According to Wikipedia Range anxiety is “The driver’s fear that a vehicle has insufficient energy storage to cover the road distance needed to reach its intended destination and would thus strand the vehicle’s occupants mid-way. The term which is now primarily used in reference to the practical driving range of battery electric vehicles is considered to be one of the major psychological barriers to large scale public adoption of electric cars.”

The term “range anxiety” was first reported in the press on September 1, 1997, in the San Diego Business Journal referring to worries of General Motors EV1 electric car drivers (yes GM had one in 1997 – that they then killed). On July 6, 2010,  GM filed to trademark the term, stating it was for the purpose of “promoting public awareness of electric vehicle capabilities”. The  Norwegian equivalent rekkeviddeangst was assigned second place in a list of Norwegian “words of the year” for 2013 by the Norwegian language council. 

History of the term aside, as car battery sizes increase, charging infrastructure grows and recharging speeds get faster and faster then the anxiety of running out of power decreases. Besides, as our post on ” Evs cost too much” states – the amount of ks per day that the average Kiwi drives is well within the range of ANY EV (including Golf carts!)    

As Oscar Wilde said about rumours of his death being exaggerated, has range anxiety  been the same?

Most evidence would suggest that many of us drive very short distances each day and well within the range of even the cheapest EV. A Nissan Leaf with a range of 80-100k can now be obtained for around $5,000 or less and can easily be a practical (and VERY economic) vehicle particularly if commuting is in/around one of our major cities or towns.

Here are the indicative driving ranges and prices of the top 5 selling EVs in New Zealand today.