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By David Lewis, Electric Vehicle & Clean Energy Journalist.
Are you worried about electric car range? First generation electric vehicles couldn't go very far on a single charge of the battery, giving rise to 'range anxiety'.
New EVs have an average range close to 300 miles in the UK. In addition, there are now over 86,000 public charging devices, including more than 17,000 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, making long-distance EV travel a breeze.
This guide will help you work out how much range you actually need for a 2-4 year lease, and which types of EV best fit your everyday driving.
The average advertised range of a new electric car on sale in the UK in 2026 is almost 300 miles (official WLTP battery range).
Most mainstream models fall roughly either side of that figure, from shorter-range city cars to 400+ mile long-range models. For example:
Two factors have greatly reduced the range anxiety issue:
For typical commuting and errands, most EVs will comfortably cover a day’s driving on one charge.
It’s important to get the range you need when you lease an electric car. It’s helpful to think in terms of ‘range bands’:
For more details, see our How Much Range Do You Actually Need? section below.
You can also check out our dedicated guide to the Top 10 Longest Range Electric Cars in 2025.
All types of car – petrol, diesel or electric – have a 'range' on a full tank / battery. Here's a simple way of putting it:
Range = how far a vehicle can travel on a full tank or battery before you need to refuel or recharge.
Most petrol cars can cover around 400 miles on a full tank, and diesels about 500 miles, while today’s EVs typically deliver 240-300 miles on a full charge – more than enough for everyday UK driving and weekend trips.
All cars sold in the UK have to have prior testing carried out using the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure, or ‘WLTP’ for short.
One of the criteria they measure is the range of electric vehicles. On a car manufacturer’s website, the range advertised will normally be this official, WLTP range.
However, in the real world, WLTP range is often not achieved – see the section below ‘Factors That Affect Real-World EV Range’ for reasons why.
There’s a whole smorgasbord of terminology when it comes to electric driving which can be very confusing.
Here we clarify the different types of EV to simplify options for leasing customers:
BEVs are 100% electric and zero-emissions while driving. No petrol or diesel engine to fall back on.
Battery range varies from around 140 miles (Dacia Spring) to close to 500 miles (BMW iX3).
See our Battery Electric Vehicles guide for more details.
PHEVs have both a medium size battery and a petrol/diesel engine.
You can go about 30-60 miles on just battery power, depending on the model, and then the petrol/diesel engine automatically takes over for the rest of your journey. PHEVs must be plugged in to recharge the battery.
Check out our dedicated Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles guide for the complete picture.
HEVs have just a very small battery and only go a mile or so – at low speeds – on battery power alone. Any driving you do over roughly 20 mph will be powered by the petrol/diesel engine.
You can’t plug HEVs in, so range anxiety is non-existent. HEVs basically behave like a regular petrol/diesel car for most of the time.
More info can be found in our Hybrid Electric Vehicles guide.
Look at this handy summary, explaining the difference between BEVs, PHEVs and HEVs:
| Type | How it works | Typical electric-only range | Who does it suit? | Leasing angle |
| BEV | 100% battery | 150-320+ miles | Drivers who can charge regularly and want maximum fuel savings | Best if you want low running costs and are comfortable with charging |
| PHEV | Battery + engine | 30-60 miles electric + petrol/diesel | Mixed urban + long-distance drivers, who have a place to charge, but need engine peace of mind | Good stepping stone – check your daily mileage vs electric-only range |
| HEV | Engine with small battery | 1-2 miles at low speeds | Drivers who want better efficiency, but don’t want to plug in | Ideal if you really don’t want to be plugging your car in at all |
According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), the average range of electric cars (BEVs) was almost 300 miles on a single charge in 2025, up from 235 miles the year before.
At Select Car Leasing, we expect the average range to continue to increase in 2026, as battery technology becomes more efficient.
The following table highlights different driver profiles. Which one do you most identify with? Answering this question can help focus you on models that deliver the range you need.
Ranger Band (WLTP) | Driver Profile | Example Lease Models |
| Up to 200 miles | City commuting, second cars | Dacia Spring, Nissan Micra, Renault 5 E-Tech, Citroen e-C3, Fiat Grande Panda |
| 200-300 miles | Typical UK mixed driving | Peugeot E-308, Mini Countryman, KIA EV3, Vauxhall Grandland, Skoda Enyaq |
| 300-400 miles | Frequent motorway + family trips | Tesla Model Y, Audi Q6 e-tron, Porsche Macan Electric, Polestar 5, Volvo ES90
|
| 400+ miles | High-mileage motorway drivers, business travel | BMW iX3, Tesla Model 3, DS No8 E-Tense, MG IM5, Volkswagen ID.7 |
If you’re looking for the cheapest electric car with the longest range, there are some excellent lease deals available at time of writing, such as:
| Make and Model | Battery Range (WLTP) |
| Leapmotor C10 | 261 miles |
| Ford Puma Gen-E | 233 miles |
| Vauxhall Frontera | 251 miles |
| Leapmotor B10 | 261 miles |
| Renault 4 E-Tech | 247 miles |
Check out all of our latest Electric Car Lease Deals.
