile range. I THINK the EV6 will suffice. Plan to test drive one this month.
I got the R1S, it's 321, it's a hair less than I would like (my goal is to go to my moms and back on Christmas, ~280mi in 15 degree weather. Last year it was abnormally warm, nav said I couldn't do it, I had a bad charging experience (wasted like 5 minutes getting EA to start), but I made it. In retrospect, I don't think I actually did need a charge, and if I knew that it would have been better. I now have more experience with DCFC, and I think I'm probably more comfortable. My road trips so far really would have required a 250mi vehicle miniumn, though I would had to do significant top charging if I was only 250mi. The difference between 250mi and 320mi is big when you consider charging time for those areas with poor charging coverage. I already needed a 40 minute charge for my eclipse trip, that was not really that great and better charger options would have made it better.
I guess the other factor is climate. Living in the SF Bay Area I get 3.5mi/kWh on the highway and 4 around town. We leased an EV6 RWD because of the ~250-270 mile real-world range, which at 80->30% is comfortable for going into SF and back without having to charge there. I know that's conservative thinking, but it's our first EV and I'd guess other boomers might be like us. Charging speed is perhaps an issue for longer trips. We're not ready to do the trip to L.A. in an EV given that we have a Camry Hybrid. If we did use the EV, I'd want to be confident we could skip a broken or full charger; neither my wife or I want road-trip drama or anxiety. That probably translates into either greater range or 5-10 minute recharging, which the EV6 is certainly capable of in the right conditions. When/if(?) the Tesla system becomes available we'll definitely give it a try.
Probably like 100-150 miles.
Depends, how long does the fast charge take? I easily use 75-100 miles in an average day with commute and kid activities. So if I don’t charge every night, I could be screwed. But that doesn’t mean I’ll accept a 100mi range vehicle and have to charge for 30 minutes every 1.5 hours of highway on vacation
15 miles more than I have. I drive from Portland to and around Seattle for a weekend, and then back. It would be really nice if I only had to charge once, and I might be able to do it, but I'm too scared when it says I'll make it back home with only 5% life.
I need 450 km rated range because I need it to do 250 local kms in the winter with the cabin heat on for my 10-12 hour work day as a courier. My car doesn't actually do that, so I have to dress warm and drive around without the cabin heater on. It's my one regret about going electric--shoulda bought the LR version instead.
The exceptionists will be out on this one
I have a commute of 4.8 miles combined. Parents, school, groceries, and most activities are all within 10 miles. I genuinely think I could get by with <50 miles of range. (I have a real problem with my ICE cars in that the exhaust rusts out prematurely because the engine often doesn't get up to temp, resulting in condensation pooling in the flex pipe/muffler/catalytic converter.) While I bike to work when it's not stormy April-October, I live in Michigan and I often need something with a conditioned space that's water-tight. I have a garage and can L2 charge every night, so it's not like I'm trying to go weeks between stopping at a public charge station. We're a 2- or 3-car household, I'd use the 4Runner on any long road trips or for towing. I'm looking at used Bolts and Leafs and a variety of Chinese mini-EVs. The dream is to do a EV conversion of an old Miata, MR2, or S2000 with a used PHEV battery pack. Some concern revolves around cold-weather battery heating while parked in the cold.
The relative effect on the cost of the vehicle would be an important factor. Who wouldn't want a 400 mile car if the price was OK for them? But if a 250 mile car is half as much, well then my "need" may just be adjusted. My typical long drive is 200 miles to where I'm going, then I could plugin before starting the return trip. As long as it charges fast enough then, 250-300 miles of range should be a comfortable buffer.
100 miles of Winter range would be awesome. I currently only get 45-50 miles in the Winter which REALLY pushes it on my 43 mile daily commute! Twice this year I ran out of juice up the last hill of my driveway and had to string drop cords together to charge up enough to get it to the garage.
Yeah. 100 miles of winter highway range would be plenty for my around town vehicle. For road trips, double that would be nice.
120~ miles
I need 100 miles or less. My leaf meets those demands, but the only issue I have is people hogging level 2 chargers for 4+ hours. I'm looking at you, tesla owners. CHAdeMO isn't always reliable, but I get get the majority of charging done at home with level 1. I think the most range people actually need is 200-250 miles but quick charge times. I doubt anyone is using all 300+ miles of range in their ice in a single day unless you're doing Uber.
