What's the minimum electric-car range for mass acceptance? Poll results

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

GRA

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
14,018
Location
East side of San Francisco Bay
GCR poll of their Twitter followers, so skewed towards those already aware of/interested in BEVs: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1105978_whats-the-minimum-electric-car-range-for-mass-acceptance-poll-results

Even in that group, over 1/3rd (36%) say it will take 300 miles, which is what polls of the general public say they require before considering BEVs. 54% think 200 miles will be enough, 7% vote for 150, and only 3% for 120 miles.
 
300 miles :roll:
Wonder how many % think our 80 or even 60 miles for a degraded battery would be acceptable ;)
 
The Tesla S seems to indicate that 200 or so miles works for the affluent, as long as they can recharge easily. The Bolt should tell us what the more general public thinks.
 
It isn't a specific number, but the longer the range, the faster the recharge time for QC, the more QC available and the more time people get familiar with BEV the more popular they will become. Given that, I would say that 200 miles should sway a lot of people over the next few years.
 
If my BEV goes 200 miles per charge, why would I even need a public charger for my regular weekly or monthly travels? My home charging station would be cheaper and more convenient. Do the majority of us drive more than 100 miles away from home most days of the week? I drive 23-24 miles from home to work in Atlanta five days a week.

On the other hand, if I was driving to Toronto with the family, then a Tesla would fit the bill nicely. Every 250 miles or so I would have to stop for 30+ minutes, and even that could get stale really fast.

Maybe I am in the minority that bought a Leaf to drive to work which averages 3 hours a day, most of which I am crawling along in traffic.
 
This is an interesting question. There is a huge gap between perceived needs and actual needs for most people. And those who don't drive an EV cannot fully appreciate that gap.

For an EV to provide a net increase in convenience, the range would be somewhere around 150 miles for most people. Sure, it would be less convenient for the occasional 300-mile trip. But most people do that trip maybe 4-6 times per year. It would be far more convenient for the daily commute, which most people do about 250 times per year. On the net, the EV would be more convenient than its ICEV counterpart.

But that's not going to convince anyone to switch. People are going to want to see 300 miles with a 15 minute refuel time. I bet we will get there within the next 10 years, but even then only for a steep price.

I don't claim to be able to predict the future. It is interesting to watch it unfold, though.
 
I had an interesting conversation a family friend. The point he made was he thinks an BEV needs to have about a 300 mile range so he only has to fill it about as often as his current vehicle. I said as long as you can drive the distance you need to in a day you just plug it in at night and it's full again for another day of driving. He had a hard time understanding that fact, that the vehicle is "full" every morning, he still talked about finding a charging location and sitting at that location for 60 minutes or longer and waiting while his car charged, he kept pointing out that if he had to stop and charge even twice a week that is 2 hours of his time lost.

I don't think people can grasp the idea of home charging or "filling up at home". When he finally sort of got that part then it turned in to "so I would have to plug it in EVERY night when I got home and then unplug it EVERY morning when I leave?", like it is so inconvenient. Honestly until we had our Leaf I didn't realize how much time I wasted driving, even a tiny bit, out of the way to fill up with gas, or having the family sitting in the van and "waiting" while I filled up the van. Talk about wasting time and going out of your way to fill with gas is just another waste of time and energy, just to get more energy.

I have said it before but I think the 200 mile range for us would cover 95% or what we need. Our big problem up here is heat in winter and 24kw just doesn't cut it, so it's not really the 200 "miles", maybe a better way to state it would be 100 miles with heat, right now we are lucky to get 45 miles with heat in winter with the snow :)
 
BrockWI said:
I don't think people can grasp the idea of home charging or "filling up at home". When he finally sort of got that part then it turned in to "so I would have to plug it in EVERY night when I got home and then unplug it EVERY morning when I leave?", like it is so inconvenient.
Which is why I'm fully convinced that mass market adoption will require wireless charging.
 
BrockWI said:
I don't think people can grasp the idea of home charging or "filling up at home". When he finally sort of got that part then it turned in to "so I would have to plug it in EVERY night when I got home and then unplug it EVERY morning when I leave?", like it is so inconvenient. Honestly until we had our Leaf I didn't realize how much time I wasted driving, even a tiny bit, out of the way to fill up with gas, or having the family sitting in the van and "waiting" while I filled up the van. Talk about wasting time and going out of your way to fill with gas is just another waste of time and energy, just to get more energy.

That was the biggest unexpected benefit I found with the LEAF. Not having to stop for gasoline and not walking out to the car only to realize "geez, I gotta' get gas before I can go where I'm going". After 5 years I still get a kick out of it every day.

