A new study shows that EVs have more than enough range to take care of our daily driving in the U.S.

Data from thousands of EVs shows the average daily driving distance is a small percentage of the EPA range of most EVs.

For years, range anxiety has been a major barrier to wider EV adoption in the U.S. It’s a common fear: imagine being in the middle of nowhere, with 5% juice remaining in your battery, and nowhere to charge. A nightmare nobody ever wants to experience, right? But a new study proves that in the real world, that’s a highly improbable scenario.

After analyzing information from 18,000 EVs across all 50 U.S. states, battery health and data start-up Recurrent found something we sort of knew but took for granted. The average distance Americans cover daily constitutes only a small percentage of what EVs are capable of covering thanks to modern-day battery and powertrain systems.

The study revealed that depending on the state, the average daily driving distance for EVs was between 20 and 45 miles, consuming only 8 to 16% of a battery’s EPA-rated range. Most EVs on sale today in the U.S. offer around 250 miles of range, and many models are capable of covering over 300 miles.

  • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    28·
    9 months ago

    I chose Toyota first for a reason. The other two are just common PHEVs that came to my mind.

    In all three cases, the Battery Pack is one of the least-reliable parts of the car. Even for notoriously unreliable cars, the worst part remains the battery.

    I’m not kidding when I say that the battery pack is one of the most complex and least-understood parts of EVs, Hybrids, or PHEVs.

    EDIT: Wanna go Honda? Guess what part was least reliable again.

      • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
        56·
        9 months ago

        Gas engines just don’t fail today man. It will almost always be the battery pack. Stats prove it.

        I’ve looked at a fair number of these different vehicles from different manufacturers.

        • UsernameHere@lemmings.world
          6·
          9 months ago

          This is utter horseshit. Gas cars fail way more because they have way more parts and all of those parts require more maintenance.

          I would know, I bought a house and put a kid through college with the money I made fixing gas cars and now I’m changing careers cause EVs are taking over and they rarely break.

          The batteries degrade over time slowly, especially compared to gas engines. Just compare the warranties! Gas drivetrains get 3 year / 36k mile warranties. EV battery warranties are 8-10 years.

          • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            15·
            9 months ago

            Gas drivetrains get 3 year / 36k mile warranties.

            Um…

            You know that Hyundai has a 10 Year, 100k mi Engine warranty, right?

          • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            56·
            9 months ago

            The concern is that you have basically two different drivetrains to worry about, where if either fail you’re (potentially, depending on what/where/etc fails) without an operational vehicle at worst.

            Meanwhile, the Toyota Prius has been sitting on the top reliable cars for the last 20+ years…

            There’s like, statistics… ya know? We don’t have to hypothesize the problems or “expected” problems. We can look at these cars and their long history now and see where the problems occurred.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                24·
                9 months ago

                Sure, a PHEV battery a bit larger and might postpone things a bit longer but why sign up for a future guaranteed replacement item?

                Because replacing a 200lb battery is easier than replacing a 1000lb battery in a full EV.

                You’re right. Battery packs have limited durability / cycles. Its just how the chemistry works. The question is if you want to have a 200lbs of it or if you want 1000lbs of it.

          • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            9 months ago

            The stats I posted are history / survey results.

            Consumer Reports conducts surveys where they ask car-owners of various model years how many issues, and what kind of issues, their cars have.

            I know the difference from “predicted reliability” and their “Reliability history” page. There’s a reason why I’m posting history. These survey results look back into the past and is more appropriate for our discussion.

            https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/car-reliability-histories-a1200719842/

            Before criticizing my methodology, you probably should see what pages I’m posting and understand the material I’m quoting.

            The reliability data comes from our Auto Reliability Surveys of Consumer Reports members. In all, we received responses on over 330,000 vehicles in our 2023 surveys, detailing 2000 to 2023 models and some early 2024 vehicles.

            Oh look. We even got overall% problems.