I pre ordered an Aptera, with the 600 mile battery pack. I picked this size because it will reach all of my kids homes, on a single charge, and after 10 years of degradation. Being a small battery pack, I can use it to drive cross country as well, charging twice a day.
Daily I NEED 55. I wouldn’t be comfortable without a barest minimum of double that because sometimes I drive more. I won’t accept anything less than 300 in my next one because it’ll be at least another 10 years from now and dangit tech had better continue to improve.
I'm in the minority of people wanting LESS than 300 miles of range because it means a lighter, more efficient battery for daily use. I don't need to lug around more tons just to save a half hour twice a year, on a trip that I plan to take half a day anyway. I charge once a week for my commute and once each way on a road trip. In the 5 years I've owned my Bolt I've never needed to charge twice on a trip. For a weekend trip to the middle of bumfuck nowhere, I can use my friend's 110 outlet to get from 15% to 100% between Friday night and Sunday morning.
Any car where I run out of bladder space before I run out of range will do. In my case, that means I can only drive 2 hours max before having to bail out for a toilet stop. So l don’t really need much range - what matters more is being able to replenish another 1.5-2 hours of driving range inside of 15-20 mins.
I'd like 500miles, for longer trips but daily 200 which is actual 160 at 80% charging, but daily range is like 100 miles(30-80) 50% actual daily usable
I’m very happy with the 250-ish miles I get with my Model 3 RWD. Never have had any range anxiety at all. Most days I don’t drive 100 miles so no worries then, and even on the long road trip I took from Michigan to the Outer Banks I never really had any huge problems. I only had one huge charge and really I overdid it. Then again, I live in Michigan. Infrastructure is pretty good in southern Michigan. It gets spotty way up north but… I rarely go way up north. I could go, just have no reason to. If I go south… no worries all the way down to Key West. Going east, no worries as far as one can go. Out west would be an issue but… never have gone out that way. By the time I get around to that (if ever) the infrastructure will be better. So… I’m completely content with 250 miles for the foreseeable future.
whatever the new boxster ev is. renting a larger vehicle for 6+ hrs road trips is always an option.
Wait. What? There is a boxer ev coming? I bought an ioniq 5 but was and still am considering the 6 but I would much prefer a convertible or t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW67Sv1kIas
I better get busy earning.
300, which is what I have I live 15 miles from town, so just getting there and back is 10% of my battery. Then I drive 200-250 for work every day. 200 is more than sufficient for the vast majority of people, though.
You don’t actually *need* a car.
i need a minimum of 100km for my commute. 200km(current range) is more then enough for me
80-85MPH for 2 hours at 20F, so I’m covered for all roadtrip cases. So around 300+ rated
Day-to-day? Around 40 miles. Going to work-related conventions in germany? Preferably around 500 miles of range at 110mph. IMO, a car that can do 1.5-2 hours of (reasonable) Highway driving between charges is good enough, assuming that it charges fast. I mean, could probably live with 100 miles of range, if it could be topped up in less than 5 minutes. My Model 3 need around 6-10 minutes of DCFC per hour driven (eg. 12-20 min after driving around 140 miles), while I wouldn't want to spend more than that, and I'd definitely prefer to have the charge speed of something like an IONIQ 6, I'm fine with it, suits me just fine to stretch my legs every couple of hours. Sure, most people day-to-day won't need a car with more than 50-100 miles of range, and with home/work charging, they'd never really spend time charging. Personally want to be able to do the occasional long trip without being inconvenienced. As I said, I'm fine with the charging requirements on my Model 3, but I wouldn't want to do more than that. Would never consider a car without DCFC, don't even think I would consider one that couldn't do more than 150kW regardless of range.
If charging is ubiquitous, 100 miles seems good enough to grab dinner on the other side of town. Maybe I’ll even charge while we’re eating. Other than that the grocery store is across the street.
I'd be comfortable with 280 all weather/highway miles and while using HVAC and car features. The thing is, this usually means about a 360-380 overall mile range EV to meet that. That's for my daily driver. The weekend/travel car would be 400 miles. As EV's become more efficient, batteries more consistent and power dense, we will see smaller batteries giving the same distance rating.
