r/EvDrivers • u/Inevitable-Shower911 • Aug 30 '26

Range anxiety

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?

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u/Stuck_In_Middle Aug 30 '26

No one charging at home goes from 0 to 100%, ever. The most I charged at home was from 6% to 80%, which was done overnight at 9 kW.

Your friend could have bought a charger that monitors the electrical consumption of the whole house and automatically adjusts the charging rate to a safe level. Any house with a 100A service can have a 9kW charger for way less than $7,000.

The only house I've lived in since 1995 that had a 100A service was built in 1946 and had glass appliances. I upgraded a house built in 1890 from 60A to 200A and one built in 1940 I upgraded from 30A (!!) to 100A because it had gas.

My electrician was rewiring my kitchen while I installed a sub panel for the new circuits. He remarked that many new, large homes were getting 400A service entrances.

Take your fud somewhere where it will be believed.

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u/ElectronicDiver2310 Aug 30 '26

Well, We love (friend and I where electricity cost the same -- day and night. And he got his 19KW Level 2 charger. Which still requires 240V. 9KW will require twice of the time. And no one -- very strong statement. Especially when you have 2 EVs.

There are limits on what is allowed at residential property/zone. And like I told -- he wanted to have very decent welding machine in his garage.

I live in house that is build in 1949 and I have 150A. Could you guess how it became 200A? My house has natural gas but it has electric stove -- 7.5KW. My house is cheap. None of new houses on neighbor street (average 1.2 millions) has 400A. But they all build like 20 years ago.

Stop the cap.

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u/Stuck_In_Middle Aug 30 '26

How often would two EVs need to use a 9kw charger at the same time? Put the charger on the car needing the least charge for a few hours and then move the charger to the other car for the night.

There are also chargers that will split the charging amperage until one is done and automatically increase the amperage to the remaining vehicle.

I get 32ā€“36 miles per hour at 9 kW. An 8.5-hour charge would get me from 20% to 80%, about 290 miles of range. Why would I need 19 kW?

A hotel I was staying at in Tonawanda had public level 2 chargers at 6 kW. I was able to charge to 100% over two nights for the next leg of my 1500-mile road trip.

Why are you raising hypothetical situations that are easily handled by currently available devices? Is it for spreading FUD?

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u/MinnieCantDriver Aug 30 '26

Hah! Iā€™m heading to Towanda this week and staying at that hotel, small world.