Got Range Anxiety? Get Over It.

Why Today Is (Probably) a Good Time For You to Consider an Electric Vehicle

Since I’ve gotten my Chevy Bolt, there’s one thing people want to ask me about — how do you keep it charged?

The questions vary. Sometimes it’s about the cost, the need for a special charger at home, or the available of a fast charger on the road.

But they are all evidence of one thing: many people who don’t own an electric vehicle just can’t comprehend the actual process of charging a car. All they know is pulling up to a gas station when the car is empty, and they just have no frame of reference to understand how EV’s work.

And so, many people have some form of range anxiety — and it’s likely holding them back from making the transition to an electric car.

If that describes you, let me tell you something. You don’t need to have range anxiety.

For most people in most situations, it’s just not an issue — and you don’t need to wait for some perfect future state to get an electric car.

How Much Range Do You Need?

Part of the problem is that people tend to think they need more range than they actually do.

In a survey in March 2023, Reuters/Ipsos included questions about electric vehicles. About a third of respondents said they’d consider buying an EV for their next vehicle.

Those people were then asked, “In order to meet your typical needs, how far of a driving range would your electric vehicle need?”

The responses are telling.

12% said they’d need over 500 miles of range, and 23% said they’d need a minimum of 500 miles. That’s basically as much as my old car (an Ioniq Plug In Hybrid) got on a full tank of gas. That’s excessive.

Another 37% said they’d need at least 300 miles. That’s around the top end of what’s available on the market today, although most EV’s don’t get to 300 miles.

15% said a minimum of 200 miles, and another 7% said a minimum of 100 miles. They are probably the most realistic ones out of the whole bunch.

For most people, 1 to 200 miles of range, when fully charged, is probably more than sufficient to meet their needs. While some people might need more, most of the 72% who said they needed more were likely overestimating what they actually need.

Two Examples: Mine and My Wife’s Daily Driving Needs

To understand why 300 miles is more than most people need, let’s take two examples — from opposite ends of the spectrum.

My wife does not drive much at all. Her job is less than five miles from home, so a regular commute is about 10 miles per day. Most of her regular shopping trips are within 10 miles of the house, so adding a trip on top of the commute would still only be 20 to 30 miles per day.

Thinking about all of the places that she visits with any regularity, the furthest one is about 20 miles from the house. I could probably count on one hand the number of days that she drove more than 100 miles in a day.

I, on the other hand, drive quite a bit.

When I travel to the office, my commute is about 130 miles round trip. On occasion, I travel to other places that are far away. I can’t remember a day that I spent more than 200 miles on the road, though.

I do most of the family driving, which includes trips to visit nearby relatives. My parents are about 50 miles away — 100 miles round trip. Check. My wife’s cousin is also 50 miles away in a different direction. No problem.

Other than out of state road trips, my Bolt’s 250 mile range has been far more than sufficient.

And I drive way more than most people.

The Census Bureau includes questions about daily commute in their American Community Survey. In 2019, that survey showed that the average commute was less than a half hour and 90% of people had a commute less than an hour.

Even if that commute was 100% highway driving, an hour each way would only be 120 to 130 miles. That’s what I do when I go in to the office.

Yes, some people might need more than 250 or 300 miles. But most people do not.

How Much Can You Recharge Overnight?

The only reason that you’d need significantly more range than your regular, daily commute is if you can’t fully charge your car overnight.

This is where the specifics of your situation matter.

If you own a home and can install a level 2 charger, then you’re good to go. Most vehicles, plugged into a level 2 charger, can add about 25 to 30 hours of range per hour.

If my Bolt was at zero, I’d probably be able to fully charge it overnight. After a typical day driving — let’s say 150 miles — I could charge it to 100% if I wanted to in about six hours. Even in the busiest of weeks, I can count on my car being parked at my house for six hours overnight.

But what if you can’t or don’t want to install a level 2 charger?

You can plug your car into a regular outlet and charge at a slow speed. This isn’t as effective as level 2 charging, but for many people this would actually be more than sufficient.

At a minimum, you can expect to add about 3 to 4 miles of range per hour with a level 1 charger. You may be able to increase the amperage to the charger, assuming you’re using a dedicated circuit, and get that up to 6 miles per hour.

But using a conservative estimate of 4 miles, that’s still at least 40 or 50 miles of range overnight. If the average commute is less than a half hour, that will more or less replace what you use on a daily basis.

It’s not enough to support my commute on a daily basis — but most people simply don’t drive that much.

What About Road Trips and Fast Charging?

If you can’t charge up at home, or if you’re going to go on a road trip, then you’ll need to hit up a public charging station.

