What Is The ‘Correct’ Amount Of EV Range?

These days, you really have to hand it to Hyundai. Not only is it the real-life incarnation of the “Stop, stop, he’s already dead” meme from The Simpsons with how much it’s crushing every other automaker in the design department, it has very quickly and rather quietly emerged as a top contender in the electric vehicle world. It’s cliché as hell to remark how “far” Hyundai (and corporate cousin Kia, too) have come from the era of today’s Shitbox Showdown, but that doesn’t make it untrue. And one area where Hyundai keeps getting it right is EV range as well.

Last week, we got official EPA numbers for the new Hyundai Ioniq 6 and they are extremely impressive: 361 miles on a full tank of electrons. Even though it’s only by a few miles, that means Hyundai’s sedan can take down the Tesla Model 3 Long Range; that’s no easy feat. Say what you will about Elon Musk on any given day, but Tesla is still the electric automaker to beat. And at a time when many new EV offerings from so-called “legacy”  automakers still feel tepid in the range department, Hyundai’s probably got a winner here.

But my mind keeps going back to what a good EV range 361 miles is. In fact, it’s excellent; much closer to the most recent median range for gasoline vehicles, which according to InsideEVs stands around 400 miles. (Remember, the greater selection of ICE vehicles out there, plus the fact that it’s a much more well-established technology, helps a lot there; on the flip side, most of us aren’t filling up our cars at home. Maybe you are if you live at an actual race track, or are an eccentric billionaire. You probably need the second thing to be true for the first thing to be, too.)

Anyway, this debate comes up all the time in the comments, but the Ioniq 6’s impressive-yet-pragmatic number makes me wonder this: What is the correct amount of EV range? I’d say 360 miles is pretty damn close to where you want to be without being excessive, and in fact, I think it could be held up as a kind of gold standard to aim for in the next few years.

Let’s assume a few things are true before we continue:

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• EVs are meant to be charged at home, at the office or whenever they’re parked; they aren’t meant to be run down to near-zero before “filling up,” which will necessitate some behavior changes by drivers as EVs become more common.
• As noted above, you can’t fill up a gasoline car at your home, generally speaking.
• We’re talking about more or less conventional technology. Solid-state batteries promise better range, but they’re at least a decade away from being anything at all.
• It’s generally agreed that big, heavy, huge-range EV batteries aren’t great for the environment, both in terms of resources used for manufacturing and their overall electricity consumption.
• Smaller—or at least more reasonably sized—EVs are the ideal version of the future, both for the above reasons and for pedestrian safety reasons.
• The auto industry has spent years getting Americans in particular into bigger and heavier SUVs and trucks instead of cars, and reversing that trend will be difficult and potentially less lucrative for car companies.
• People generally don’t like being “told” what to drive, by anyone. Understandable!
• Having said that, Americans do have a tendency to buy cars for the worst day of the year—the road trip, the move across the country, the day the in-laws come to visit—and that means we often buy more cars than we need.
• The charging infrastructure isn’t where it needs to be yet, but it is getting better. And realistically, we probably won’t go “all-EV” by 2030 or whatever like governments and automakers expect; a more realistic scenario is a mix of drivetrains, including more hybrids, which means people who regularly drive very long distances will still have options.
• Nonetheless, very few of us seem to want low-range EVs like the 100-mile Mazda MX-30. Not in this country, anyway. Rational or not, getting people to mass-adopt low-range city cars will probably never happen.

I know that’s a lot to assume, but it feels like a realistic view of things from where we’re at now, in early 2023. So having said all of that, is the ideal electric range around 360 miles? I say hell yes, it absolutely is. They’re backed up by the Supercharger network, sure, but millions of Tesla Model 3 owners make that (or less) work pretty much all of the time. At 360 miles, you’d be able to get pretty far on most road trips. Daily driving won’t be a problem at all, either. Remember most Americans still drive about 35 miles a day at most. At 360 miles of range, you’re more than golden.

So while plenty of people are clamoring for EVs with 600 miles or more—and automakers are working to meet them there, albeit begrudgingly—what Hyundai has done is offer a car with a realistic and powerful amount of daily range that will meet pretty much all of your regular, daily needs. It’s enough to dissuade people away from their often irrational range anxieties, and coupled with the realities of regular charging at home and on the go, it’ll be plenty.

What do you think? I’m more interested in positing this as a realistic, good-faith question about driving needs, but if you need me to set up the “Change My Mind” table, I can go ahead and do it. What’s the ideal EV range to you?

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