Setting aside all the emotional pulls of actual engine dynamics, my barrier to EV is charging anxiety. My hybrid fills with petrol in 5 minutes, and charges while parked & I'm eating/sleeping or working. Any other attempt to charge on the move is likely to add more stress and anxiety than range.
Will
Most people will charge an EV overnight - and keep it topped up overnight - meaning a 300 mile full tank every morning. I very rarely use the Tesla superchargers - I topped up in Birmingham recently on a trip up to the midlands, 20 minutes. I've just worked out that I've saved 68 visits to a petrol station since I've had it and used superchargers about 6 times.
As I rarely drive over 300 miles in a day I have yet to suffer from range anxiety. This sets aside the thousands I have saved in fuel and servicing costs.
I'm sure.
My observed experience is that on a 140 mile each way commute, when I make a service station stop for a mid journey comfort break, I've seen all the fast chargers occupied... tales of woe on the work car park chat as colleagues try and fail to find a charger that works (20-30% don't, and there's no effective plan in place to fix it), colleagues having charging cables locked into chargers, and a colleague who drives an Audi EV finding that his chosen charging stop on the route home was shut... I don't have time for that malarkey.
So on a weekly near 300-mile round trip, that would require EV charging at some point, over the past six months I've become less convinced that I could reliably leave home with a full charge, splash & dash top up en route while on a comfort break, fill up in the company car park, and get home without having to make a forced stop to charge. Some of my overnight stops have chargers, some don't. If I were in an EV I'd likely restrict myself to places I can charge, which isn't always where I want to stay.
Why does this matter? It's at best a 2 1/2 hour journey, which I try to get through as quickly as reasonably possible (within speed limits :-) ). Life's too short to also have to work to manage the charge in a car.
Yes, it's an unusually long commute I'm doing, and for my particular needs right now, 50mpg in a hybrid that's fully charged when I leave home is a reliable way to travel. Fully charged with carbons & electrons I have 440 mile range - a third more than I'd need to do a round trip without refuelling. Only a Merc EQS at over £100,000 can give the same range today: I suspect that in 2024 or 2025 there would be more choice, and perhaps at more affordable prices.
Curiously, today I make money on my client's expensed ICE travel: I'd lose money claiming their EV allowance.