When considering how much range your lease car needs, think about your weekday and weekend driving patterns.
Most drivers’ daily use is in the 20-50 miles/day range, with occasional long trips. Is that you?
Here are some recommended minimum WLTP range bands for typical scenarios.
Urban commuter
Mixed driver (commute + weekend trips)
Frequent motorway / business driver
Occasional road-trip enthusiast
Generally, electric cars with the best range cost the most. They have bigger, more expensive batteries, to help them go further.
You can partially get round this problem with efficiency. Some manufacturers, like Tesla, make highly efficient batteries, resulting in more miles per kWh of battery capacity than other companies. See our guide on Miles per kWh which explains what this new metric for measuring efficiency means.
The good news for lease customers is that a long-range EV with a high list price isn’t necessarily such an expensive vehicle to lease. At Select Car Leasing, we work hard to get the monthly lease payment right down, even for the large-battery, long-range electric cars.
If you take an electric car on a long trip, you do need to plan ahead. Here’s the rule of thumb:
If the distance you need to travel that day is greater than your car’s real-world range, then you will need to stop and charge.
For example, imagine a trip from Southampton to Newcastle upon Tyne. That’s a distance of some 340 miles.
If you’ve leased the Kia EV5 (Air model), you have an official WLTP range of 329 miles. Below we discuss how a car’s official range varies in different situations, but let’s assume for the time being the Kia’s real-world range is about 260 miles on average. That’s not enough range to get you all the way to Newcastle in one go.
So, you could stop on the way at the Applegreen Electric charging station just off the M1 near Sheffield after 200 miles. After about 20-30 minutes of charging, your battery capacity should be at roughly 80%, and you can complete your trip to Newcastle.
Most modern EVs now show public charger locations in the sat nav. Once you’ve inputted your final destination, the sat nav will highlight which charging options are available en route.
Alternatively, if you’re planning a trip from the comfort of your living room, you can use smartphone apps like Zapmap to work out where best to recharge.
If you drive an EV from January to December, you will notice a sizeable difference in range during the year.
When it’s cold in winter, your range will be noticeably less than the official WLTP range. By contrast, on a warm summer’s day, you may well be able to drive further on a single charge than the WLTP range would suggest.
What’s going on? An EV battery is made of lithium ‘ion’. When it’s cold, the little ions can’t move around as fast, and your car’s range reduces accordingly. When it’s warm, the ions can move around more freely and electric car range increases.
In addition, if you have the heating on in the car, this will use up some of your battery’s charge and your range will decrease. Obviously you don’t want to freeze to death in winter to maintain decent range! The trick is to pre-heat the cabin in the morning while the car is still plugged in. In most modern EVs you can turn the heating on remotely using an app.
In summer, air-conditioning will have the same effect. Cooling the car’s passenger space will use up battery power and reduce range accordingly.
If you drive an electric car around town, at low speeds, the battery seems to last for ages. Driving slowly puts very little stress on the battery and you are rewarded with extra range.
On the other hand, if you drive on a motorway at a steady 70 mph, the distance your EV can travel on a single charge decreases. The battery has to work harder to move the vehicle 1 mile on a motorway at 70 mph than it does 1 mile in a city at 20-30 mph.
If you’re running really low on charge, and worried you might not reach your destination, slow down to eke out more range.
As with traditional petrol and diesel cars, electric vehicle range decreases if you accelerate hard on a regular basis. But if you drive gently, accelerating smoothly, you will get more miles out of your EV.
Most electric cars now come with various ‘driving modes’, e.g. Eco, Normal, and Sport. If you want maximum range, select Eco mode. For top performance, it’s Sport. For a balance between the two, go for Normal mode.
If you go up a hill in an EV, you will use up your car’s battery much more quickly than you would on the flat. You're working against the force of gravity.
However, going down a hill in an electric vehicle brings surprising benefits. As you descend and lift your foot off the accelerator, the car slows down, and the electric motor acts like a generator during deceleration to recover energy. This is known as ‘regenerative braking’. Extra miles into your battery when you go downhill!
Added weight and accessories also play a role in real-world range. Carrying heavy loads, fitting roof boxes, or towing a trailer all increase drag and rolling resistance, meaning the motor has to work harder.
As a result, energy consumption rises and range falls, particularly at motorway speeds or on hilly routes.
