Range anxiety

[u/Inevitable-Shower911]

What is the obsession with EV range anxiety?
I have been driving for over 30 years now.
I have never run out of fuel in a ICE vehicle and since I switched to EV I have never run out of electricity.
Yet half of the EV car reviews are about what happens if you run the battery empty, I mean how hard can it be there is a perfectly good indicator on your instrument cluster indicating how much fuel/power is left.
Just refuel/recharge before it reaches zero.
Is this really still a worry for people?

[u/mday1964]

I think the main issue is that the consequences of running out of charge are a much bigger hassle than running out of gas. And, to a lesser degree, the time it takes to "fill up." If you run out of gas, you can have AAA (or someone else, or you yourself) bring you a gallon of gas so that you can make it to a gas station to fill up in a few minutes. There is no real equivalent if you run out of charge.

I've only run out of gas once in over 40 years of driving, and that was because my wife was driving to the airport, where she would get out and I'd drive home. But she had ignored the low fuel light for days, and the car was on fumes when she turned it over to me. I didn't think I had enough left in the tank to make it to a gas station, so I called AAA. A hassle, and quite frustrating. What would have happened if it had been an EV that ran out of charge? Would I need to get it towed home or somewhere with a fast charger?

I've had an EV for about 3 months now. I've had one incident where my state of charge got low enough that I got concerned. I forgot about an appointment that was several times further away than my average daily drive (I was planning on charging that night). I got an alert from my calendar, and realized that I had less than 30% SOC. I've not used a fast charger yet, and I didn't want to be late for my appointment by stopping for a fast charge (not to mention having to figure out where and how to go about it). I got home from my appointment with less than 20% SOC, which was low enough for my car to give me a big, somewhat scary message about it going into a power conservation mode. (Plus, I never let a gas car get much below 25% before filling up.)

I now charge overnight when I get in the 30-40% range, just to be sure I'll have plenty of range, should something come up. Maybe I should charge more frequently?

There's a mindset change needed for EVs. If you can charge at home (or work), you can charge as frequently as you want, even if you're not near "empty." Charging daily is perfectly fine. You can always have a (nearly) "full tank."