To Charge or Not to Charge?

I took the Leaf for its longest round trip today without charging at my destination, 22 miles each way. Now, technically, we know that the Leaf has a range of 120 miles on a full charge, so obviously it could make the round trip with no issue. But logical thinking like that is not how the ‘range anxiety’ mind works!

With range anxiety, a driver feels, in her gut, that the car will grind to a halt in the middle of the highway and she’ll be trapped with no help of rescue, because it’s not like roadside assistance travels with mobile lithium battery chargers. So frankly, her electric vehicle will simply become part of the roadway and she’ll lose all her money and never have a car to drive ever again.

I am pleased to report that after 12 days of driving, I have already become quite trusting of the car’s ability to get me from Point A to Point B and back again without being on a full charge at all times. In fact, today the car was down to 50% charge for the first time, and I may not even plug it in tonight! OK, I probably will but only after 9 pm, and only if it stops raining.

Thus far we plug in about every other day. I definitely don’t bother to charge if the car is at 80% charged or greater, maybe not even at 70%. I would definitely plug in at 60% or less. I’ll have to look back at this in a few months to see if I have lowered my threshold.