Range Anxiety - Is it Real???

[AltaTruck]

Whenever I would get a car, truck, or bike, I would fill a small jerry can of gas and go for a ride. I would drive past the "E" until it was completely empty and quit. At that point I knew the range I had after it said I was out. Yesterday I ran my bike from Pgh to Cincinnati for routine maintenance. I started with a full charge and charged enough in Columbus to finish the trip down. Calculations don't always work! As I was approaching the exit on the interstate the quickly draining range meter reached "0". I still had 4 miles to go with another 3 to a charger. I set the trip meter and continued. I got to the shop and unloaded the bike. The plan was to head to the charger, then back to Columbus to pick up the wife and granddaughters, and return to Pgh.

Pulling out of the shop the dash said Emergency shut down and pull off immediately. I did a U-turn and made it back to the shop. I was able to get a 110v extension cord and start a charge. After an hour (the shop had now closed for the day) I figured I would chance the 2.8mi to the EA charge station. I was a little on edge but figured I could always call AAA and get towed to the station. One mile out I got the message to pull off again (you get very little charge on 110v). I kept going and found the station. I pulled up to a 350kWh charger and...........it was broke. I saw another and backed out of the spot, but now it went into limp mode and would barely move. I pulled it to the nearest spot which was a 150kWh. I then put it into drive to straighten it out and nothing! It was completely dead. Fortunately, the cord was just long enough to reach the port to get me charging - and this one worked. No worries, I had inches to spare.

So there it is ......Anxiety does exist when you cut it a little too close. I did get about 6mi after the Zero, until it wanted a shut down. After the warning there was another 1.8 mi before limp. And then there was at least 50' before it died. Oh for the jerry can.

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[Dark-Fx]

Range anxiety is a symptom of poor planning and execution

 

[bigtex]

I was going to take my first distance trip last week. Left home with 100 miles of charge. Hit a 350kw EA station with 40 miles of range. Station was in limp mode. None of the four would charge past 36kw. Called EA, lady reset the charger and it went belly up. By this time, two waymo cars had pulled in and there were no open spots. So I'm left there at a dead charger, no open spaces, and no way to get to another fast charger on my 40 miles of range.

 

[CommodoreAmiga]

Range anxiety is a symptom of poor planning and execution

The biggest anxiety for me is "dead" chargers seem all too common.

I can plan my route till I'm blue in the face, but if I get to the DCFC and it doesn't work, then I'm still boned.

 

[AltaTruck]

Range anxiety is a symptom of poor planning and execution

You are correct! I planned to have extra charge, enough to get to the charger but did not factor the A/C needed due to the high temperatures. Also, a few cross winds may have added to the increased drag (which I had accounted for) on the bike in the bed. I will leave more wiggle room in the future. It's all part of the adventure.

 

[paariv]

The biggest anxiety for me is "dead" chargers seem all too common.

I can plan my route till I'm blue in the face, but if I get to the DCFC and it doesn't work, then I'm still boned.

Honestly would like to see EA liable for the cost to tow you to a station with a working DCFC if their chargers aren’t working where you’d planned to charge. Would incentivize a lot more maintenance!

 

[DJG]

I'd venture a guess that the incidence of EV's that run out of electricity is roughly equivalent to that of ICE vehicles that run out of gas. The common link is the operator, not the vehicle. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it is significantly less, because the outcome is more of a pain in the ass.

 

[mkg3]

Over the years, I've owned 20+ different vehicles in my time. I have never ran out of gas - though have come close few times.

No, I do not do what OP does with a can of gas and intentionally run out just to see how far it goes. Why? Just buy gas before it gets to that point.

Today, one of our vehicle is a Model 3 and have driven the vehicle to "negative" range past indicated 0% charge. Tesla has about 20 miles range in reserve past 0%. Its nothing magical. Its just how they chose to implement SOC display.

I suspect Rivian will in future updates will do similar where they will allow for "reserve range" by reprioritizing the system reserved power set-aside.