People with no real EV experience just don't conceptualize that. Plugging/unplugging takes me maybe 10 seconds a day total. But to ICE drivers, the inconvenience of the unknown is magnified a hundred fold. I'd like to see the answers if the poll were administered to EV drivers only. Or even the general public once the adoption rate is between 5-10 percent. Personally I think the 200-mile range is the tipping point that will bring EVs into the "early-adopter" stage of the innovation curve. Once there, the impetus pushing improvements will be quite strong.
 
BrockWI said:
I had an interesting conversation a family friend. The point he made was he thinks an BEV needs to have about a 300 mile range so he only has to fill it about as often as his current vehicle. I said as long as you can drive the distance you need to in a day you just plug it in at night and it's full again for another day of driving. He had a hard time understanding that fact, that the vehicle is "full" every morning, he still talked about finding a charging location and sitting at that location for 60 minutes or longer and waiting while his car charged, he kept pointing out that if he had to stop and charge even twice a week that is 2 hours of his time lost.

I don't think people can grasp the idea of home charging or "filling up at home". When he finally sort of got that part then it turned in to "so I would have to plug it in EVERY night when I got home and then unplug it EVERY morning when I leave?", like it is so inconvenient. Honestly until we had our Leaf I didn't realize how much time I wasted driving, even a tiny bit, out of the way to fill up with gas, or having the family sitting in the van and "waiting" while I filled up the van. Talk about wasting time and going out of your way to fill with gas is just another waste of time and energy, just to get more energy.

I have said it before but I think the 200 mile range for us would cover 95% or what we need. Our big problem up here is heat in winter and 24kw just doesn't cut it, so it's not really the 200 "miles", maybe a better way to state it would be 100 miles with heat, right now we are lucky to get 45 miles with heat in winter with the snow :)

Everytime I get that, I counter with the cell phone argument. Everyone has a cell phone. The batteries don't last 2 weeks. You... plug it in... EVERY night! And usually during the day too if you can... Wow, what a horrible inconvenience and how can anyone be bothered to remember to plug it in. But wait, everyone does and does it so casually that it is not even a thing, it is just a normal reflex. Same with charging an EV. It is novel the first few times but then it is just part of parking that takes an extra couple seconds. Those extra few seconds summed over 2 weeks is the comparative cost to waiting at a gas station. And the EV always wins.
 
2k1Toaster said:
BrockWI said:
<snip> I don't think people can grasp the idea of home charging or "filling up at home". When he finally sort of got that part then it turned in to "so I would have to plug it in EVERY night when I got home and then unplug it EVERY morning when I leave?", like it is so inconvenient. Honestly until we had our Leaf I didn't realize how much time I wasted driving, even a tiny bit, out of the way to fill up with gas, or having the family sitting in the van and "waiting" while I filled up the van. Talk about wasting time and going out of your way to fill with gas is just another waste of time and energy, just to get more energy. <snip>
Everytime I get that, I counter with the cell phone argument. Everyone has a cell phone. The batteries don't last 2 weeks. You... plug it in... EVERY night! And usually during the day too if you can... Wow, what a horrible inconvenience and how can anyone be bothered to remember to plug it in. But wait, everyone does and does it so casually that it is not even a thing, it is just a normal reflex. Same with charging an EV. It is novel the first few times but then it is just part of parking that takes an extra couple seconds. Those extra few seconds summed over 2 weeks is the comparative cost to waiting at a gas station. And the EV always wins.
As counterpoint, cell phones are moving to wireless charging already, and forgetting to plug one in won't prevent you from getting to work in the morning, or from making an emergency run to a hospital. Given the choice between maximum convenience at a slight decrease in efficiency and easily affordable extra cost, and maximum efficiency at slightly lower cost with more inconvenience, I have no doubt which option the general public will choose.
 
Jedlacks said:
If my BEV goes 200 miles per charge, why would I even need a public charger for my regular weekly or monthly travels? My home charging station would be cheaper and more convenient. Do the majority of us drive more than 100 miles away from home most days of the week? I drive 23-24 miles from home to work in Atlanta five days a week.

Because of the what-if's.

What if I forgot to plug it in last night. In my ICEV, I'm just 15 minutes late to work because I had to stop at the gas station on the way in. But with my BEV, I'm an hour or more late to work because I had to wait for it to charge enough. Those with persistent problems remembering to plug in can solve that with the plugless option.

What if there is a power outage at my home so the overnight charging didn't work as planned. Ok, I can get to work, but I won't be able to get home and there isn't enough charging infrastructure in route.

What if I get to work fine, but then my son in college on the other side of town gets injured on the soccer field and now I have to go to the hospital way over there. I won't be able to make it, or if I do, I will be stuck because there isn't charging infrastructure.

The list can go on and on...

