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.world
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      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.world
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          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.