Making things desirable is often more effective and cheaper than improving the things themselves, because the laws of psychology are malleable while the laws of physics are not.
Using electric car range anxiety as a case study, Sutherland shows that trillions of dollars are spent on engineering fixes (bigger batteries) when a psychological reframe could solve the problem more cheaply—using his personal experience of panicking at 16% battery despite having 58 miles of range, while happily driving his wife's car at 56% with only 56 miles of range. ✦ AI generated
Rory Sutherland · My First Million · 2026-07-27 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 8:30
I make the same point about electric cars, which is you have this thing called range anxiety, and we're spending billions and billions of dollars a year trying to produce batteries with a higher energy density. It's a really good thing. I'm not I'm not saying, 'Hey, engineers, you're wasting your time.' But isn't it cheaper just to reduce anxiety rather than to increase range? Because if the way to reduce range anxiety is always to increase range, we'll end up with electric cars being heavier than they need to be, more expensive than they need to be, and you know, with 50 kwatt hours sitting outside your house 95% of the time effectively doing nothing. So reducing anxiety and I realized by the way how irrational this is and I explain the story which is it it fascinates me because one of the things I think that helps if you want to do this is to have some degree of metacognition. which is you don't just think, you think about your own thinking. It's apparently true of fighter pilots. The really good fighter pilots have good cognitive skills, but they also have good metacognitive skills. They don't just go, I'm going to do that instinctively, but they also ask, 'Is there a reason why I shouldn't be doing that in this instance?' Okay? Or this time it's different, as it were. And so my wife's car is a Mini Kooper electric and it's got about I I guess it's about uh 28 30 kWh battery and a range of about 100 miles. And I've got the Lotus Electray which is 112 kWh battery, a range of about 300 miles. And I got back from quite a lot of driving. I've been down to Wales and back and the car's down to 16%. Okay. And I'm going and all the lights have gone amber because it's at 16%. And I'm get I'm I'm going white knuckle on this. I'm going god I'm down to I'm 16%. Oh my goodness. I was down to 16%. Then I look at the actual range and it's about 58 miles. Now my wife's car that's 56%. Okay. In my wife's car we drive around at 56% i.e. with a range of 56 miles all the time without the slightest smidgen of anxiety. But when that's expressed as 16% not 56 miles, okay, I'm suddenly having conions and really panicking. Now, what that suggests is that range anxiety is much more a factor of psychology than it is of physics. And the problem with trying to increase battery range is that laws of physics are actually kind of set in stone to a large part. Okay? There's not much you can do about the laws of physics. Whereas the laws of psychology are magnificently malleable. And so that's the thing that really interests me because we spend a lot of time effectively trying to uh work within the laws of physics which are immutable when it would be a lot easier just to say actually you know why don't we why don't we take this undesirable thing and make it cool right?
verbatim transcript · starts at 8:30
8:30just want to impress other engineers. Okay. And so a psychological solution in their engineering community will be seen as cheating. So, I make the same point about electric cars, which is you have this thing called range anxiety, and we're spending billions and billions of dollars a year trying to produce batteries with a higher energy density. It's a really good thing. I'm not I'm not saying, "Hey, engineers, you're
8:52wasting your time." But isn't it cheaper just to reduce anxiety rather than to increase range? Because if the way to reduce range anxiety is always to increase range, we'll end up with electric cars being heavier than they need to be, more expensive than they need to be, and you know, with 50 kwatt hours sitting outside your house 95% of the time effectively doing nothing. So reducing anxiety and I realized by the
9:18way how irrational this is and I explain the story which is it it fascinates me because one of the things I think that helps if you want to do this is to have some degree of metacognition. which is you don't just think, you think about your own thinking. It's apparently true of fighter pilots. The really good fighter pilots have good cognitive skills, but they also have good
9:40metacognitive skills. They don't just go, I'm going to do that instinctively, but they also ask, "Is there a reason why I shouldn't be doing that in this instance?" Okay? Or this time it's different, as it were. And so my wife's car is a Mini Kooper electric and it's got about I I guess it's about uh 28 30 kWh battery and a range of about 100 miles. And I've got the Lotus Electray
10:04which is 112 kWh battery, a range of about 300 miles. And I got back from quite a lot of driving. I've been down to Wales and back and the car's down to 16%. Okay. And I'm going and all the lights have gone amber because it's at 16%. And I'm get I'm I'm going white knuckle on this. I'm going god I'm down to I'm 16%. Oh my goodness. I was down
10:26to 16%. Then I look at the actual range and it's about 58 miles. Now my wife's car that's 56%. Okay. In my wife's car we drive around at 56% i.e. with a range of 56 miles all the time without the slightest smidgen of anxiety. But when that's expressed as 16% not 56 miles, okay, I'm suddenly having conions and really panicking. Now, what that suggests is that range
10:55anxiety is much more a factor of psychology than it is of physics. And the problem with trying to increase battery range is that laws of physics are actually kind of set in stone to a large part. Okay? There's not much you can do about the laws of physics. Whereas the laws of psychology are magnificently malleable. And so that's the thing that really interests me because we spend a lot of time
11:18effectively trying to uh work within the laws of physics which are immutable when it would be a lot easier just to say actually you know why don't we why don't we take this undesirable thing and make it cool right? [laughter] You know >> this is the uh elevators need to go faster. No no just put a mirror in the elevator. >> Just put a mirror. Just put a mirror.
- ·Reducing anxiety costs less than increasing range
- ·Laws of psychology are malleable; physics is not
- ·Make undesirable things cool instead of brute-forcing them
- ·16% battery triggers panic; 56% does not
- ·Yet both deliver ~56–58 miles of range
- ·Anxiety is driven by percentage, not usable range
- ·Bigger batteries = heavier, more expensive cars
- ·95% of battery capacity sits idle most of the time
- ·Billions spent on engineering when psychology suffices