Is an epidemic of “Range Fever” turning EV’s into the fuel-hogs they were meant to kill?
A new variant of the gas-hog pandemic is striking Electric Vehicles. It’s commonly called Range Anxiety, and it’s a big contributor to climate change. Is there a cure? And doesn’t “Range Fever” just take the hysteria up a much needed notch?
It’s been decades now since I started reading about DIYers in their garages sticking washing machine motors and lead batteries into their homemade EV’s, and the unfolding of the EV revolution still excites me. It’s a sea-change, like the transition from whale oil lamps to electric light. Their efficiency, safety, performance, durability and design-flexibility gains are matched in significance only by how they decouple the vehicle from the fuel, a change almost as futuristic as Dr Brown stuffing a banana peel into the “Mr Fusion” unit powering his time-traveling DeLorean in Back to the Future. It’s a revolution worthy of it’s own deep dive article (coming soon).
But we’re not here to compare EV’s to ICE vehicles. This article is about the EV revolution versus… itself. If you think EV’s are the bee’s knees, see our post about how horrible they are (EV’s Dark Side). (If you think EV’s are stupid, we have a post on how they’re the bee’s knees coming soon! ) But besides the drawbacks laid out in the “EV’s Dark Side” post, there’s another BIG problem that needs to be discussed. It’s the epidemic known as Range Anxiety Fever.
BIGGER IS NOT BETTER
Putting a battery and electric motor into a car does amazing things. But it doesn’t follow that more battery earns you more greenie points. Au contraire, mon frère! The more battery you put in, the LESS environmental your vehicle is (if it exceeds your actual needs) and it will even perform worse. Some EV’s even manage to do the nearly impossible feat of being LESS environmental than comparable ICE vehicles.
Meanwhile, the 3 top-selling vehicles in America are trucks, and another four of the top ten are either trucks or SUV’s, so expect to only see more long-range lithium hogs. Let’s explore some of the ways larger batteries work against our interests. Later, we’ll explore some potential cures for Range Anxiety Fever.
EFFICIENCY & THE ENVIRONMENT
The extra weight and size of long range batteries makes an EV less efficient, and in some cases basically negates the EV’s environmental gains entirely. Because duh, that big fat battery took more resources and energy to make, leading to a bigger environmental & social impact.
SAFETY & PERFORMANCE
The extra weight and size are limitations to engineering flexibility and performance, and they put more stress on vehicle components like the suspension, motor, regenerative braking, etc. And if you like potholes, you’re in luck, because all that extra weight does way more damage to roads. The extra weight also makes for a vehicle that takes more time & distance to stop, and more likely to crush anything it collides with. And of course, with a crash there’s the risk of a raging lithium fire.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
As far as I can tell, literally zerobody (other than the odd politician) is claiming that we have the developed mines to meet the material production required for the rosy EV goals being proposed around the world, let alone for the overlapping mineral needs of multiple renewable energy technologies. As demand rises relative to supply, price generally goes up. Range hogs consume the supply of limited battery materials, so despite manufacturing gains batteries are more expensive than they would otherwise be. Higher battery prices suppress EV sales. And as a potentially ironic side-effect, lower EV sales could easily lead to less investment in charging stations.
With all of these drawbacks to bloated batteries, it makes sense that the federal “Inflation Reduction Act”, with it’s goal of saving the planet and lowering inflation through massive money-printing, incentivizes EV’s with smaller batteries. Except that it does zero of either.
TOYOTA’S HERESY
For those paying attention, Toyota has not jumped on the EV bandwagon with wild abandon, and they have been criticized for their lack of enthusiasm. Opinioneers (formerly known as “journalists”) accused Toyota of “not getting the memo” and being “anti-EV”.
Why would Toyota, which kicked off the modern green vehicle revolution almost single-handedly a quarter century ago with the Prius, take such a treasonous and unfashionable position, especially with governments around the world sloshing taxpayer money all over the EV industry?
In 2021, amidst accusations of EV heresy, a leaked memo explained Toyota’s math on “saving the planet” using electric vehicles. Within the two page document was this summary:
The amount of raw materials in one long-range battery electric vehicle could instead be used to make 6 plug-in hybrid vehicles or 90 hybrid electric vehicles. For the same limited resources, instead of replacing one internal combustion engine vehicle, you can replace 90. The overall carbon reduction of those 90 hybrids over their lifetimes is 37 times as much as a single battery electric vehicle.
Now, Toyota is a corporation with a profit motive, and perhaps Toyota sees more profit in hybrids (for which they hold and lease many patents). But if their EV equation has flaws in it that make it completely wrong, it’s hard to imagine what those might be. Since lithium etc is a constrained resource and likely to remain so, barring some revolutionary new battery technology the supply will be limited by battery size.
Even if Toyota’s calculations are wildly optimistic, simple logic remains on their side. But no, they’re probably just “anti-EV”, regardless of how much EV’s sell for.
Of course, the same profit motivation that drives Toyota drives “pro EV” carmakers as well. None of them are doing this just for Mother Earth’s sake, and none seem to be passing up the opportunity to sell VERY expensive, resource-hogging “bragging range” EV’s that allow people to show off how “green” they are (and how much they’re willing to pay for them). And Toyota too, who plans to leverage their luxury brand Lexus to fill that niche. Hm. Interesting. Could it be that long range batteries have more to do with luxury and prestige than environmentalism? Just like the gas-guzzling luxury behemoths were back in the oil war days.
