What I think people feel about range anxiety is a combination of several internalizations:
- battery-powered toys run out of power at inconvenient times; that's our benchmark
- gasoline fuel stations are everywhere, and we know it takes 5-10 minutes for everything to be completed
- we can't afford to have a second vehicle just for long-range trips, so our annual longest trip is what we think about. Adding 30 minutes to every 10 minute stop might or might not be a problem
- we've all had the experience of waking up a little late, needing to get somewhere immediately, and then realizing that we need to fuel the car -- and that makes us 5 minutes late. If the equivalent makes us 35 minutes late, that's not acceptable
- in five years, is this car going to be undrivable because the batteries only hold half as much charge? Is it going to be worth much less because it needs a new $10K battery pack?
But the number one reason why people aren't buying electric cars is the same reason they aren't buying new cars: too damn expensive. US passenger car sales peaked in 1986. In 2018 they were lower than any year since 1951, and they have sunk even lower in every year since.
Also if you run out of petrol or diesel far from a station, you can get road services or someone else (yourself?) to haul a couple gallons over and get going.
You can even just pump some out of a passing car if you have a long enough hose and lungs.
Now I've never owned an EV and I suspect there is a way to use one car as a charger for another, in which case the latter becomes less of a point the more EVs are on the road. OTOH I imagine it would still take quite a while longer to get enough charge to drive to the nearest charging point than it does to transfer a little liquid fuel though.
Your list of fears is very true, but not all of them are an actual problem in practice.
BEVs report remaining battery very reliably, and keep going even at 1% (way better than all your gadgets). But you're very unlikely to even get a close call, because you plan charging stops before you leave (good EVs plan them automatically).
DC rapid chargers can add 50 miles of range in 5 minutes (nearly empty batteries charge fastest). 5min emergency on a 1h drive doesn't seem too bad. Traffic adds more uncertainty.
Your final statistic is the most damning, especially given there are (officially) 43% more people living in the USA today than in 1986.
Also, I don’t think the point of comparison is battery-powered toys. People have experience with electric tools (I can’t even vacuum my living room properly and with good conscience with the meager battery life the top-of-line battery vacuums offer!) which is probably a fairer comparison.
- battery-powered toys run out of power at inconvenient times; that's our benchmark
- gasoline fuel stations are everywhere, and we know it takes 5-10 minutes for everything to be completed
- we can't afford to have a second vehicle just for long-range trips, so our annual longest trip is what we think about. Adding 30 minutes to every 10 minute stop might or might not be a problem
- we've all had the experience of waking up a little late, needing to get somewhere immediately, and then realizing that we need to fuel the car -- and that makes us 5 minutes late. If the equivalent makes us 35 minutes late, that's not acceptable
- in five years, is this car going to be undrivable because the batteries only hold half as much charge? Is it going to be worth much less because it needs a new $10K battery pack?
But the number one reason why people aren't buying electric cars is the same reason they aren't buying new cars: too damn expensive. US passenger car sales peaked in 1986. In 2018 they were lower than any year since 1951, and they have sunk even lower in every year since.
1951 car sales: 5.3 million
1986 car sales: 11.4 million
2018 car sales: 5.3 million
2022 car sales: 2.86 million