Electric vehicle manufacturers need to be honest about range estimates

Most of us hear know the name Darryl Siry as former marketing and communications boss at Tesla. These days, Siry is a senior clean tech analyst at Peppercom in addition to doing communications consulting with various companies in the green field. We can only guess at the specifics of the advice he is giving his clients about how to get their message out. Hopefully, his words are in sync with what he has been writing publicly on his blog. Those who aren't paying Siry for advice might do well to read his latest post and take it to heart.
There are certainly those among EV advocates who dismiss the whole concept of range anxiety. The fact remains that for a great many potential EV drivers, the thought of being stranded by a dead battery is a real problem. While most internal combustion cars fall short of EPA mileage estimates, fuel gauges tend to be fairly accurate and consistent and refueling is quick, so getting stranded usually isn't an issue. This is not the case for EVs.

There is certainly no clear consensus about how to more realistically represent range numbers for EVs. One thing is clear though. If EV makers persist in publishing wildly optimistic range figures in order to benefit near term sales, they will subvert their own long term business survival. They need to find a way to give more realistic ranges that also reflect what the range will be at the end of life for the battery.

[Source: Darryl Siry]