While ‘range anxiety’ used to be a factor in purchasing an electric vehicle years ago, consumers have less to worry about when it comes to how far their EV can go, experts say.
While ‘range anxiety’ used to be a factor in purchasing an electric vehicle years ago, consumers have less to worry about when it comes to how far their EV can go, experts say.
I’ve owned an EV for two years now, have over 50,000km on it, and have never once needed a DC fast charger simply because I don’t go on road trips longer than a few hundred kilometers. Even my in-laws are 250km away, and its fairly easy to level 1 charge overnight with a standard wall socket before driving home at the end of the weekend. Uses about 60% of my battery on that trip.
I’m not worried about needing a faster charger if I do go on a longer trip, they seem to be on all the highways near me in any direction.
I’m at 167,000km, give or take. My local travel is completely transformed. I never need to visit gas stations, ever. Range anxiety isn’t a thing. I get 420km+ in the summer, and 300km+ in the winter. Yea, sure, in very cold days the range is lower, but the range is always higher than I need for my in province driving. Range anxiety is not a thing because years of driving has taught me that a full battery is always more than ill reasonably use in a day, even with a 110km daily round trip commute.
Long range trips, which I make several a year (510km each way) do need a charge stop. But yea, there are chargers all over. I use the DC fast sometimes, but mostly I use the slower lvl 2 chargers. Why, what kind of lunatic am I? The kind that enjoys parking his car in a small city or town, visiting the unique shops and restaurants and breweries and not feeling rushed. Catch me in the library in a small-town playing board games with my kids instead of rushing through life as fast as I can.
How does the heating work in the winter? Is there a pre-heat setting so you dont get into a cold car? Do the heaters keep up with -30c or worse weather?
-30C (real negative 30 celcius, not real feel or wind chill) is so exceedingly rare in PEI that I couldn’t tell you.
What I can say is that I need to commute to work everyday, and for a bit every year that’s - 15 to - 20 C or worse, and I’ve never driven cold.
Yes there is a preheat. It works fine, cabin warms up quick while it’s plugged in. For 2 years I was parking it outside and now I have a garage, in either case it was no problem.
Mine has a precondition option that can both heat the cabin and warm up the battery while still plugged in (a warm battery will give you better range). The heaters keep up, and in fact can warm the cabin faster than on ICE: The latter uses waste heat from the engine, the EV just uses a heating element like a space heater for home would.
Some of the newer cars have a heat pipe from the batteries to the cabin, so waste heat from discharging the batteries also keeps the cabin warm and improves winter ranges.
Does that only work while plugged in?
You can precondition the car plugged in or not. If it’s really cold you will want to plug it in, so you use wall electricity to heat the car instead of the battery.