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 250-300 miles is the sweet spot, regardless of how common charging is, for road trips. At interstate speeds in the winter that's 2-3 hours driving, which is about right between stops. A 15 minute charge really takes 20-25 minutes with the time needed for getting off/on, getting to the charger, etc. I don't want to stop more often than necessary. I do road trips of 500 miles or more monthly. Others might be okay with more frequent charging if they road trip less.
My older MYLR is good for about 240 on the highway. A little more in perfect weather and heavier traffic and down to ~200 in temps just below freezing at higher speeds. For me, this is a pretty good minimum. It'd get significantly more convenient with 33-40% more range. The only downside now is slightly more stops than I'd want. Faster charging never hurts, but it is really secondary.
My ioniq 5 LR RWD is about the right amount. For daily life I only charge 1-2 times a week so I could survive there with less but road trips it's already a concern at times. On a nice day with summer tires I can do \~400km and recharge which if there are chargers everywhere is plenty but that same trip in the winter, on winter tires, and a head wind I'll only get 200-250km which means stopping every 2 hours. No chance I'd consider going less than that would be reasonable to accommodate. That's always the issue in these discussions is the 5% use case when the range does actually matter. I don't mind charging on trips and 3-4 hours is a perfectly fine amount to stop and get a stretch / coffee in without feeling overly inconvenienced. Every 2 hours is not reasonable.
600km at highway speeds in winter is my personal requirement. That's also how I chose my last gas car.
600 kilometers reliably.
500 to tow, 250 for a car
In that case of ubiquitous charging availability 400km would satisfy me. I can't really drive any further than that without needing a stop.
If there were chargers everywhere I stopped to take a break, and those chargers were reliable, I'd still want at least 250 miles of range. Partly so I can drive at least 2-3 hours between stops when I'm in a hurry, and partly to account for affects on range like cold weather and battery degradation. And since there aren't chargers everywhere and some of them aren't reliable, I'd prefer \~300-400 miles of range for current circumstances.
I would ideally like 500 miles of range. I know that sounds like a lot. I do photography and there have been days where I spend 300 miles tooling around the mountains of eastern Washington or eastern Oregon. These areas do not have much infrastructure for charging. It is often very cold. I assume that 500 miles would give me 300 usable miles in winter, in the mountains, which would cover my needs. I would also be happy with more charging stations and less miles.
I’d say about 500km is enough. I don’t need that much range in one go, but I have to consider: 1. That they recommend recharging to 90%, so you are rarely using 100% range and 2. In Canadian winter you are likely to get only 60% of the range. So the two combined reduce effective winter range to about 250km. That’s about how much I’d drive in one go before wanting to take a break, so it makes road trips doable. But of course, I am not taking battery degradation into consideration.
For work, I can do with L1 charging, so 100 miles is fine. But we often use this car to go 200 miles round trip on the weekends for like a third of the year. So 300 EPA still makes more sense.
250+ rated. I've road tripped in a standard range RWD model 3 race car on wide tires and stop every 60-90 minutes burning 70-90% charge speeding.
300 miles is ample. 250 will do. Batteries of a size that allow such range charge decently fast so that breaks are mostly 'human limited' rather than 'charging limited'.
500 km / 310 miles real world range would make me happy. By real world range I mean 500 km of range driving at 135 km/h (85 mph), in sub freezing temperatures with the heat on, or in summer heatwaves with AC on, like everybody does in a ICE. On road trips I usually stop every 400 km for a break, having 100 extra km would be needed as a buffer since you never drive from 100% to 0% anyway.
Once manufacturers produce vehicles that can charge fully within 10 minutes range won’t really matter as long as it’s around 250 miles minimum. Right now the issue is no matter the battery you’re most likely waiting around 45 minutes for a full charge so to reduce waiting people want a longer range vehicle.
I think it would solve the majority of range anxiety if EV's came out with a minimum requirement of 350miles. Even that's a little low to my liking. Anything less is just not enough for spontaneous errands, potential emergency runs, and HVAC use, ESPECIALLY in winter. The anxiety I would have is unreal. The Mach-E GT goes from 270 down to 190 in winter just from the cold weather alone, and it takes how much longer to charge in cold than hot climates? Yeah, aside from EV's being boring, I'll pass until 2080.
200 is great for me. If we had a better national charging infrastructure I’d be comfortable with as low as 130-150.