            Guess what? Its the battery again.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                12·
                9 months ago

                I’d want to raise the question of if “battery problems” may be a catch-all for other self-reported electrical problems but that’d be getting alarmingly close to “moving goalposts”.

                Consumer reports states:

                EV BATTERY: Hybrid/electric battery replacement, hybrid/electric battery malfunction, hybrid/electric battery cooling problems.

                That’s it. There are other categories for electrical problems. Ex:

                ELECTRIC SYSTEM: Alternator, starter, regular battery, battery cables, engine harness, coil, ignition switch, electronic ignition, spark plugs and wires failure, auto stop/start.

                ELECTRICAL ACCESSORIES: Cruise control, clock, warning lights, body control module, keyless entry, wiper motor or washer, tire pressure monitor, interior or exterior lights, horn, gauges, 12V power plug, USB port, alarm or security system, remote engine start, headlights, automatic headlights, automatic wipers, wireless charging pad.

                IN-CAR ELECTRONICS: CD player, rear entertainment system (rear screen or DVD player), radio, speakers, in-dash GPS, display screen freezes or goes blank, phone pairing (e.g., Bluetooth), voice control commands, steering wheel controls, portable music device interface (e.g., iPod/MP3 player), backup or other camera/sensors, Android Auto/Apple CarPlay, infotainment hardware replacement, software over-the-air fixes, head-up display.

                The Consumer Reports Survey is very clear. “EV Battery” problems mean exactly the battery. There’s other categories for other cases.

                The whole table didn’t fit inside of my screenshot. (I can only screencap what is on my screen…). The “In Car Electronics” also have a 3% failure rate, but are at the bottom of the chart. But between that and EV Battery, they are the #1 failure points of a modern car.

            • UsernameHere@lemmings.world
              21·
              9 months ago

              Of course it’s the battery. Nothing else breaks on an EV!

              Similar to the rising rates of cancer these days because people are living longer and surviving everything else more due to medical science.

              • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                12·
                9 months ago

                https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/electric-vehicles-are-less-reliable-than-conventional-cars-a1047214174/

                Electric vehicle owners continue to report far more problems with their vehicles than owners of conventional cars or hybrids, according to Consumer Reports’ newly released annual car reliability survey. The survey reveals that, on average, EVs from the past three model years had 79 percent more problems than conventional cars. Based on owner responses on more than 330,000 vehicles, the survey covers 20 potential problem areas, including engine, transmission, electric motors, leaks, and infotainment systems.

                • UsernameHere@lemmings.world
                  3·
                  9 months ago

                  It is physically impossible for an EV with much fewer parts, all of which require no maintenance, to be less reliable than a gas car with highly complex parts like transmissions and differentials and combustion engines.

                  I’ve worked on both for a living. I’ve seen first hand which cars come into the shop and how frequently. I used problem tracking websites like Identifix daily to see common failures on all the cars I work on.

                  EVs rarely break.

                  Gas vehicles turn into paperweights if you go too long without changing the oil.

                  • dragontamer@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    15·
                    9 months ago

                    It is physically impossible for an EV with much fewer parts, all of which require no maintenance, to be less reliable than a gas car with highly complex parts like transmissions and differentials and combustion engines.

                    And transistors, and transformers, battery management systems, and inverters aren’t complex?

                    Are you making fun of my degree? Power engineering is a masters-level subject at a minimum, and easily reaches into the PH.d level.

                    As I stated earlier. I’ve got an electrical engineering degree. When EV buffs talk about the “simplicity” of EVs I can’t help but roll my eyes. Yall probably can’t even pick out the right chips for a Li-ion BMS, or tell me the differences between LiFePo4 or NMC Li-ion is.

                    There’s some highly technical magic going on here. MOSFETs, Power-circuits, complex inverters, microcontrollers to carefully time the movement of electricity with the movement of those magnets. There’s a hell of a lot more complexity in there than people realize. And when things go wrong, there’s not much else to do but replace the entire damn part, because it requires a very advanced facility to create electric motors, the chemistry behind these cells, or PCBs for those battery packs.