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They don’t have enough range. They take too long to charge. There isn’t enough charging infrastructure.
I’d kept hearing the same complaints over and over again, from both friends, random strangers on the internet and even car industry executives, for years now. So I decided to find out for myself what the reality of living with an electric vehicle (EV) in 2025 is actually like.
I have spent the past month living with a Ford Mustang Mach-E, and to really test the usability of it without at-home charging (because a lot of Australians don’t have a garage) I only had a public charging cable in the car. This meant I had to rely on what was available to the public, going with the whims of availability whenever I needed them.
Frankly the idea of ‘range anxiety’ is the easiest concern to put to bed. The Mach-E had a displayed range of more than 430km with a full battery, which is more than enough for the average Australian motorist to live with for days, if not a week or longer. If you find yourself driving more than 400km in one or two days, then I’d politely suggest an EV isn’t right for you and you should consider a hybrid or diesel option. But for me, personally, 400km of range is plenty to feel confident about driving most places my regular life takes me.
Then there’s the question of the time it takes to charge and the availability of said chargers. This was the real test for me, as my previous experience with a different EV running low on juice was a bit nerve-racking. In that instance I was in an unfamiliar location and didn’t think I had enough charge to get home to the safety of my household plug to trickle charge it back to life. But, as I would find with the Ford, my Android Auto system displays nearby chargers and their availability. This means you can scan the map near where you’re destination to try and find a free charger.
There lies the key to understanding and unlocking the potential of EVs — the mindset change. Too many people are still tied up with the notion that you drive your EV until the battery is almost flat and then find a charger and wait ages for it to get back to 100% capacity. If I tried to live that way with the Mach-E I would have hated it too.
People are also too caught up with the idea of charging at a particular spot, which isn’t surprising as you’ve been conditioned our whole lives that you fill up your car at a service station. But EVs are an entirely different proposition and require a new way of looking at it.
Charging an EV is a matter of opportunism rather than premeditation, like you have with a conventional car. For me personally, I would begin to worry when the Mach-E’s indicator dropped below 40 per cent charge, but equally I rarely let it get that low. Like I said, whenever I drove somewhere I knew I’d be parked for an extended length of time (the shops, gym, etc) I’d scan the map for an available charger.
I live in Sydney, not too far from the city and not too deep into suburbia, and I would say my personal experience was EV chargers were adequate, but not plentiful. Within a 10 minute drive of my house I could count at least 12 chargers, which is obviously not as many petrol bowsers in the same radius but it proved to be more than enough for my lifestyle.
The locations of these chargers vary greatly too — some are at the supermarket, some at an entertainment complex, one is by the side of the road and others at a standalone shop. Which underlines the behavioural shift you need to make when you switch from internal combustion to electric power. You no longer stop to refuel when your tank is empty, you add an hour of charge when you go shopping, grab another charge when you hit the gym and the like.
I kept my Mach-E in a safe range the entire time, almost never dropping below 50 per cent battery, so the idea of ‘range anxiety’ never entered my thinking throughout the month. I certainly found myself more mindful of where chargers were and what time of the day they tended to be busy/less busy, but it was never out of stress or concern.
Not that the EV experience is perfect. The rate of energy consumption was typically higher than expected, so the charge would diminish faster than planned at times. I personally felt like I got lucky with access to chargers, when I used one at a shopping centre I noticed a Tesla driver who arrived only minutes after me was still waiting when I returned to my car 45 minutes later. So there’s still clearly a way to go to make them as easy to live with as a petrol or hybrid car, but after a month of living with an EV I feel like the typical concerns — range, infrastructure, charging times — are either unfounded or overblown.
Make no mistake, I’m not advocating for everyone to switch to an EV. For some people they simply do not make sense, in the same way it doesn’t make sense for a family of seven to buy a two-seater Ferrari. Certainly the softening of sales of EVs, particularly Tesla’s 16.9 per cent drop in 2024, is an indicator that the local market has reached the cap of those eager to make the switch. This leaves those with doubts and concerns to be wooed by the car makers to give EVs a chance.
Having lived with one I wouldn’t say I’m ready to give up on my love of the internal combustion engine, but I’d have no qualms living with an EV everyday if the opportunity came around again.
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