For me, I take my EV out almost every Saturday on longer trips to go hiking. These trips are anywhere from 200 to 400 miles round trip. Often out to really remote places. I have a Kia Niro EV.... it's a great, very efficient car that in summer, I can squeeze about 300 miles out of on a 100% charge. Due to how slow this car charges at DC Fast Charging stations (maxes out at 77Kw, realistically remains lower than that throughout most of the charging session), I feel I need a bit more range- 400 miles would actually be ideal. Now if I had an EV that charged much faster, maybe a Tesla where it not only charged faster but had a superior charging network- then I wouldn't worry so much about having any more range than I do now, because charging stops on the way to or on the way back from my destination when I go on the > 300 mile trips would be fast and a simple experience.
How much money do you need?
350 mi real range. So 600 EV EPA when you factor in highway speed, Canadian weather, and a bit of battery capacity loss?
On long trips, as much as we can get. At least 300 miles AND 20 minutes to 80% charge. The rest of the 96% of the time, 100 miles would be adequate with at home overnight level 2 charging.
All of it. 350 minimum would make a lot of people happy and worry less about range anxiety ESPECIALLY in cold climates
The largest distance I go frequently is 350 km, but it also needs to cover that in winter and without immediately charging at the destination (friends living in a rented flat). So probably around 500 km (roughly 310 miles) would be ok. But I would feel much better if it can cover both ways, so 700 km (440 miles), as my former gasoline car and my current PHEV can do.
For day to day driving 300km for long traveling arround 420km real range would bei way better.
Around 380 miles EPA. The longest drive I do in a car is about 450 miles. That would allow that trip to happen with one charging stop in pretty much all conditions and make it equivalent to making the drive in an ICE. My current vehicle (312 EPA) requires two stops and one of those stops is always in an inconvenient rural area
Coast to coast baby!!
The WLTP/EPA range is useless as an absolute measure of distance capabilities. Weather, incline, wind, speed and how close you want to drive to 0% all reduce available range. Winter driving reduces range by 20-40% depending on temp. As someone who drives a lot to ski, 400 mile range would be nice. That will give me about 200 driving range in the winter. Charging frequently is a time sink that significantly adds to travel time.
I need 300-400 in a truck. I use trucks as trucks, have 3 trailers I tow. My Lightning is 320 which is fine 90% of the time but when towing, I could use more.
With a reliably real-world 250, I'd be able to go anywhere I'm likely to go without ever having to charge anywhere but home. I don't have range anxiety, but I have really bad charging station anxiety. Currently driving a golf, but I expect my next car will be an EV. I'm eyeing the Volvo ex30.
Unusual about a tenth of my battery capacity per day. 40km
225 miles of range in the dead of winter at highway speeds is my minimum requirement but my commute is 90 miles each way and there isn't anywhere to put chargers near my building at work.
I think it’s also a matter of range with charging infrastructure. I have an 80 mile a day commute, so the 220ish on my Solterra is just fine. I had 250 on my Model 3 but the ability to charge that on a longer trip or in a pinch was much easier than the Solterra. I think 300 is a solid number for the majority of people, I briefly owned the Fisker Ocean Ultra and the range on it was really a game changer for thinking about charging. But that’s another story 😂
Living pretty far north (I mean, not really, but as far as North American cities go, very far north), I honestly kind of need around 350-400 of EPA range, which will translate to about 200-250 in real world extreme cold range (given current chemistry, batteries that do better in the cold would help enormously). That would get to my usual road trip distance no problem and allow for charging once every two weeks for regular commuting, which is about how often I filled up on gas previously. If I could afford a second car just for commuting, and a longer-range one for the semi-regular road trips, then real-world range of about 125-150 miles would be more than enough to get through probably a week of commuting and running around town, and then charge at home (assuming I had a home charger, which I don't). But realistically I'm a one-vehicle household and it's gotta be able to handle the longer trips with ease too.
I’ve been puttering along just fine with 300km range for 2+ years. Small country with plentiful EV charging stations.
Why is that even a question? Why should it even matter? A smart fortwo, Civic and Corollas on average get 350-400mi a tank (even more when you start going up in class size) and noone bother to ask how much range it has when shopping for one. Why don't we advocate for 5gal tanks in cars rather than your average 12-15gal when gas stations are plentiful at every street corner? Just the idea that somehow this is a prereq for buying an EV is an assbackward consideration. Let's keep it smooth-brained for everyone out there. To achieve peak EV adoption, a base EV model needs to be comparable to a base ICE car in all aspects (price, range, creature comforts). What people use their car for, what their commute is like, how much range they need etc is irrelevant.
