EVs, Range & Anxiety: Not Enough Juice!
The first in a series on the myths that lead to misunderstandings & poor adoption of EVs. We’re the EV MythBusters!
In this article, we are taking head-on the biggest reason why many people hesitate to go Electric: Range! There are many parts to the misunderstandings surrounding Range. Let’s break down the big ones here:
- Inflated Range Claims: or that the claimed/marketed range of EVs doesn’t match the actual/on-road range;
- The (in)famous Range ‘Anxiety’: or that the range per charge is not sufficient for the requirement;
- Factors affecting Range: or the range-reducing conditions that have nothing to do with the EV itself!
Since at Orxa Energies, we work on fully-electric performance motorcycles, and since they comprise 80% of vehicles on Indian roads, let’s focus on two-wheelers (2Ws).
There’s a wide range of Electric 2Ws and they vary according to types (scooter or motorcycle); weight (typically ranges from 80kg to 200kg); battery pack size (typically 1.5 units to 5 units)*; and motor power (typically from 0.25kW to 50kW).
*(1 unit = 1 kWh/kilowatt hour)
So what exactly is Range?
Let’s start with the basics first. What exactly is Range? It’s not much different from the mileage of a fuel-powered vehicle. Just like mileage is the distance traveled per liter of fuel, the range of an EV is the total distance driven on one full charge of the battery pack.
And just like the mileage of an ICE, the Range of an EV is also affected by circumstantial & environmental changes, such as city vs. highway, road conditions, age of the vehicle, operating temperatures, etc.
However, the reasons for worry are different. In the case of ICEs, we worry about mileage because of the cost of fuel. In the case of EVs, people worry about Range because they ‘might get stranded’* far away from a charge point.
*(which is not true for 75–87% of the cases as per many studies — but more on this below)
The first myth: Inflated Range Claims
Before we start to debunk the myths on “Range Claimed”, we need to look first at how the range of EVs is calculated. What do companies mean by efficiency, and how we can verify if their claimed ranges are realistic?
Let’s start with some basics — the standards. There are 2 basic standards — Indian Drive Cycle (IDC) and Urban Drive Cycle (UDC). The Indian Drive Cycle is the official drive cycle used to determine efficiency/mileage. The other one, which some EV companies have begun to use, is the Artemis Urban Drive Cycle (UDC), which simulates city riding conditions better with multiple accelerations, braking, etc.
Most 2W ICE companies quote mileage based on IDC and hence the promised 80 km/liter and 100 km/liter for scooters and motorcycles respectively are never achieved. Similarly, many EV companies quote the range only on the basis of IDC, resulting in the range being quoted as unrealistically high.
There are many assumptions that go into this IDC range calculations. Some of them are: Single rider of average weight (70 kgs) riding, No pillion or significant extra luggage, Rides on mostly plain roads (no flyovers or underpasses, etc.), ideal temperatures, and so on…
Looking at these assumptions, I bet you get a good idea why “real” ranges on-road differ so much from the IDC range!
So if we’re riding with a pillion or heavy luggage, or riding aggressively with rapid accelerations & braking, or if the road has a lot of altitude changes, the IDC range quoted in the vehicle’s marketing material is not going to be achieved.
Myth 1 — Busted!
The second myth: The (in)famous Range ‘Anxiety’
Range anxiety is the fear that a vehicle has insufficient range to reach its destination and would thus strand the vehicle’s occupants.
Think about your college days, when you’d fill petrol in your borrowed scooter for a 100 rupees, and desperately hope it would last you through your date? All the route calculations you did to make sure the 100 Rs of petrol lasted?
Range Anxiety is similar. Except that right now, Charge / Swap stations aren’t as common as the Petrol station around the corner from your college.
So does that mean you can’t even think of buying an EV until there are charge stations everywhere?? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Over the lifetime of a vehicle, 2W EVs are already cheaper to own & run than petrol 2Ws! Don’t believe us? Let’s get Math to help us!
As an example, imagine a 90kg scooter with a battery pack of about 2.75kWh in Bangalore city. Such a vehicle would have a range of 110km expected on IDC. In terms of money spent to charge, with a 2.75kWh battery, we can assume to be spending about 3.2 units of electricity in the least, which is around INR 19. With this, if we get 90 km in city riding (since city riding is not IDC), we’d spend about 21 paise/km. For the same 90 km in a petrol 2W, we’d spend about 1.5 to 2 Rs /km, even at best mileage. Apart from this, there’s less maintenance, servicing, etc!! (source: article 1, article 2 )
“Customers are now realizing that TCO of EVs is far less than the ICE vehicles. A petrol scooter runs at Rs 2/ km against Rs 0.30/km for an electric scooter, saving Rs 1.7/ km.” (Source)
If that isn’t enough to convince you, 75% of all of us in Indian cities commute less than 35 Kms a day (Source). This is well within the range offered by most 2W EVs.
