According to the report, U.S. electric vehicles travel fewer average annual miles than other vehicle types. Department of Energy (DOE). But that’s not the case in other countries with significant electric vehicle fleets.
According to the 2022 National Household Travel Survey, electric vehicles average 12,400 miles per year. That’s compared to 14,100 miles for gasoline vehicles and as high as 17,500 miles for diesel vehicles. DOE notes that plug-in hybrids and hybrids fall between gasoline and diesel vehicles in terms of annual miles traveled, while the average miles traveled for all vehicles in a household was 14,200 last year. 2022.
2022 Average Annual Mileage in the United States by Vehicle Type (via DOE)
While plug-in hybrids have the second highest annual mileage after diesel vehicles, US-market models often have smaller batteries, which when combined with longer driving ranges raise concerns that they will be damaged. added to oil demand is a result of using relatively few electric miles, as Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) noted in a recent analysis.
BNEF found that electric vehicles in other countries accumulate more mileage annually. According to BNEF, in China and the Netherlands, electric vehicles travel 66% and 56% more than internal combustion vehicles. At least in China, that may be partly due to the popularity of electric vehicles as ride-sharing vehicles, which was also noted by BNEF. In Norway, a country long famous for its electric vehicle-friendly policies, electric vehicles travel 40% more than internal combustion cars.
Annual kilometers traveled by electric vehicles compared to ICE vehicles (via BNEF)
A study last year from George Washington University and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) found that electric vehicle drivers simply don’t drive much like gasoline-powered cars (however, it can vary by model, with one analysis showing that Tesla leads other electric vehicles calculated by miles). And that’s a problem for some emissions models and assumptions about the benefits of electric vehicles.
Previous electric cars tended to operate over short ranges. As other long-range electric vehicles are added to the mix, it is expected that electric vehicle range will increase — but so far, it has not increased as fast as the electric vehicle fleet’s range capabilities.
Does this mean that Americans are considering long-distance electric vehicles as a secondary vehicle, while the rest of the world considers them a primary vehicle? That part is unclear, but it appears to be a uniquely American dilemma that will probably require some uniquely American solutions.