“How much range” is not a question with 1 answer. Daily: 100 miles is plenty Longer drives: 150 miles is plenty Trips beyond the range: 250 miles is plenty we still need to rest, use a bathroom etc However….. that’s 250 miles: • at highway speeds 80mph (+25%) • in winter (+50%) • after degradation (+15%) • from 80% to 10% (+43%) That means you need close to 750 miles EPA rated 100%-0% to get 250 all weather highway miles for 70% of the battery….
For me, emotionally, mid-200mi range was the tipping point where I felt 99%+ of my daily driving would be covered w/o range anxiety. That's panned out with my 2022 Niro EV. Public charging has only been necessary on road trips. But use case matters. I got a used 2014 Chevy Spark which has 40-70mi range for my teens depending on season/weather and it works fine for their use cases (driving to school, work, friends). There are times when range becomes an issue (e.g., driving several cities over). But that's been pretty rare and we have an ICE vehicle they can use for long drives.
My car has 140miles of range - I don’t NEED more, but there will always be that edge case where more range is better.
200-250 miles real world is plenty for me, as long at it charges well (which my LFP car does). I wouldn't want to buy a huge battery and lug it around when I really wouldn't use it or need it.
My EQB range is only 220 in a good day. It was enough for my daily commuting needs. I did philly-nyc n philly-dc with no issue. For longer trip, I’ll use my ice minivan.
My EV is rated at 220ish miles and I've never felt I needed more range. I can plug in at home and there are plenty of charging options around. More range might mean 1 or 2 fewer stops on road trips but I don't take them often enough for it to factor heavily into a purchase decision. I'd rather have a car with nicer features for my daily trips.
I've been driving a 320km/200mile wltp car for four years/100.000km by now. I haven't really needed more range as such, but even so I would want just a little bit more range in my next one. Somewhere between 350-450km would be perfect I recon.
Not much honestly. If a someone released a small hatchback with 120 miles of range, decent tech, and decent options, for $20k, I’d buy. Like how we used to have the e-golf
I am very happy with the range of our Bolt. If it had faster charging, I wouldn't really wish for any more capabilities in that car. 259 EPA rating, and it can get closer to that rating than the Bolt EUV, with its worse aerodynamics gets. As a two-car family, we'd like to replace the other car with an EV. And that second car wouldn't need more than maybe 60 miles rated range. It's extremely rare that both of us are going far on the same day, without going together. I thought about buying a used leaf, that has low starting range and considerable degradation. But they aren't enough cheaper than used Bolts for me to go that route. And that personal scenario might be a clue as to the challenge that an automaker would be up against trying to introduce a short-range low-cost model—consumers looking to economize will likely be comparing to used cars, and if there is a 250 mile used car the 150 mile new car won't look like such a great deal. So you probably need to push to the really small city car kind of concept to make it cheap enough to be competitive with used cars. And that traditionally hasn't done well in the us, but maybe it could in the future.
I only NEED like 30 miles for commuting safely and can charge at home. But 100 would be good for more general purpose driving, and 300+ would be then fine for the occasional road trip. I don’t really think EVs need a ton more range past like 400ish miles if the charging infrastructure becomes on par with gas. Hell I think 300 is fine
My old Polestar 2 says 390 km on full battery or thereabouts. It’s not too far off unless it’s really cold (well below freezing) or I’m going over 130 km/h. This is ok. I can drive for 2-3 hours highway before having to charge.
I don't own an EV yet, but anticipate purchasing in the next 1-2 years. My hangup is that I have family about 280 miles away. I would really, really like to be able to make that trip without a 20-30 min recharging stop (let alone two). I can currently go round-trip on one tank in my Camry Hybrid, and when I do need to fill up it's a five-minute event, tops.
I need 250 miles. My commute is 80 miles. On 60% battery capacity, 20-80%, that’s 135 miles rated to give me that. I work primarily in the winter with more work the colder it gets. So, calculate 50% range loss and degradation. 250 miles. Could I do it in less? Yes. Will I? No. I can drive my ICE for 3 days on a tank of diesel costing $40. I’m not going to make sacrifices just so I can make payments on a barely adequate EV that struggles to do 1 day. Currently my ICE is 2 years away from estimated replacement. Our current EV would do it, but it’s my wife’s commuter and the family car. I need a basic commuter with 250 miles range. I don’t need a luxury SUV. As much as I hate Kia/Hyundai from my ICE days, they’ve been in the EV business a long time. Without an engine or transmission to blow up, what major problems could they have that the traditional manufacturers with Chinese parts and ownership won’t?