People will want flexibility to not only cover their anticipated needs, but also have room for the surprises in life or at least the ability to recover from that surprise without too much of a delay.
 
GRA said:
Even in that group, over 1/3rd (36%) say it will take 300 miles, which is what polls of the general public say they require before considering BEVs. 54% think 200 miles will be enough, 7% vote for 150, and only 3% for 120 miles.

I think it is prudent to note that cumulatively 64% say that 200 miles would be enough. If the population really does adopt anywhere close to what this survey suggests, then we could soon have very rapid adoption. As they become more prevalent, the balance of the pros vs cons will become better understood by more and we may well get a lot more on board. The time savings of nightly charging vs a weekly visit to the local stop-and-rob should win a lot more over. I know this is largely wishful thinking on my part.
 
DarthPuppy said:
... People will want flexibility to not only cover their anticipated needs, but also have room for the surprises in life or at least the ability to recover from that surprise without too much of a delay.
Some will want that.

But keep in mind most EV drivers also have a second ICE vehicle (they just don't drive it as much as the EV).

And for the unexpected or those that don't there are taxis and uber.

And in 5 to 10 years there may be self driving vehicles or services.
 
TimLee said:
But keep in mind most EV drivers also have a second ICE vehicle (they just don't drive it as much as the EV).
This is the key point. It doesn't matter that there are plenty of people with only one car or no access to home charging infrastructure. The important point is that there are very many people in the U.S. who live in two- (or more) car families with access to charging at home, at work or both. This group will fuel the growth of BEVs, just as they have already done. They can support massive growth in BEVs for many years to come.

The rest of the population will wait until BEVs and their infrastructure meet their needs more fully since there is no need for them to change right away. The automotive industry can/will only support a certain amount of growth in BEVs anyway.

Simply put: It doesn't matter if GRA and the rest of the "convenience trumps efficiency everyday" Americans NEVER purchase a BEV. The growth will happen anyway.

As far as "How many miles?", I've always contended that 100 USABLE miles plus margin is sufficient for most in the above demographic. The coming group of 200-mile BEVs will certainly meet this need.
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
the poll is typical of gassers who think they know what its like to drive electric. most useless thing EVER
I totally agree, but if we want electric to catch on those are the people who need to switch over ;)

When we first got our leaf we rarely used the heat or A/C and rarely took the highway, instead taking the secondary roads. Now we just use it just like normal, my wife blasts the heat. I know we could go further per charge, but if we can do what we need to taking the highway and just charging twice a day, so be it.

Just as Reg said, but saying it again, 100 miles under 95% of conditions would work, that might mean a "200 mile" battery.
 
BrockWI said:
DaveinOlyWA said:
the poll is typical of gassers who think they know what its like to drive electric. most useless thing EVER
I totally agree, but if we want electric to catch on those are the people who need to switch over ;)
Actually, the poll is of GCR followers on Twitter, who are far more likely to be willing to put up with the limitations of BEVs than the general public.

BrockWI said:
When we first got our leaf we rarely used the heat or A/C and rarely took the highway, instead taking the secondary roads. Now we just use it just like normal, my wife blasts the heat. I know we could go further per charge, but if we can do what we need to taking the highway and just charging twice a day, so be it.

Just as Reg said, but saying it again, 100 miles under 95% of conditions would work, that might mean a "200 mile" battery.
Yes, a guaranteed 100 miles no-worries range in all conditions for the capacity-warrantied life of the battery will be adequate for routine daily use for all but the mega-commuters, for anyone who meets the other required conditions. I figure it this way: 200 miles EPA = 120 miles + 20 mile emergency reserve guaranteed for at least 8 years (typical 70% capacity warranty), or 100 miles + 20 mile reserve in areas where temps regularly drop below freezing (maybe only 80 + 20 if temps regularly drop below zero). The biggest issue in getting mainstream users to switch will remain the high initial price, as the average income-constrained buyer prioritizes low initial cost and low monthly payments over life-cycle cost (assuming they even consider the latter), and many of them won't qualify for the federal tax credit. Many of them will need to buy used, so degradation will also be critical, as lower income people in major urban areas typically have to live further from work as gentrification drives them out of the urban cores.
 
GRA said:
Many of them will need to buy used, so degradation will also be critical, as lower income people in major urban areas typically have to live further from work as gentrification drives them out of the urban cores.

Don't forget us "suburban" types that can use a 40-60 miler as a glorified NEV - at a very affordable price due to the "degradation" that will eventually occur in every BEV. Still amazed at the quality, handling, A/C anytime, full features (that work), low maintenance, fun driving (and "fuel" cost savings) - it is our vehicle of choice 90% of the time.
 
Back
Top