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The fear of being stranded while waiting for a tow truck because an electric vehicle ran out of charge is enough to push many people to stick with gas cars. But here’s the good news: that outcome is thankfully very rare. And if you’re willing to take the plunge on an EV, you will almost certainly find yourself with far less range anxiety than you did at first. 

The folks at battery health startup Recurrent put together a year-end retrospective in 10 charts, and one particular dataset caught my eye. A study the company conducted shows that range anxiety decreases the longer you own and drive an EV. Based on 2025 data from the nonprofit group Plug In America, persistent range anxiety exists among 48% of buyers before an EV is purchased, but it then drops to 22% after actually owning the car.

In other words, once you actually drive an EV, most of your range fears go away. What’s more, Plug In America’s data shows that pre-purchase range anxiety fell 21.7% from 2024—meaning that because cars are getting longer in range overall and charging access is improving, many buyers don’t have the level of range fears they did even a year ago.

This isn’t the first time a Recurrent study has shown that range anxiety declines with actual time and use. In late 2023, another survey indicated that 78% of electric car owners reported that those feelings of range anxiety decrease with familiarity, experience and understanding their driving habits. And in 2025, a modern EV is typically even better at driving long distances than in 2023, and certainly with more charging options along the way. 

So why does this happen? Basically, it all comes down to a simple idea that is very true but not a very sexy selling point: you probably don’t need as much range as you think you do.

The average American drives, at most, 30 to 40 miles per day. For modern EVs, the average range is around 300 miles. That too has improved with time, as has public charger availability. Thus, just as you’re unlikely to empty your gas car’s entire, full tank in the course of ordinary daily driving, you won’t really scratch the surface of how much range your EV has—or of what you actually need. 

“But what about road trips?”, you may be asking. Sure, they require a little more planning than with a gas car, but for all the reasons above, they’re getting easier and easier to actually pull off. And even if you buy an EV with loads of range, you won’t really be using all of it all the time.

“Across all EVs, the weighted average range utilization is just 12.6%,” Recurrent said. “Even the most range-rich owners (those who bought 350+ mile EVs) still leave 88%+ of their range unused most days.” 

This is definitely something I’ve experienced myself. The only real “range anxiety” I’ve felt in testing hundreds of EVs (and owning mine) has been a winter road trip in a Mercedes-AMG with only about 200 miles of range, and trying to catch a flight out of Austin after leaving Beaumont, Texas in the somewhat inefficient Ford F-150 Lightning. Most of the time, it’s never a problem.

In fact, when I bought my 282-mile Kia EV6, I’d keep it charged at 100% at first to “get the most” out of it. But once I actually started living with the car, and started examining my driving habits and energy use, I now happily keep it charged to 80% nearly all of the time unless I have a long drive ahead. It’s just something you stop worrying about over time.

Here in America, especially, we tend to expect our cars to do everything for us—to handle all our daily driving needs, and the vacation road trip, and the one time a year a relative comes to visit and brings their kids along. EVs are getting better at handling all of that, but more of us should consider buying the kind of car that meets our actual needs and not just our edge-case uses. 

Then again, we won’t ever say no to more range. But the way things are going, we won’t have to.

Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com