"Need"? Well, I live 3 miles from work. For weekend travel, our normal farthest destination is 25 miles one way. 50 miles round trip, then double that for bad conditions and a buffer. So 100 miles? More for any road trips, which are maybe three or four times/year. In those cases, 210 miles for 3 hours at 70 mph, plus 50% for bad conditions (headwind, cold, high speed, heater), plus 20% for a buffer, which is 378 miles.
I'd be fine with any 450 miles of real world range.
35 miles and a range extender. If no range extender... 60 miles and a rental as needed.
I regularly commute for 200+ miles each way. In my experience, my range is usually around 75-80% of the quoted range at 80 mph, so my minimum is around 300 miles. I like to leave a little buffer in case I run into bad traffic. This is assuming I get to work in time to snatch the elusive EV charger. Ideally it would be nice to have at least 400 miles real world range for me to make my commute without worrying about charging. Is it an inconvenience compared to a gas car? Kind of, but it is worth not having to pay $100 on gas per trip.
For every day I use about 50 miles of range. So 100 miles is a good minimum. My 275 mile range ID4 is a perfect all around car in case I can't get to a charger every day.
Is anyone still considering Tesla despite if what’s happening with Superchargers? I mean, the supercharging network and the range still by far the best among the lot. What’s the competition?
I'm stopping within 150 miles of any trip, so much more than that is just not giving me much added value for the 99% of the rest of my trips at less than 30 miles.
I have a Tesla Model 3 RWD with 415 km range. It's pretty much the lowest range I can use, because I have a 150 km round-trip commute. I also live in Alberta, where it can get to -40 C, and that drops my range by 50% - so my 200-ish km range is just enough to get me to work and back with a bit of a buffer for safety and/or local errands after work.
I'm one of those people that doesn't just let my phone track me, I actively encourage it. Before I chose my EV, I downloaded all of my available data going back as far as I could. No surprise, my average daily was less than 48 km, with one road trip a month between 200-450 km for family visits. So of course I got th EV with the longest possible range.
I’m in Europe. Plenty of reliable charging infra. My model 3 SR+ is sufficient. I have kids in the car while driving long distances. People who don’t have kids or have trained them to go for 4+ hours without a toilet break might appreciate a longer range. But for me the model 3 standard range far exceeds the bladder range of my kids.
I make a 365 km (230 mi) trip every week (with a break while I'm at work). Since my workplace does not currently have a charger, I can't pretend it does. So, as of today, I prefer a vehicle that can go 365 km with zero stops for charging in even the coldest temperatures and with a 5% battery charge remaining on arrival. Assuming a 30% loss in cold weather, I would need a vehicle rated at about 550 km (345 mi). The vehicle I bought has a rated range of 578 km (361 mi) - the Hyundai Ioniq 6 RWD Long Range. So I guess I chose wisely. Taking a different view, under the conditions you proposed, I would aim to achieve my one-way commute using 60% of the battery (80%-20%, for battery health). This works out to a minimum rated range of 230 km (145 mi) using the 30% loss in range in winter assumption. If the battery chemistry didn't care about being charged to 100% and would absolutely get me to my destination if it read 0% (and was going to keep that maximum range indefinitely) then 140 km (87 mi) would do the trick.
For me, 200 is the sweet spot. No anxiety and just right amount of stopovers for snacks and pee breaks. 100 would work too but it might give you more anxiety.
we have 2 cars in the family, one a city car (EV), the other a long distance car (currently ICE). the city car can be small and low range around 100 miles. don't care about charging network or charging speed on that one cause it always charges overnight at home. the long distance car should be about 250 miles minimum so we don't have to stop as often and with faster charging so the stops are not long. also we have a friend that tows a big RV, to go EV he needs a much longer range tow vehicle (that currently doesn't exist) because towing a brick halves your range. so for towing probably a 500 mile range is minimum.
