EV Range Anxiety, Is It Gender Based?
If Electric Vehicles traveled 200 miles and could be charged up in 5 minutes, I don’t think this common EV objection would be very common at all. The fact is, currently EVs don’t go as far as their gas car counterparts. However, with the Chevy Bolt, the Generation II Nissan Leaf, and the much anticipated Tesla Model III, we are all about to see the average EV range move up from 80 miles to close to 200 miles! The increases in battery capacity has been improving so much so in recent years that the original Tesla Roadster that had over 200 miles of EV range, when retrofitted with today's batteries, increased its range to over 400 miles.
So do I think Range Anxiety will be with us forever? No I don’t. As the battery capacity keeps improving, there will be less and less Range Anxiety however today it is still a very common occurrence, even in my house (and no it is not me that fears getting stuck in an EV).
You see, I don’t fear running out of power in my electric vehicle because I converted my first car into an EV in 2008 and had used computer UPS batteries for fuel. It was an experiment and I only had 72 volts of power and only about 15 miles of range. I can’t tell you how many times I broke down a mile or two from my home. I learned quickly that I could get stuck pretty easily in the hills of northern NJ if I didn’t prepare in advance my route before I left. That has become commonplace for me. This was before the very first charging station was installed in NJ. I got to meet lots of my nice neighbors this way. One nice lady even came outside with a 12 volt car battery charge and asked me if I could use it.
Now it is much easier. Apps on your smart phone such as PlugShare.com can help you plan your route in advance and with more and more range showing up in today’s EVs, it will be much less necessary to even need these.
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