As electric car batteries get older, their usable capacity decreases. For example, a brand-new electric vehicle with an 80 kWh battery might have a range of 320 miles on Day 1. But in 5 years’ time, you might only achieve 304 miles on a full charge (a 5% loss in range). It would then in effect act like a new 76 kWh battery (95% of 80 kWh).
This gradual loss of usable capacity means a corresponding reduction in range. Fortunately, electric car batteries seem to be holding up very well and this effect is fairly minimal, especially in the latest models with the most advanced battery technology. Real-world studies (Geotab) show average degradation of around 1.8% per year, suggesting most batteries will outlast the vehicle.
Over the course of a 2-4 year lease, battery degradation will be minimal, with correspondingly small range loss.
Here’s a quick summary of daily, practical tips to maximise range:
Manufacturers have been working overtime to create ultra-long-range EVs, and they’ve been very successful. Here are the Top 10 longest range electric vehicles:
And here’s a summary snapshot of the Top 5 in more detail:
| Make | Model | Range (WLTP) | Body Type |
| BMW | iX3 (xDrive50, 2026 'Neue Klasse') | 493 | SUV |
| Mercedes-Benz | EQS (450+ AMG Line Premium) | 485 | Saloon |
| Mercedes-Benz | CLA (250+ Sport Edition) | 484 | Saloon |
| Audi | A6 e-tron Sportback (Sport Performance) | 469 | SUV |
| Tesla | Model 3 (Long Range, RWD) | 466 | Saloon |
Do you really need one of the longest-range electric lease cars? For most people the answer is probably no.
If you’re a high-mileage driver, or frequently go on long trips with limited charging options, then yes, a long-range EV makes sense.
But it’s overkill if you mainly do short journeys and can charge at home or at work.
The distance an electric car can go on a full charge of its battery depends on a variety of factors, including the battery size, the efficiency of the battery and electric motor, the speed you’re driving, outside temperature, cabin temperature, the terrain, your driving style, and so on.
Nearly all electric cars nowadays can go at least 150 miles on a full charge. The majority have a range of 230-320 miles, and some can go over 400 miles, in ideal conditions, before needing a charge.
As we saw above, the following electric cars currently have the longest range: BMW iX3, Mercedes-Benz EQS, Mercedes-Benz CLA, Audi A6 e-tron Sportback, Tesla Model 3, DS No8 E-Tense, Audi A6 e-tron Avant, MG IM5, Volkswagen ID.7, and the Peugeot E-3008.
For many drivers, yes, but it depends on how you use your car. Around 200 miles of WLTP range is usually enough for urban commuters who mainly make short trips and can charge at home or work. However, if you regularly do longer motorway journeys, frequent weekend trips, or business mileage, a higher range – typically 240 miles or more – will offer greater flexibility and fewer charging stops.
A typical winter range hit is often around 10-20%, but it varies by model, journey type and temperature. Cold temperatures reduce battery efficiency and increase energy use for heating, demisting and lights. Short trips in very cold weather can see slightly higher losses, while longer motorway journeys tend to be less affected once the battery is warm.
Data suggests battery capacity declines by around 1.8% per year on average, so, over a typical 3-4 year lease, you might expect a roughly 5-7% loss in usable capacity. Most drivers won’t notice this small reduction in everyday range, and many manufacturers offer warranties that cover significant capacity loss, giving peace of mind over the lease period.
If an electric car runs out of charge, it will gradually slow and eventually stop. Most EVs provide multiple low-battery warnings and may enter a reduced-power ‘limp mode’ to help you reach a charger. If the battery is fully depleted, the car will need to be recovered to the nearest charging point. Planning routes in advance, and avoiding running the battery anywhere near to 0%, help prevent this situation.
‘Miles per kWh’ is the metric for electric vehicles that tells you how efficient they are. It’s the equivalent of miles per gallon (MPG) for traditional petrol or diesel vehicles.
4 miles per kWh is a high efficiency rating for an EV, and 2 miles per kWh would be a low rating. Read our “What’s the equivalent of MPG for an EV” Guide for a full description.
Unsure how to choose an EV? Need more info on charging electric vehicles? Want to browse top EV charging points? Read our handy guides:
You know what to look out for in a petrol/diesel car, but what about electric? What are the differences? Plug-in, hybrid, or full electric? Which is best? Which offers the most savings and protects the environment? Read our guide...
Read our comprehensive Charging Guide covering the best approach for home and work charging, plus what to do when out and about. Get the low-down on Type 1 / Type 2 / CCS / CHAdeMO plugs, which cables you need, etc.
If you're leasing an electric vehicle and have off-street parking, you're definitely going to want a dedicated charging point installed. Choose from our range of popular chargers at great prices and, if you're eligible, secure the £350 grant.
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