Maybe you’re lucky, and there are reliable level 2 chargers available where you typically drive — say a public park, a shopping center, or your job. Where I live, there are level 2 chargers that are free for the first two hours at a nearby park. If I drive there for my morning run, I can plug in and charge while I work out.

But if you’re charging on the road, you’ll probably want to find a fast charger. This is the one time where your experience will vary quite a bit depending on where you live.

I live in New Jersey, and I know there are some reliable fast chargers throughout the state. They’re not as common as gas stations, but I can find them along the highway if I need them.

This is also where the car that you get will impact your experience. My Bolt isn’t the greatest at fast charging — it takes about an hour to bring my bolt back up to an almost full charge. But other EVs can accomplish that task in 20 or 30 minutes. If you plan on road tripping a lot, you should consider one that has faster charging capacity.

Still, I was able to take my Bolt on two road trips.

One trip was from northern New Jersey to Ocean City, Maryland — a little over 200 miles each way. I was able to make that trip with one stop along the way in Delaware.

The other trip was from northern New Jersey to Erie, Pennsylvania — a little over 400 miles each way. That required two stops along the highway in Pennsylvania, but we still made it just fine.

Frankly, road trips are the only time I spend much time thinking about my car’s range and its charging capabilities.

How Many Public Charging Stations Do We Actually Need?

That brings me to the point, here.

People tend to think that we can’t have full scale adoption of electric vehicles until we have a robust network of charging stations — similar to our robust network of gas stations.

But the reason gas stations are so prevalent is that every gasoline car on the road needs to be filled up at one. No one has a spare tanker of gas sitting at their house, and they can’t just fill up when they get home.

With EV’s, the calculus is different. The vast majority of EV charging can and should take place at home. You should only need to stop at a public charging station if you’re on a longer road trip.

So really the most important piece of the infrastructure is a reliable network of public charging stations along our interstate highways. Of secondary importance is charging stations at other local attractions, like shopping centers, parks, and businesses.

But these are more like “icing on the cake” than “required.”

Are You Ready for an EV?

All that being said, not everyone is ready for an EV. There are places and circumstances in which you may not be able to reliably charge your vehicle.

So here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you figure out if you’re ready for an electric vehicle:

• How far is your daily commute?
• How much do you typically drive running errands?
• Where are the farthest places that you typically travel?
• How often do you take out of state road trips, and how far are they?

Once you’ve answered these, you can think about your charging options — and determine if they’re sufficient or not.

Do you have access to an outlet for basic level 1 charging?

That’s going to be good for 40 to 50 miles of range per overnight charge.

As long as your daily driving is less than 50 miles, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Even if you occasionally drive farther, you may be able to catch up on the weekends or on days you come straight home from work.

You don’t need to wake up at 100% every day — as long as you have more than enough to get you around town.

Are you able and willing to install a level 2 charger?

This is an investment — although you may be able to get state, federal, and/or dealer incentives to cover a lot of the cost. You also may get access to cheaper charging if you install a smart charger — many electric suppliers have special off peak charging rates.

If this is your plan, then you can reliably expect to charge 200 to 250 miles overnight. For most cars, this is going to charge back up to a full or almost full battery.

Unless you’ve got a 2-hour each way mega commute, that also means you can charge overnight and not have to worry about range at all.

Do you need to use public chargers, and are they available?

If you can’t charge at home — maybe you rent and you can neither install a level 2 charger nor plug in somewhere for level 1 charging — you need to investigate public charging options.

In my area, most new apartment complexes are also installing chargers. So you may be able to count on charging at your apartment — but you may also have to pay quite a bit more than a homeowner would.

Some areas will also have other public chargers you can use. If they exist at parks or businesses that you already frequent, you may be able to count on using them. This is probably ok if you don’t drive a lot, but if you have a long commute it will take too much time.

In that case, you need to consider public fast chargers. These are often more expensive, but they are one way to keep your car juiced up. They also don’t exist everywhere. So do some research and see if there are fast chargers convenient to your home or work.

Frankly, this is the one situation in which I’d be hesitant to switch to an electric vehicle — but you can make it work.

Bottom Line: Most People Could Switch to an EV Today If They Wanted

Here’s the bottom line.

Most people can switch to one of the EV’s on the market today — and they’ll be just fine. People that think they need 3, 4, 500+ miles of range are probably overestimating how much range they need in an electric car.

There are some people — notably those who live in apartments without chargers or those who rely on street parking — for whom charging at home isn’t realistic. This is the one group that will have a hard time switching to an EV today.

But everyone else with range anxiety can get over it.

Have you recently switched to an electric vehicle? What’s your charging experience been like?

Have you been considering an EV, but you haven’t yet made the jump? What’s holding you back?