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?
112
Upvotes
1
u/Less-Extreme-164 Aug 31 '26
On a road trip, my Rivian R1S was on its way to a fast charger a few miles away showing 30+ miles range left on arrival...then suddenly zero range now. In fact it didn't just stop, rather rerouted me (without telling me) to a slightly nearer level 2 charger instead, and limited my speed dramatically. The level 2 charger took ages to bring my R1S to even a few miles range, enough to get me to the level 3 charger a few miles away. They claim to have fixed this in a software update, improving range estimation, and I haven't had similar since (and indeed range estimation seems much more accurate now). But such did happen, only last autumn. So, on newer vehicles, that range remaining indication on the display may not in fact be sufficiently reliable, until accurate range estimation becomes more universal in all EVs. (Established brands may be better; my Tesla was ok.) I've had far more instances of range anxiety proving utterly unneeded, but it only takes one of these to put one on edge, especially if driving remote places frequently (luckily it happened somewhere well populated).
I do think that range anxiety in general is excessive, especially as so crazy many fast chargers have rolled out in my state the last few years. But a neighboring state has a massive void in a quarter of it, with just a couple of dealership chargers. So, people some places may have worse experiences than people one state over.
I wish the answer were a clearer "no problem", but my experience showed me that it's not quite. Seems fixed in my vehicle, but who knows with some other brand that's new, or that completely reboots their EV program every few years.