Sounds reasonable. 180 miles (300 km) would last the average driver about one week. If charging options are plenty, fast and working well, this could be enough.
this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Cold weather performance has to improve a bit too. That 300km can easily become 200 or less in a Canadian prairie winter, which isn't enough to be competitive with ICE vehicles, and given the state of charging infrastructure.
Don't forget that this article mentions that cars with shorter range will be more useful by 2030. There are still a few years to improve charging tech and infrastructure.
Right, but having to stop to charge midway through a 2-300 km trip isn't that practical for most around here. That length of drive isn't uncommon and stopping would be a turnoff for people used to doing the whole trip with an ICE vehicle.
Totally insufficient for my use-case.
I commute 65 miles each way for work. Assuming a 50% range loss during the winter months, I'd need at least 195 miles of range at the barest possible minimum. I'd prefer at least 50 miles of buffer to account for any errands I might need to run in addition to the commute, that's 245 miles.
50% of heat loss in winter? Do you live in the middle of Siberia?
Close enough, I live in the mountains where it regularly gets down into the negative teens Fahrenheit for a few weeks in winter.
Yeah, OK, then your point stands. In Germany the coldest winter nights we get are about -10 degrees Celsius, and at that temperature I get less than 20% range loss, but that's partly due to the lower speeds you naturally drive on slippery winter roads. In your conditions 50% range loss might actually be realistic since heat pumps drastically lose efficiency that far below freezing
This is a fading way of life, not progress.
Less travel, more energy, more time, less carbon output.
You're preaching to the choir, but until I can find a full-remote job that pays the bills I'm stuck with this.
Oh sure, most of us are trapped in a regressive energy waste cycle, but the article’s statement is about optimizing a slightly less wasteful form of transport, and that range acknowledges the requirement that we stop all the excessive travel in order to progress.
FWIW I have a short range BEV but living rurally means keeping a second gas car around. The vast majority of our trips are well within range, though. Commute to town is only seven kilometres and range is only 130km. If we had lots of money and two EV’s I would still have one be short range.
If we had lots of money and two EV’s I would still have one be short range.
I'm seeing a future where the EVs in our driveway play a much more important part of our home electricity storage. Depending on the scenario, two EVs with large-ish batteries may be more advantageous. I'll admit the stars would have to align for this, but its a possible future.
Mind you the article is a future prediction for when the infrastructure surrounding EV is a lot better than it is today!
I think even though the technology will improve and charging will be faster, that around 300 miles could become the sweet spot, for cheap family cars. Maybe even a bit above that.
300+ miles is nice enough for holidays and weekend trips too, a 300 mile battery has almost twice the duration of a 180 mile battery, which is probably needed to be good enough to last the lifetime of the rest of the car, and to be as durable as an ICE car.
Batteries are still getting cheaper, and there is no reason to think that won't continue for at least a decade more. There will be less reason to make very short range cars, that people generally don't want.
Bigger batteries have better range (obviously), but also higher durability, and charge faster as in charging at higher watts.
Contrary to Lucid's CEO I think we will see more cars with higher range, and 4-500 miles range will become the norm for mid-high end cars.
Less than 200 miles will be mostly for people on a tight budget, or people that have more than 1 car. Where the better car will be chosen for mostly any trip that isn't just local commute.
Especially in countries with high speed roads, the low range of 180 miles will become even lower at high speed, as the range is generally measured at lower speeds, and higher speed use way more battery, and enable longer ranges at shorter time, which will be ruined if you have to stop to charge every hour. Cold winters is also a problem for such short range cars. Meaning there are multiple places where such cars will only be sufficient for shorter daily commutes, and completely lack the versatility we expect from a car.
Not everywhere is like California.
Good luck with that.
My 150 mile commute says no. Even the claimed "300 mile" ones would require me to charge every single day or risk not making it to work.
It’s probably also reasonable to assume that your 240km is not the future.
Or if it is, it will be a short future.
My 150 mile commute
Is that 150 miles each way, or is it 150 miles roundtrip?
No they are not. Next question.
You only say that because your company isn't making 180-mile EVs
I had a few lucid dreams and they were cool but this seems like another attempt to take a cool word from us and change the meaning to sell a fucking product