“But EV’s are just way much better than ICE! Cut them some slack”
It’s not EV’s I’m raising pitchforks against here, but propaganda and misinformation. With few exceptions, people should buy what suits them, but they should have the facts and not be convinced that they’re Captain Planet when they aren’t.
RANGE Anxiety FEVER DREAM
“An EV needs to be like a gas vehicle.”
Range AnxietyFever makes a person think crazy thoughts. Suddenly it’s panic-inducing to have to remember to plug in and charge an electrical device at the end of the day. Suddenly the fever victim believes they are long-haul truckers or college students on summer break, and absolutely HAVE to be able to drive 500 miles on a moment’s notice without stopping, or else what’s the point of having a car at all?
Again, I don’t judge anyone who has done the math and needs the range they need. I’m not going to slosh blood-red paint on your car or shame you. And I’m not some idealistic Marxist who thinks some alpha-bureaucrat should sanctimoniously divvy up all the lithium according to each person’s devotion to The Party. Good for you for going EV. Or not. No care. The point here is simply to ask questions that go beyond the marketing, beyond the assumptions and beyond the good intentions to uncover what the actual outcomes are. After all, the goal isn’t to “go EV” or even to take our transportation paradigm out of the 1800’s, it’s to make our lives better. Less environmental consumption and waste, improved performance and safety, more money in our pockets and even cool new designs thanks to greater design flexibility. Big batteries do none of that.
THE CURE for Range Anxiety
If someone you know suffers from Range Anxiety Fever, have them recite the following Mantras:
Mantra: “I am probably not a long-haul trucker. Not even with my trucker hat on.”
95-99% of the trips we take are less than 40 miles round trip. (Truckers, your mantra is “You’re welcome, world!”)
Mantra: “Electricity is everywhere.”
Gas cars don’t have big tanks because people are always driving long distances. It’s because nobody wants to go to a gas station every other day. If you meet someone suffering from Range Anxiety Fever, show them one of the billions of electrical outlets in the world (many on their own home) and tell them they’re all full of electricity.
Mantra: “Cost is not the same as value. Less is more. Hoarding is fear. Fear leads to the dark side.”
Mantra: “My EV is my sugardaddy.”
Create a savings account for what we like to call “EV money”. It’s the THOUSANDS of dollars an EV will save you on gas, oil changes, brakes, transmissions and possibly even accidents. Also add in the THOUSANDS of dollars more long range models cost versus sensible range. If you were thinking of getting a Lucid EV, I’m sorry but you’re going to have to figure out a different way to blow $150,000. This huge pile of EV money will come in handy in the next section.
what about the 1% of trips that ARE long? And renters? I still have range anxiety!
Buying an EV with less than 300 or even 200 miles of range doesn’t have to turn you into a hermit with no friends, clutching your chest as you stare through your peep-hole at the sunny world outside. You CAN still go places!
FAST CHARGE
This ain’t dial-up internet days. Find a charger and stretch your legs! A fast-charge might take about the same time it takes someone to fill a gas tank, take a leak, get a Slurpee, walk the dog and get loaded back into the car.
CHECK-IN
Recharge yourself and your EV at the same time in a nice hotel. Your EV’s saved you plenty of gas money to pay for it, and who wants to drive more than 3 hours in a day anyway? The point of a road trip is seeing the sights, not hemorrhoids and clutching a steering wheel under the influence of the road stares.
RENT A POSH RIDE
You don’t own a U-Haul truck “just in case” you move, do you? Rent a longer range car for your occasional road trip. Maybe EV, maybe gas, but the rental is on your EV, so treat yourself to something nice.
TRAINS, PLANES AND AUTOS
Just because you CAN drive there doesn’t mean you should. Trains and planes are safer and more relaxing (aside from the airport), and driving in a new city can be a nerve racking experience I’d rather leave to a local taxi driver anyway. The carbon footprint of flying isn’t pretty, but you DO drive a sensible EV, and that the plane is gonna fly there with or without you, so don’t go overboard with guilt.
PHEV
In my humble opinion, this is the best of both worlds at this point in time. You pay only for the EV range you need to cover 99% of your driving, and you also have the long range you need in case you need to go to Wyoming or evade authorities for a while. Or whatever. You also have fuel flexibility, so if you forgot to charge up or couldn’t due to a power outage, for instance, you have options.
RENTERS
Hybrid and PHEV, all the way. If you’ve just GOT to have BEV (battery only), pressure your landlord to install a charger. Print out some info in tax incentives etc to convince them. They like money.
IS THIS YOUR ONLY CAR? BE HONEST!
Confession: I own an old Prius, a beater truck and A Chrysler Pacifica PHEV baby-hauler. We do plan on paring down, but if we HAD gone with a BEV of modest range instead of our PacHy, range anxiety still wouldn’t have been the end of our world. And I’m gonna bet that a few of the people afflicted with Range Anxiety Fever have an extra vehicle, too.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully by now we’ve cured about 99% of the cases of Range Anxiety Fever. Any remaining cases either need therapeutic intervention or they have an actual need for a long range EV. But that’s just my take on things. What do YOU think? Am I crazy? Heretical? Do you know anyone who’s still suffering from Range Anxiety Fever? Or people who still think EV is an environmental conspiracy cooked up by Al Gore and Joe Biden? Chime in!
