How Far Can You Travel With an Electric Car?

Perhaps the main worry when it comes to electric vehicles (EV) is running out of fuel, leaving you stranded in the middle of nowhere! At least with a hybrid, you’ll have the backup option of using diesel until you can get to a charging station.

This may not be a big concern though. It’s good to bear in mind that charging stations are becoming more common. It doesn’t always take that long to charge your vehicle either – this tends to depend on the size of the battery. And waiting for your car to charge may be a great excuse to take a quick pit stop – maybe pop to the loo and grab a cup of tea!

You may furthermore be surprised by how far an electric car can travel on a single charge. Again, this will generally be determined by the size of the lithium-ion battery, though there are a few other factors that can influence your mileage.

How Far Can You Go With an Electric Vehicle?

The big question is exactly how far you can go in an electric car. We can’t offer a definitive answer here, as it will vary depending on the make and model of the vehicle. But many EVs will comfortably travel between 200 and 250 miles on a single charge.

The minimum distance you can travel on a single charge is probably around 80 miles, which hardly sounds like any distance at all. But when you take into account the fact that the vehicles limited to this distance are Smart cars, which are intended for urban driving, less than 100 miles in a city isn’t a short distance.

Battery Sizes of Electric Vehicles

As mentioned above, the main thing that determines how far your EV can go on a single charge is the size of the car’s battery. Smaller vehicles typically have a battery of around 30 kWh, family car batteries are usually between 50 kWh and 70 kWh, and premium electric vehicles can have a battery of around 90 kWh.

But the battery size isn’t the only thing that determines a car’s range. As you may expect, larger, more powerful cars are far less efficient than smaller, lighter vehicles, and thus drain the battery faster. However, you may be able to offset this issue with charging speeds – some bulkier vehicles charge faster than smaller models, so you don’t need to worry about waiting around for ages in a charging station to complete your journey.

The RAC Have an EV Booster Pack

If you are concerned about the battery life of your vehicle, members of the RAC can rest assured that they can charge their cars using breakdown cover! The RAC have signed an exclusivity agreement with Original ADS, to use their pioneering EV Boost technology. This EV booster pack is powered by a generator driven by the engine of an RAC van, and is around the size of a shoe box, so is easy to travel with.

According to the RAC, the EV booster is capable of charging 99% of all electric cars on the road today. It’s the modern equivalent of a fuel can – your car can be charged enough to allow you to get to your nearest charging station.

James Knight, the RAC chief operations director, has said that the RAC are ‘ideally placed to be able to help any EV driver, whatever the problem, just at the time the electric car market begins to accelerate at an unprecedented pace. We believe these roadside capabilities will go a long way towards reassuring drivers who are keen to ‘go electric’ that we’ve got them covered should they run out of charge or be unlucky enough to reach an out-of-order charge point.’

Why Buy an Electric Car?

Many people these days are making a conscious effort to go green, particularly when it comes to vehicles, and it’s a global topic of conversation. For example, one of the goals of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), which recently took place in Glasgow, is to promote sustainability. This includes ‘prioritising low carbon alternative energy sources such as electric and low emission vehicles’.

Electric cars are obviously better for the environment, as they come with no emissions, and don’t rely on fossil fuels. But what are the other benefits of EVs? One of the main advantages is that they are incredibly cheap to run, in comparison to petrol and diesel cars.

Fully charging an EV can cost as little as £5 if done from home, and even at a public charging station a full charge may only cost between £10 and £20. And as electric cars don’t have any CO₂ emissions, you won’t need to pay road tax, and servicing costs are generally lower too. This is because EVs have a smaller number of moving parts than diesel and petrol cars, which typically means fewer repairs or replacements.

The only real drawback with electric cars is that they are quite expensive to buy outright. The technology is still relatively new, and the lithium-ion batteries they run on are not cheap to make. However, you may be able to purchase an electric car on finance, and the monthly instalments might not even be as high as you think!