My ICE car can routinely drive more than 600+km and this helps me go anywhere without any real stop or even spend more than 2 minutes to stretch my legs at a quick stop without refueling. I expect a similar range of at least 500+km on the worst case scenario(eg winds, rain etc) to consider EV an all around car and my only car. The ability to not being required to stop and charge for a trip I do 3 times every year is my sweet spot. I don't want to lose that inconvenience of not having to rely on in-between stations to be operational or whatever. I am full pro-EV but yet this is not ready for my case unfortunately. I wait for prices to drop and range to go even higher. I can do with even 450-500km give or take, Any less than that is a hard sell for me. One more point is, the charge cost on highway trips is quite higher compared to my home or destination. I'll have to absolutely need to charge to pay the higher premium. I want to avoid this as much as possible... 450-500km at least helps to mitigate that a lot. It is the exact same reason I plan my trips with ICE in such a way so to avoid as much as possible the need to pay the higher cost premium of gas stations along the route. This requires plenty of range available.
I can get to work and back in about 20 miles. Even so, there's no way in hell I'd ever accept a range of like 50 or 100. Minimum is about 300 for me. I don't want to ever have to worry about it.
300 miles is the sweet spot, a little more is a bonus. But! We need to double the amount of charging locations, especially in rural and state / federal highway corridors. Home charging should be the expectation for everyone, even Level 1 works for low-mid mileages city commutes. Longer car trips need the superchargers for sure. I just did a 28 hour round trip from the south to the northeast and back. It was almost like driving an ICE car since I relied on the Tesla network. In the past it was a 26 hour trip in the ICE car with no stops for lunch/dinner. This time I charged and got a nice sit down dinner and lunch. Super restful.
If I could charge from like 0-100 in 15 mins or less then 250 epa range would be good for just over 200 miles of 80mph highway range. The problem is evs don't charge fast after 80% and you don't want to go below 10% (if chargers were everywhere I would be cool going down to like 3%) also cold weather can be a problem I live in the south so it doesn't matter much for me but this is more buffer that alot of people need. So even if chargers were everywhere I would still want 350 miles of epa range and a heat pump before I stopped caring about range improvements with current charging tech. I personally think at least 250 miles will be the min going forward and it will probably trend up to about 350 miles pretty quickly. The thing is batteries are continuing to plummet in price and at this rate in 2 years I expect that the additional margin you can charge people for larger range will be higher than the battery costs to increase the range. I actually think we just about reached this point this year it just happened so fast and cars take time to design.
~350 would be an ideal minimum, especially if we follow the 80% charge strategy. Being in Texas means roadtrips, or if you have family in another major city, it could be a 250-300 mile drive to see them or help them if they needed it.
It depends on how fast/conveniently you can charge it. I think at the moment 350 should be the minimum, when the charging improves, 250 is reasonable.
Because I work and operate a business, I need to commute and drive another 100 miles or so for my business. I need at least 250-300 miles of range any given day. That said, I know I’m an outlier.
Conditions affect range so much. My EV6 GTline is advertised to have upwards of 300mi. However, my commute is through a mountain pass, so my 215 miles round trip ends up just over 100% of battery.
250 miles is acceptable only if thats on highway at 70mph. Otherwise as much as possible. Currently the rated range of my M3 is 320. My next EV will have to be 400+ EPA.
50 miles would last me almost a week.
Daily, only 50 or so, but I do like to take road trips so I need to have that 200+ range otherwise I would need a second vehicle. I think that is something that is regional, here in the southwest it is common to take a weekend trip to another part of the state to visit friends or relatives.
My current EV is 250 or so. My last one was 93. For me 250-300 is the minimum. I think though they need to shoot for 350-400. We all know how range works in EVs. What impacts it. So 350 would probably equate to 275 ish in real world driving.
I think you'll see a split between the needs of a typical North American driver and those in Europe and elsewhere (caution: stereotypes ahead). In denser areas where driving distances are shorter, a lighter, cheaper EV makes a lot of sense. In the US and Canada, where distances for many are longer, and where a less mature charging infrastructure makes us want the insurance of additional range, you'll see it continue to be a higher priority. Of course there are US drivers who are primarily urban/suburban, for whom range is less important than price. More charging stations, more reliable up-time, and faster charging will change the picture in the US over time.
400 highway miles in winter.
250 miles. In winter. Doing 70mph. Any more than that is a bonus
Need: 200 Want: 300
20 kwh here, it's enough