AUTOMOTIVE • Aug 22, 2020
Is Range Anxiety really a thing?? - Is it really the "ONE thing" stopping the EV domination??
Range Anxiety has been the biggest buzzword in the EV industry for some time now. It is basically the feeling you get when the fuel gauge reads “E” and you are on reserve and have no idea when the engine will shut down- another thing to add is that there is no gas station nearby. That feeling could be a lot more pronounced in the EVs because of the lack of charging networks and limited range. People are saying that it is the reason for them not buying an EV. But should it?? the question I have is how should we respond to this problem. I even have a lot of doubts regarding whether this problem exists…
Because of the public pressure, I am seeing a lot of companies attempting to give ridiculously high amounts of range in the vehicle. Designing a city car with a range of over 900 km and scooters with over 300 km. But I have a lot of reservations whether this is the right way to solve the problem.
The first thing to say is that over 98% of all commutes are less than 25 km – based on a really extensive study made for Bangalore - and even lesser for motorbikes, but if a lot of people "feel" range anxiety, there is no point in throwing numbers to their face. But bear with me…
The thing which really concerns me here is efficiency. For the overwhelming majority of the commutes, if the travel distance is very low (<20 km), A good chunk of battery is just dead weight and reduces the efficiency overall. For simplicity’s sake let’s measure the efficiency in the amount of energy per kilometer of travel.
I will talk about this one case. Renault Zoe. Let’s compare the efficiencies of the lower end and the higher-end model. The low-end model has a range of 150 miles (roughly 240 Kms) and the Higher-end model has a range of 250 miles (roughly 400 Kms). Just by increasing the range by 100 miles, they have reduced the efficiency by 16%. I don’t know what you feel about this number, I feel it’s horrible. Think about the indirect CO2 emissions and the energy wastage in a year just because of dead weight. Literally dead weight. Which exists for the most part because of the so-called “Range anxiety”. For me, being a race-car designer for some time, efficiency is everything.
Another approach is the battery swapping and it is downright hilarious for normal commutes. Of course, we need this kind of system for fleets operations, like for Swiggy or Amazon- who travels over a 100 km a day. But for normal commuters, it is nothing but redundancy.
Mobile phones used to stay for weeks without needing to charge them, then they slowly reduced to nothing more than 5 hours of screen time. Did we complain asking for battery swapping or even for extra- huge batteries? A common retort we would get when we make an analogy with the mobile phones is that they are not the same. But I don’t think so. Yes, the stakes for having a dead battery is different for EVs and Phones, but I don’t agree that one is by no way greater than the other.
Think about what we did to compensate for reduced phone usage time per full charge. We planned. By charging over-night or by charging before going anywhere. Most of us never let our phones reach 20%. Planning is the way to work out of the so-called range anxiety.
I also get very confused when talking about range anxiety, what are they referring to. I think we have two types. One is faced by the user- who drives an EV – and another is faced by the general public. For the general public, the range-anxiety might be a dissuading factor to buy EVs. But I think products must be designed for the former than the latter. In a market where even the early adopter market is not fully catered, what is the point in having preposterous range figures or battery swapping to attract the “Range anxiety-prone” normal people?
My hypothesis is that once the entire early-adopter community is served and a tipping point is reached, the word of the mouth and social pressure spreads and it forces the rest of the people to go electric slowly but surely. So, I think there is no need for the methods I discussed earlier. The right way forward is just by designing for high efficiency in batteries and a robust fast-charging network. We don't need to work on that problem at all...
But the range-anxiety faced by the users can be true, especially because of the lack of the charging network in India. But good technology and some smart UI design can solve this issue. Feeling of range anxiety when riding those old lead-acid scooters were a problem No one will have any idea even when the battery will become totally dead, I mean literally. But, With Lithium batteries, the problem is nothing but solved. For one the battery is quite predictable, and once it is predictable the problem is all but solved. There are good data models that can predict the range with reasonable accuracy. Once you know exactly how long you can travel, there is no need for anxiety.
But I have seen some vehicles showing the remaining range all the time and It at times feel like a ticking time bomb. Think about how you would feel if the phone shows you something like “the phone will switch in 20 minutes”. Just by designing the range viewing feature into the options, this anxiety can also be solved.
But in truth, about the range anxiety or limited range which people usually talk about, they don’t exist. If you think it is the reason for the slow adaptation of EVs. It is not. People are resistant to change, especially when the stakes are low and the rewards are not that high- Yes, for a common person this is true (Read my Climate change article). The range-anxiety is just a pretense for something deeper.
You might remember the time when you went for a 100 km trip in your scooter, but I also remember the times when mobile phone batteries lasted weeks on a single charge. Times are changing…
References
That Extensive study made in Bangalore
http://www.isec.ac.in/WP%20437%20-%20Shivakumar%20Nayka%20and%20Kala%20S%20S%20-%20Final.pdf
The Efficiency Numbers
https://agronomy.emu.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Vol15SP1_Berjoza.pdf