EV owners unfazed by “range anxiety”

Most electric vehicle owners are unfazed about getting stranded with a flat battery.

This is the finding of the latest poll by Flip the Fleet, a citizen science collaboration of over 200 New Zealand EV owners that share data monthly from their dashboards.

The poll found 72% of drivers experience no range anxiety or at least only very occasionally. New EV owners are more anxious at first, but quickly learn the performance of their EV and drive within its range.

“We are not idiots,” one respondent says. “We can see how much we have in the tank before we start out.”

EV drivers don’t limit their distances to avoid getting stuck either. Flip the Fleet has already logged 447 randomly selected trips by full electric vehicles.
The average trip out and back to home base was 54km. The median distance was 27km. Around 8% of trips have EV drivers going over 100km before returning. These figures are little different from those for trips in conventional vehicles, Flip the Fleet says.

“So don’t fall for the myth that EVs are just good for short trips, or that you have to delay in buying one till the new long-range EVs are available,” Christchurch EV Group member and Flip the Fleet database contributor Mark Nixon says.

“For the vast majority of people, one of the cheaper, entry-level EVs such as the Nissan Leaf will be good to drive for a day or two without having to worry about a charge. And when you need to charge, it’s simply a matter of charging up at home while you sleep. They are also ideal for medium range commuting of a 100km-120km round trip – even more if you are able to charge up at work.”

The car’s dash gives adequate warning when the charge is low and predicts how far you can go before needing a charge. There are enough fast chargers in most parts of New Zealand for long trips, but 95% of the charging is at home.

Many Kiwi families with EVs retain a conventional vehicle for occasional long trips and do nearly all their local and regular travel in their EV.
“While range anxiety is a small and manageable problem for most EV owners, it’s more of an issue of perception in the minds of prospective EV buyers than in the minds of those who actually drive them,” Nixon says.

Anyone driving a plug-in vehicle can visit flipthefleet.org

to join.