How far can electric cars go in one charge?

According to Mobility Monitor report, around 40 percent of all potential EV drivers are worried they won’t be able to charge their car when they need to and are afraid to run out of power on the road.

While this fear is understandable, it is also unnecessary.

The average range of electric cars is increasing as new battery technology is developed. We’ll break down all you need to know about electric car range: Which electric car has the longest range, which one has the shortest, how much range you really need for your daily commute, and we’ll take a look at some of the factors that can affect range.

There is not a single correct answer when talking about electric car range. Electric vehicle (EV) driving range and electric car mileage per charge varies. How far an EV can go depends—quite understandably—on which vehicle you’re driving, the battery’s state of charge, as well as your driving behavior, and even weather conditions.

We already mentioned that the main factor dictating the range of your electric car is the size of its battery.

However, battery size isn’t the only thing that affects an EV’s range.

The quicker you drive, how much you need to accelerate, whether you turn on your air conditioning or the heater, as well as how warm it is outside, all affect how far you can go on a single charge.

Driving speed

The faster you drive or the more aggressively you accelerate, the quicker the battery of the EV drains.

Temperature

The colder it is outside, the faster the battery drains.

Electrical-powered features

When you use the heating, cooling, or other electrical-powered features, this affects the distance an EV can drive on a single tank.
To bring these factors to life, Renault has a handy tool for its ZOE e-Tech Electric where you can input driving conditions and see the battery capacity change.

Unlike gasoline cars, roadside assistance can't bring a small volume of fuel, so the vehicle must be physically transported to a charging station—an event that’s not cheap, both in terms of time and money, nor is it good for your vehicle’s battery.

To avoid this scenario, many electric vehicles make it difficult to run out of charge. For example, some premium vehicles will calculate your remaining range and warn you exactly when you're about to leave the vicinity of a charging station. Others, such as the Nissan Leaf, go into Turtle Mode before completely turning off, where it enters “crawling” mode at 50 km/h (30mph) for just over a kilometer, giving the driver enough time to reach a safe space to call for help.