[kwhitefoot]

Range anxiety regarding electric vehicles seems to be something that mostly afflicts those who do not have an EV.

I have a 2015 Model S 70D with a range of about 330 km. In the three years and 70 thousand km that I have been driving it I have had only three occasions when I was anxious about the range. Most new EVs have better range than that so most buyers of new EVs from now on should have even less reason to be concerned. And of course most EVs are bought by people who can charge them at home which means that the car is almost always fully 'fuelled' when you need it. It won't be long before 500 km is a normal range for EVs which is comparable to a lot of petrol cars in the US: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-939-august-22-2016... (2016). The Hyundai Ioniq 5 is almost there.

[User23]

This might be a Europe vs America thing. In Europe you can drive for an hour and be in another country. In the USA you can drive for an hour and be in the suburbs of the city you just left.

[jjtheblunt]

> Range anxiety...

it also affects early buyers who knew it, like our 2014 BMW i3's range, original small battery, is around 70 miles.

I imagine range anxiety is a function of total battery capacity, to your point somewhat. But my 70 miles (or so) range means i have to be very aware where i can recharge.

[kwhitefoot]

Yes, in your case you do have to be careful and very range aware.

But those who make the most noise about range always seem to be those who do not have an EV. And also there do not seem to be many accounts of people going back to ICE cars.

[jjtheblunt]

i totally agree.

[2rsf]

my vacation house is 200 km away and have barely enough electricity to support itself, many other Swedes drive further away and have less electricity available.

I agree that for routine day-to-day driving, visiting friends running errands or even shorter trips, electrical is the way to go but it really depends on you situation.

[kwhitefoot]

> my vacation house is 200 km away and have barely enough electricity to support itself,

At least in Norway that is already practical over most of the country with an electric car, especially a Tesla because there are so many chargers.

I have driven from south of Oslo to two hours north of Trondheim and back at least half a dozen times in my Tesla S 70D. without trouble.

It looks like Tesla in Sweden haven't invested in quite so many chargers yet but even there they are typically less than 150 km apart even in the north and of course there are more public chargers being built all the time.

I agree that most other brands of car have had rather shorter range but they are catching up rapidly.

[2rsf]

How does it work practically? you stop for a long lunch and hope for a free charger?

[kwhitefoot]

I have only ever had to wait at the busiest chargers and they are all in high population density areas, not in the mountains. Even then I have never waited more than 20 minutes.

I have driven and charged my car at Tesla stations in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and the UK and I think there are only two Tesla chargers that I have had to wait at: Lier South and Lier North, both just north east of Drammen on the E18 on the way to and from Oslo respectively.

The situation is not so rosy if you can't use a Tesla but this is only a problem for me when I visit the UK because of the very uneven distribution of Tesla chargers. However number of chargers, both Tesla and others, is growing rapidly almost everywhere in Europe so the problem is getting less acute.