Ask anyone which miles are kinder to a car and they'll say highway. No stopping, no starting, engine at a steady load — it's why a 120,000-mile highway car is a better bet than a 70,000-mile city one.
For anything with a petrol engine that's true. For an electric car it's backwards, and the EPA numbers say so plainly.
| Where you drive | Average EV range |
|---|---|
| City | |
| Highway |
Across every electric model rated since 2022, city range averages 308 miles and highway range 277. The open road costs you 11% of your battery.
Why the rules flip
Two things drive it, and they pull in opposite directions to a combustion engine.
Regenerative braking only works if you brake. In town an electric car recovers energy at every light and every slowdown — some of what you spent accelerating comes back. On a motorway you never brake, so nothing comes back. City driving, which wrecks fuel economy in a petrol car, is where an EV is at its most efficient.
Air resistance grows with the square of speed. At 75 mph a car fights roughly twice the drag it does at 50. A petrol engine partly hides this because it's also escaping its worst enemy — idling and stop-start inefficiency. An electric motor has no such penalty to escape; it's already near-perfect at low speed, so drag is all downside.
What it means on a real trip
The number on the sticker is a blend of both cycles, so the range you plan with is optimistic for exactly the journey where range matters most: the long one.
A car rated at 300 miles combined will do close to its city figure around town — where you'd charge at home anyway and never think about it. Push it onto an interstate at 75 mph and you're working from something nearer 270, before weather.
And weather is the second bite. Cold air is denser, so drag rises; the battery is less willing when cold; and cabin heating comes straight out of the same battery rather than from waste engine heat. A winter motorway trip can take a further fifth off what's already the lower of the two numbers.
How to plan around it, not panic about it
Use the highway figure, not the combined one, for any trip you'd actually call a trip. If the spec sheet only gives you a combined number, knock 10% off it and you'll be close.
Slow down before you charge more. Dropping from 75 to 65 mph cuts drag by around a quarter and buys back most of the highway penalty — it's the cheapest range extender there is.
And check the charging side of the equation too: an EV takes about ten hours on a home 240-volt supply, which is fine overnight and useless mid-journey.
Buying used, this matters more
A used EV gives you a third variable: the battery has aged. A five-year-old car rated at 300 miles when new might hold 88% of its capacity, making it a 264-mile car — and on the motorway, in January, closer to 190.
None of that is a reason to avoid one. It's a reason to buy on measured battery health rather than the original sticker, and to check what's open on that specific car — a free VIN check surfaces battery and charging-system recalls, which are among the more serious campaigns on electric vehicles.
Frequently asked questions
Do electric cars get less range on the highway?
Yes. Across EVs rated since 2022, EPA figures average 308 miles in the city against 277 on the highway — an 11% drop. For petrol cars the relationship is the other way round.
Why do EVs lose range at higher speeds?
Two reasons. Regenerative braking recovers energy only when you slow down, so it does nothing on a motorway. And air resistance rises with the square of speed, which an electric motor has no inefficiency of its own to offset.
How much range does cold weather cost an electric car?
Winter can take roughly another fifth off the highway figure: denser air increases drag, cold batteries deliver less, and cabin heating draws from the same pack rather than using waste engine heat.
Which range number should I plan a trip with?
The highway figure rather than the combined one — or knock about 10% off combined if that's all you have. Dropping from 75 to 65 mph recovers most of the penalty, since drag falls by about a quarter.
Denis Kataev is a serial solopreneur and the founder of ForCar. With 15+ years in software engineering and 10 years in SEO, he builds data-driven products end to end — backed by a sharp eye for design. At ForCar he mines proprietary vehicle datasets, turning raw numbers into buying advice you can actually trust.
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