By Aaron Cohen, Director of Marketing Strategy
Let’s talk range. There is a lot of rhetoric about whether electric vehicles (EVs) can fulfill the daily driving needs of typical Americans. The most frequently cited drawback to widespread EV adoption is range anxiety – the fear of being stranded in the middle of the road without enough charge to reach your destination. Others lament that if you buy an EV, you will no longer be able to take those long trips you enjoy a few times a year. For these reasons, some mistakenly believe that hybrids and traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles are somehow a better practical answer than EVs.
If you are turning away from EVs on the basis of range, it is likely that you are being misled into not really thinking about how you use your car. The reality is that all-electric vehicles – especially the CODA – will fit perfectly into the lives of most Americans (try our tool). Yes, perfectly.
Reason 1
About 58% of American households have two or more vehicles (1). In fact, among households with at least one vehicle, 35% have three or more vehicles and 31% have two vehicles. That means 2/3 of households with at least one vehicle have two or more vehicles (2). The importance of these statistics in the EV debate cannot be overstated. In a multi-vehicle home, each vehicle can serve as a specialist by excelling at its specific function and minimizing its impact on the environment.
In a typical household, the spouse or individual with the longer commute can take the EV and the other spouse can take the less efficient internal combustion or hybrid vehicle. In California (incentives by State vary), EV commuters can take advantage of driving in the HOV lanes without a passenger and parking incentives (3).
For infrequent, long-range trips, the answer is simple: use the fuel-efficient gas engine or hybrid vehicle (at least until we have quick-charge stations around the country). But there is no rational, range-based reason not to have an EV as one of the multiple vehicles in the household. How many households need two or more vehicles with gasoline engines? Answer: very few today and eventually, none at all.
We all love having the freedom to drive anywhere at any time. For most of us, the decision to buy an EV does not compromise this freedom; rather, it preserves our freedom of mobility by keeping our national oil demand in check and reducing our impact on the environment. The greatest threat to our unlimited mobility is not the EV, it’s sky-high gasoline prices that make us poor when we actually take that occasional long road trip.
Experiencing range anxiety? Use our tool, Range Phobia, to see how many miles you typically drive on an average day https://codaautomotive.com/electric-car-range/.
All Federal and State Incentives: http://http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/laws/
2 Comments
My biggest reason why my car isn’t?
The cost. None of our cars cost more than $24k. If the CODA is $37k, that is cost prohibitive for me, as I drive just 23 miles round trip to work.
Posted by Lorraine Bates on March 22, 2024 at 10:18 pm
[...] to replace every internal combustion engine (ICE)-based vehicle in operation worldwide. In my previous blog post, I discussed how occasional long trips can be fulfilled by another vehicle in the multi-car [...]
Posted by Range and the Daily “In-town” Flexibility, Part 3 (of 3) on May 3, 2024 at 5:49 pm