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Electric vehicles: Driving range

Nature Energy volume 1, Article number: 16131 (2016) Cite this article

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For uptake of electric vehicles to increase, consumers' driving-range needs must be fulfilled. Analysis of the driving patterns of personal vehicles in the US now shows that today's electric vehicles can meet all travel needs on almost 90% of days from a single overnight charge.

The conversion of the light vehicle fleet from petroleum-based fuels to electricity has benefits in terms of global politics, climate change and human health in urban areas. In most countries, electric vehicles (EVs) are already cost-competitive with petroleum or diesel over their life cycle1. Global stock now exceeds 1,000,000 EVs, yet in 2015 less than 1% of new cars sold were EVs, raising the question: why are so few sold? EV introduction is hampered by the high cost of batteries, slow recharge time, limited range per charge and, as a result, the buyer-anticipated inability of EVs to meet all driver needs. Writing in Nature Energy, Jessika Trancik and colleagues at MIT and the Santa Fe Institute address the latter two of these barriers to widespread adoption2. They show that across many regions of the US, considering trip needs, driving patterns and temperature, 87% of vehicle-days (the set of trips taken by a specific vehicle over the course of a day) can be met by existing, affordable EVs. Furthermore, they predict that within the next one to two model-years, larger batteries in affordable EVs will enable over 98% of trips to be made with these vehicles.

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Figure 1: The effect of battery capacity on potential EV usage.

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  1. Willett Kempton is at the Center for Carbon-free Power Integration, College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware 19716, USA.

    Willett Kempton

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  1. Willett Kempton
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Correspondence to Willett Kempton.

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Kempton, W. Electric vehicles: Driving range. Nat Energy 1, 16131 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2016.131

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