I can't believe I watched the 4 part 3 hour series about a dozen EVs racing from Starbucks HQ in Seattle to Boston on Interstate 90. I don't even own an EV. But I am considering purchasing one along with another 10Kw of Solar. It has been said, "The biggest difference between Americans and Europeans, is that Europeans think that a 100 miles is a long way, and Americans think that a 100 years is a long time." I used to commute almost 160 miles a day. Exxon made a lot of money off me. I don't any more. But I still enjoy car tripping. I make a 400 mile plus drive multiple times a year. So understanding what I'm getting myself into is important.
You're doing the right thing. Most of the so-called horror stories I see relating to EV ownership are basically people who didn't try to find out how running an EV differs from running an ICE car, and how to change their habits in order to make the transition successfully.
It doesn't have to take long. I got an email from my insurance company on 31st March 2023 saying they'd decided to write off my Golf GTi due to bodywork damage sustained in a minor accident the previous December. My immediate reaction was one of fury, and to demand my car back. However, once the Golf was back on my drive (later that afternoon, I went to fetch it) I calmed down and realised the universe was probably trying to tell me something. The car was nearly 14 with 135,000 miles on the clock, had a fair bit of bodywork damage plus MOT advisories, and it needed four new summer tyres. It wasn't worth spending any more money to keep it on the road.
I started watching YouTube videos about EVs. I had already decided my next car would be an EV because I didn't want to buy into a dying technology, and I had electricity sockets in my garage (whereas the nearest petrol station was nine miles away), and I could see an EV would be much cheaper to run, and I frankly fancied getting into this new thing. Before I went to bed I had more or less decided that unless the thing absolutely sucked on a test drive (which seemed very unlikely given the big grins on the faces of the reviewers) I was going to buy an MG4 SE SR for £26,950, which was within my notional budget for a new car. I was very lucky that the decision was a no-brainer. The car was exactly what I wanted - a Golf-sized hatchback that would go like a bat out of hell - and it was the only new EV in my price range anyway. I drove my new car home from the dealer on 13th April 2023, having spent these two weeks watching a lot more stuff on YouTube. I was enthusiastic and absolutely determined to make it work.
I joined the MG EV forum (where I'm now a moderator), read about people's experiences and asked questions. I found out about the difference between DC and AC charging, about the difference between NMC and LFP batteries, about how to manage the DC charging curve, about regenerative braking and adaptive cruise control and Android Auto. As my previous car was so old, there were a lot of things about new cars in general I didn't know about. Like software updates and how your car could and would get better even after you bought it. As a result I was quite well equipped to cope with the whole thing once I was out on the road.
My main advice would be, as well as deciding what normal features you want from a car, as you would with any new car, think deeply about not just range but charging speed. If you plan to use the car almost entirely from home, charging at home, make sure the range of the car you get is sufficient for your longest normal daily usage
in the middle of winter at motorway speeds with the heating on full, and a bit of leeway to allow for a bit of degradation in the battery (maybe 10% if you're planning on keeping the thing for a number of years). The biggest tales of woe seem to come from people who believed the WLTP range advertised for their car and imagined it would do that under all conditions. That's as mad as believing you'll always get the WLTP mpg they quote for a petrol car. (I was looking at a car with a WLTP range of 218 miles, and asked the dealer if it would do 100 miles in sub-zero temperatures at 75 mph with the heating on full. He said yes, and he was right. But that's the sort of thing you have to consider.)
An AC charging speed better than 7 kw (you can get 11 kw and 22 kw I think) can be handy but mostly 7 kw will let you charge a car up overnight, so it's not a huge dealbreaker. DC charging speed is what counts when you're on a road trip, but that can be a two-edged sword. Speeds of 150 kw and above (and some will do double that) are great if you're in a tearing hurry, but they don't give you much time for a decent break and if you want to eat you may well find yourself having to go out and move the car from the charger to an ordinary parking space. My car only does 88 kw, which is fairly pathetic these days, but I was sold on the idea of an LFP battery (not by the dealer!), and I reasoned that if I was on a road trip then I wouldn't be in a big hurry either. Mostly this has worked out, with 45 minutes being a decent time for a proper break. However once when I was caught in traffic and lost a bunch of time I then couldn't make up by skipping the coffee and driving off after a 20-minute break, it did have its disadvantages.
Range anxiety is a bogey-man term made up by Toyota to get you to keep buying ICE (in the form of hybrids, but still ICE). Range awareness is something to cultivate, but it should not be a cause for anxiety. Many modern cars have satnavs linked to the car's software and which will simply take you to the charger the software thinks is best for your journey. Also there are apps like ABRP that will do it for you. The best thing I have learned is to watch the range indicator on my car and the distance to the charger I'm heading for showing on Google maps. If I don't like the way these two numbers match up, I take 5 mph off my speed. This is usually enough to sort it all out. Turning off the heating is for the birds, and doesn't work anyway. Only once, driving south into heavy rain and a headwind in temperatures colder than I had anticipated, I did have to revise my decision about which charger to go for - but that was easy because I had my eye on what the range was doing, and I knew where the closer chargers were. But mainly, you can hypermile the hell out of an EV, more so than with an ICE, so as long as you're half-way sensible, you should never need to worry.
If you get the right car for your requirements and learn how to charge it most efficiently, you'll be totally fine. There are many models available now that really will do 300 miles on a charge in real-world conditions, and nobody should be driving further than that without a break anyway. If you're keen to get on, be sure your car can charge at 150 kw or over. I'm really not sure about cars that charge so fast you just sit in them for five minutes and you're done though. Find out about how your type of battery should be managed (including routine charging %, balancing the pack, and doing a <10% to 100% and balance AC charge every few months to make sure the range calibration is accurate). It's a fun learning curve if you approach it in that spirit, rather than expecting to run an EV just the same as you run an ICE, you'll love it.