Polestar 4, the latest electric SUV of Polestar is parked cliffside with a surfboard on top

Polestar UK

‘Range anxiety’ is the fear of running out of battery charge before reaching a destination or a charging station.

It is a term first reported in the San Diego Business Journal on September 1, 1997, by Richard Acello to describe the worries of GM EV1 drivers, General Motors’ first mass-produced electric vehicle.

Does ‘range anxiety’ still exist? If yes, how can a fear that emerged nearly three decades ago still linger when so much has changed since then?

Is Range Still The Real Barrier?

Road trips remain central to the American travel experience, with more than 75% of adults (roughly 196 million people) planning to hit the road this summer, according to The Vacationer’s latest survey data.

While almost 42% will opt for shorter drives of under 250 miles, less than 20% intend to travel beyond 500 miles. About 6% said they will drive more than 1,000 miles from home.

In 1997, the range of the GM EV1 was around 70–100 miles per charge, depending on driving conditions and battery type.

Nearly three decades later, technological progress has transformed the equation. Advances in battery chemistry and efficiency now make long road trips feasible in electric cars.

Take Polestar 3, for example, offering a long-range single-motor variant with up to 438 miles of range (WLTP), said Matt Galvin, managing director of Polestar UK, in an email interview.

Is The Charging Network Ready For Green Road Trips?

As of August 15, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center counted 80,296 electric vehicle charging stations, an almost 25% increase from 2023, offering 246,670 ports nationwide, which is up over 40% in the same period.

Tim Williamson, joint managing director of Responsible Travel and an EV owner himself, told me in an email interview that the biggest barrier remains charging, particularly access to fast chargers. While more units are appearing at highway rest stops, he believes the real breakthrough will come when hotels invest in this.

“Premium chains, he added, could even differentiate themselves by including EV charging as a standard amenity. I’d like to see that in the near future,” he said.

Dan Yates, founder of Pitchup.com, an online booking platform for campgrounds, caravan parks, and glamping sites, shared a similar prognosis with me in an email interview, that “eventually, the majority of campgrounds will recognize the business opportunity in offering electric vehicle charging points, and coverage will become more widespread. Overnight charging is especially convenient for campers and can generate additional revenue for campground owners.”

Pitchup.com already lets users filter results based on whether a campground offers EV charging points, making it easier for drivers to plan road trips with overnight charging built in.

Williamson also pointed to the lack of consistency across networks since “there are many charging providers and all running slightly different chargers with different power and requiring a different app and payment setup.”

He noted the absence of a common standard or coordination, adding to fears of long queues, limited options, or charging points being out of service.

Shelley Marmor, a travel advisor at DiscoverCars.com, also explained in an email interview that the core issue is that only about 25% of charging points are Level 3 rapid chargers. The cost is $30,000 for a single rapid charger compared with $500 to $1,500 for a Level 2 unit.

“The price difference is slowly shrinking as the mass production of rapid chargers increases and more efficient technology becomes available,” she added.

That shift matters because faster chargers directly address another common misconception: that EV charging always takes hours.

Gavin from Polestar noted that the brand’s latest models support 200-kW DC fast charging, cutting charging time from 10% to 80% to just 28–30 minutes. “Even at highway speeds, the driver will likely need to stop for a comfort break before the car runs out of charge,” he added.

Is Range Anxiety More About Psychology Than Technology?

“The hardest part for most people is a basic need for predictability,” says Dr. Daniel Glazer, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of U.S. Therapy Rooms. With gas cars, a fuel gauge moves at a pace the brain can track, and stations are familiar landmarks, which both signals that create an internal script of safety.

However, “With an electric car, battery charge is just a number on a screen. That is more abstract, so the brain has to simulate risk instead of sensing it directly, which keeps the body slightly on edge,” he said.

Glazer adds that many prospective owners fall into “worst-case anchoring,” assuming rare stories of batteries failing in winter or on steep climbs are common risks. It results in a pessimistic forecast, much like how nervous flyers overestimate the danger of turbulence, even though statistically it is rare.

“Each trip that ends without a problem helps the brain update its threat response,” Glazer said. However, early bad experiences can leave a lasting imprint. For most drivers, the anxiety fades once they have enough smooth journeys.

Will Range Anxiety Ever Disappear?

So if range anxiety has outlived the EV1 and decades of innovation, will it finally fade as technology and infrastructure catch up, or is it destined to remain part of the electric road trip experience due to psychological reasons?

“As EV adoption starts to approach the mass market, and driver education and charging solutions become much better, the misconceptions are starting to fade away. Those that remain seem to be from people who have yet to properly experience an EV,” said Jason Simpson, CEO of RAW Charging, a leading EV charging destination provider in the United Kingdom.

Gavin from Polestar believes range anxiety is officially a thing of the past. He shared that “Polestar is monitoring trends when it comes to range anxiety. 97% of people who buy an EV say they will never go back to a petrol, diesel or hybrid – a telling statistic which shows almost all people who make the switch are not experiencing the phenomenon.”

Indeed, numbers tell something similar. Electric vehicle sales in the U.S. hit a record 607,089 units in the first half of 2025, up 1.5% year over year, according to Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book.