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Electric Cars: The Most Significant Challenge Of Owning An Electric Car

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Purchase an electric car and your visits to service centers for fuel are over. Not only that, but you’ll be doing your part to reduce emissions, help the climate and lower your own impact on the environment. Although electric cars comes with benefits, there are certain challenges inherent as well. We’ll take a look at electric car anxieties and how you can overcome each one.

Electric Vehicles Defined

Electric cars represent any vehicle that relies exclusively on electricity as its power source. There are variations on the theme, which include plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (EVs) and standard hybrid models, but those vehicles also have gasoline engines. Thus, they don’t come with the same electric car anxieties as pure EVs.

Electric Car Anxieties You Can Overcome …show more content…

Range Anxiety. The most significant challenge of owning an electric car centers on range anxiety. This is where the owner is concerned that the car may not be able to go far enough on a single charge to get them where they are going. Vehicle range is set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Range can vary significantly depending on the battery’s size. For example, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV has just 62 miles of total range. On the other hand, the Tesla Model S P85D edition has a range of up to 253 miles. The solution here is to plan your trip to end before the battery runs out of power or to find a charging station to continue your trip.

2. Recharge Anxiety. Electric vehicles can take hours to recharge. It may not be enough for you to connect with your standard 110-volt outlet in the evening to have a fully recharged vehicle for the next day. A Nissan Leaf can take up to 20 hours to fully recharge with a standard outlet, but electric car owners can overcome this problem by investing in a 240-volt charging system. Such a system used with the Leaf reduces recharge times to no more than 8

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