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways floating an “expression of interest” for setting up 1,000 charging stations with 6,000 chargers across all big cities. On a broader scale, the government wants to set up charging stations every three km in all the cities with a million-plus population (46 cities) and every 50 km on highways. The demand from this alone would be around 30,000 slow and 15,000 fast-charging points over the next five years. (Source: Link)
75% of Urban Indian Commuters travel less than 35kms/day!
Myth 2 — Busted!
The third myth/misunderstanding: The Factors affecting Range
So can you ‘change the range’ you get out of your EV? Yes, you can! The distance an EV can travel before needing a recharge could be shortened by a number of factors. And some of these are within your control — yes, your control!
Factors affecting range under your control:
- Aggressive driving reduces range. Smooth accelerations & decelerations help increase range, especially if there is “Regenerative Braking” in your vehicle.
- Long climbs & non-stop high speeds (such as on highways) will reduce the range, as the energy demand from the motor to the battery is high. Make sure you drive smooth in these situations & coast when possible to make the range longer.
- Extra weight (e.g., 3 passengers plus luggage) will certainly reduce range.
Factors affecting range, that are not fully in your control:
- Bad roads, potholes, bad traffic, and other conditions that force the rider to brake and accelerate more aggressively /suddenly will reduce range.
- Lights — very long night rides will also impact range as your headlamps also consume energy. (much lesser if they are LED, more if they are projector)
- Battery capacity (the amount of charge the battery can hold) reduces over time. This is a normal part of the wear & tear of a battery. Lead Acid batteries last usually 1 year, exceptionally 2 years. Lithium-Ion packs last over 3 to 5 years.
However, this wear & tear depends very strongly on the quality of maintenance & how well you treat the battery. Charge it slowly as much as possible, avoid fast-charging unless absolutely necessary, charge at night when its cooler, especially in Summer, etc.
Read what Elon Musk has to say about this here! - Ambient temperatures! Running the vehicle under very hot temperatures can affect range. Make sure the vehicle/battery pack manufacturer has included adequate thermal protection.
Myth 3 — Busted?!?! (Understanding these issues will take a lot more time — we’ll cover more of this in later blogs!)
Conclusion
There are a number of Myths & Misunderstandings around Electric Vehicles. EVs are still a new(-ish) technology & these misunderstandings lead to poor adoption.
But that doesn’t mean you should not switch to EVs! On the contrary!
Efficiency
Electric Vehicles are already more efficient than Petrol or Diesel vehicles in converting stored energy into driving a vehicle. (72% against 15% or 20% efficiency respectively). Regenerative braking in EVs, as we talked about above, can recover as much as one-fifth of the energy normally lost during braking.
Cost
Add to this the lower cost of electricity versus petrol or diesel per kilometre. Combine this with the lesser number of moving parts in an EV, leading to lesser breakdowns and servicing costs (no oil change for ex!)
Range required
75% of Indian commuters commute only about 35 kms a day. Any EV meeting this range requirement will hence be sufficient to convert 75% of vehicles on road to EVs! Combine this with the fact that consumer vehicles are parked 80 to 90% of the day and hence this time can be used to slow charge these EVs at home, office, malls, etc.
But a number of misunderstandings still remain regarding EVs. Poor product offerings in the Indian EV market also add to the potential EV customer’s woes & confusion (Is the 200+km range claim ‘real’? Can it pull up a flyover? Will the battery actually last or do I have pay in 1 year for another set?).
We hope we’ve cleared the air around some of these myths today. We’ll tackle other myths in the coming articles in this series!
Help us spread this awareness by sharing this article as much as you can! Do comment what you think of the myths that we’ve busted today!
NB: All unsourced data and calculations have been estimated and generated in-house, i.e., at Orxa Energies.
Orxa Energies’ mission is to rapidly electrify all transport. We build performance Electric Vehicles & the associated Energy Ecosystem. We believe that battery swap will rapidly electrify shared mobility. Our first vehicle is the Mantis — a fully-electric performance motorcycle, designed to fit seamlessly into your lifestyle.
We also build powerful Battery Packs that manage the specific challenges of performance vehicles — longevity, thermals, weight, and volume. Our battery packs are already in pilots with our customers.
We previously wrote about the issues faced by hardware startups in a software-obsessed startup ecosystem (link), and about our survival guide for other hardware startups getting into this space (link).
