EV Range: Everything You Need to Know

Yahoo

07-02-2025

When it comes to electric vehicles, range is the all-important stat. Whether or not you make it to the next public charging spot, are able to complete your daily commute, or are instead stranded on the side of the road depends on it.
Range is so heavily scrutinized because EVs can travel on average barely half the distance of gas-powered vehicles before they require a "fill-up," and because gas pumps are far more ubiquitous than public fast chargers. Most EV range discussions are centered around the EPA combined range, as that's the one that's published prominently on the window sticker. For the 2025 model year, 256 EVs have EPA ratings (this includes multiple variants of the same vehicle), and the EPA's combined-range figures span from 141 miles for the Fiat 500e to 512 miles for the Lucid Air Grand Touring on 19-inch wheels and tires.
As with fuel-economy figures for gas-powered vehicles, EV's range figures are determined by running the vehicle inside a test lab on a dynamometer—think of it like a treadmill for cars—on the EPA's drive cycles.
These tests result in separate city and highway figures, which are weighted 55 percent city and 45 percent highway to arrive at the combined figure that's shown on an EV's window sticker. Unlike gas-powered vehicles, whose highway efficiency almost always exceeds the city figure, most EVs have higher city range ratings than highway. Part of electric vehicles' magic in low- and variable-speed scenarios is their ability to recapture energy when decelerating by slowing the vehicle using the electric motor (or motors) rather than the traditional brakes.
Another way EVs are different is that range and efficiency aren't directly related. That's because of charging losses; roughly 85 to 90 percent of the total energy that comes from the wall makes it into the battery pack. That's why there are two terms used: efficiency, which can be expressed in MPGe, includes charging losses, while consumption, the energy use while driving, doesn't include them.
Our EV range test is done at a steady 75 mph, because highway driving is where range matters most. If you're looking to cover 500 or 1000 miles in a day, it necessarily has to be done at high speeds. There are just not enough hours in the day to do otherwise. Even the shortest-range EV can manage more than seven hours of slogging through city traffic at an average speed of, say, 15 mph. Also, unlike a gas-powered vehicle, an EV's consumption increases dramatically as speeds rise. Of course, as with all cars, aerodynamic drag inflates with the square of speed, but EVs are particularly affected as most do without multiple gears. So, a higher vehicle speed means the electric motor is spinning at a faster and less efficient point.
Included below is a subset of the data from our EV range testing and how it compares to the EPA range figure. Unlike with gas-powered cars, which tend to meet or exceed their EPA fuel-economy figure in our 75-mph highway test, EVs on average only achieve roughly 85 percent of their label value. However, some vehicles, typically those from German automakers, have outperformed their EPA label value in our highway test. It seems that those automakers in particular rate their vehicles' range much more conservatively than some others. For example, Lucid, which makes some of the longest-range EVs, is far more aggressive in its EPA range values. Although the 410 miles we achieved in a Lucid Air Grand Touring is the longest result of all of the EVs we've tested, its only 80 percent of its 516-mile EPA range.
You'll notice that the biggest underperformer is the electric Mercedes-Benz G-wagon, which achieved a mere 67 percent of its EPA range in our test (160 miles to its 239-mile EPA range). But it makes sense that this brick-shaped vehicle would do comparably worse at the higher speed of our test.
If you want to dive deeper into this topic, we co-authored a technical paper for SAE International outlining this difference between internal combustion vehicles and electrics using our test data.
Two major factors are speed and ambient temperature. Traveling at a steady high rate of speed, as in our 75-mph test, is the worst case for EVs. Aerodynamic drag increases dramatically at higher speeds and when maintaining those speeds there's no opportunity to recapture energy while slowing.
Cold weather can also affect range dramatically. One of the many reasons for that is that using the heater to warm the cabin—particularly on EVs that have resistive heaters—sucks a lot of juice. In a test with our long-term Model 3 we found that using the heat can increase consumption by as much as 35 percent and kill 60 miles of range, a significant chunk of the Model 3's 310-mile EPA rating.
If you're driving in cold weather, it will help dramatically to pre-condition the vehicle while it's plugged in before you leave. This will warm both the cabin and the battery using energy from the grid rather than from the battery pack, which will preserve more energy to use for driving. Another simple way to improve range is to simply keep your speed modest.
You should consider our real-world highway range figures the absolute maximum possible in high-speed highway conditions and, as with our zero-to-60-mph times, it will be difficult to achieve them with any regularity. That's because it involves charging the battery all the way to 100 percent, which is not the EV norm. Topping off the last 10–15 percent is when the rate of charging using a Level 3 DC fast charger slows considerably, and it also leads to increased degradation in battery capacity over time. For example, Tesla recommends limiting charging to 90 percent for daily use. Even on long-distance trips, the stops are determined more by the charging infrastructure than anything else, and the most expeditious method is to top up the battery just far enough—to maybe 80 or 90 percent, keeping it in the speedy part of the charge-rate curve—to get to the next charger.
Range is critical; range is complicated. And if you want to drive an EV long distances and you live in a place where it gets cold, plan on a large buffer between the EPA combined rating and what you actually will be able to use.
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