The reason I got in the situation of negative range is poor planning on my part. Should have checked the supercharger locations ahead of time and charged when I should have. Wasn't using Nav since I knew where I was going. Just figured there would be another everywhere... my bad.

 

[shamoo]

I wouldn't really call that range anxiety. Seems as if you're purposefully testing the range limits, above and beyond the "0" number. It is a good thing to know, but I'd advise doing that for day to day driving .

I don't have an EV yet (Rivian and Tesla on order) and range anxiety was a real thing for me. But as EV range increases year over year, and I examined my driving habits, I quickly realized that range should never be an issue.

How many times a month do I drive more than 200 miles a day? Once or twice.
How many times a year do I drive more than 300 miles a day? Maybe 5 max?
Long road trip maybe once a year.

Folks forget that you can charge at home (and for the lucky ones, at work too). You wake up every morning with a full charge. That's like filling up at a gas station every morning. My daily driver gets 10mpg. I fill up once a week. With an EV I get a full "tank" evey morning.

Range anxiety doesn't bother me. And it shouldn't for 90% of other people too.

 

[SeaGeo]

Honestly would like to see EA liable for the cost to tow you to a station with a working DCFC if their chargers aren’t working where you’d planned to charge. Would incentivize a lot more maintenance!

Anecdotally I feel like EA's reliability has decreased over the last year. I know they have had a lot of supply problems, which has probably exacerbated what seems to be a shitty backend for identifying inadequate charger performance.

 

[Denver_Paulie]

Anecdotally I feel like EA's reliability has decreased over the last year. I know they have had a lot of supply problems, which has probably exacerbated what seems to be a shitty backend for identifying inadequate charger performance.

Just curious on why you feel like EA's reliability has decreased over the past year?

I find EA reliability a million times better from my first CCS road trips in 2019. This year alone I have been to PHX twice, Vegas three times, Salt Lake City once, and Kansas City once in my Taycan.

I have never had an issue.

Obviously, the EA network is not perfect, and no charging network will every be, so curious why you think it is less reliable? Have you been stranded somewhere?

 

[Gator42]

There’s a conflation of a couple of ideas going on here- A) range anxiety and 2) the reliability of the charging infrastructure. It’s easy to dismiss this stress test as silly but the present state of storage and charging curves means for the foreseeable future drivers will be making cross country routes planned to stop at unfamiliar stations with only a few miles to spare. EA’s gonna burn a bunch of us.

Tow trucks are gonna need the gerry can chargers on board ASAP…

 

[Longreach]

Let’s be honest, range anxiety IS a real problem, depending on where you live and the distances you drive.

I just made 3 trips to west Texas, none of which were practical/possible with a Rivian (one could have with a Tesla, only thanks to the Llano supercharger). And an upcoming one way day trip to the Florida panhandle would no longer be a day trip with charging delays. Not to mention triple the costs for public charging, which brings economy down to ICE vehicle levels.

Public charger deployments have made the problem more manageable on the west coast and northeast with good planning (great for pedantic OC types, but less desirable for wandering free spirited types). But there are vast areas in the continental US where it’s still a big problem.

Electric cars/infrastructure are 100% there for urban and daily driving, 40-70% there for regional driving, depending on where you live. But currently it’s just not good enough for thinly populated areas and long distance driving. Sure, most people drive less than 50 miles a day, but everyone has the regional and long distance corner cases, some more than others.

Presumably it will get better in the future, but it is what it is and best to be honest about it rather than pretend the problem doesn’t exist.

 

[ajdelange]

Calculations don't always work!

Some calculations are better then others (A Better Route Planner is aptly named). But even more important is monitoring consumption as you progress along your route. Tesla has excellent tools for doing this. Rivian does not. It is my biggest disappointment with them. We'll have to figure out how to work around this shortcoming until such time, and if, Rivian rectifies this problem.

 

[Gator42]

Range Anxiety - Is it real???

It’s real- and it’s spectacular!!

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