When I was in an office, it was 8 miles away. Our grocery is 1 mile away. The farthest kids' friends house is 2.7 miles away.

As proof that there's utility there: the LEAF does more miles per year than our ICE car, so it gets plenty of use, even with the severely limited range compared to higher-end EVs.

As for why it's acceptable: the car was $22K new after incentives. In 7.5 years, I've just now changed the wiper blades and cabin air filter for the second time. I turn all the wrenches on our family cars and I have literally only put a wrench or socket to the LEAF once in that time: to remove and charge the battery after we parked it for almost 8 weeks when COVID first hit and my little OBD2 Bluetooth dongle ran it down. (Wipers and cabin air are changeable without tools, as is filling the washer fluid tank.)

I'm not saying it's great, but just want to highlight that EV batteries don't fail as quickly and catastrophically as you may expect from batteries in consumer electronics.

EVs aren't cheap yet, but overall cost of ownership can make sense. Other components of EV drive train are usually more reliable (fewer moving parts, not exposed to outside elements as much), and cost of fuel can be much cheaper. And switch to EVs is also motivated by factors that have indirect costs, like air quality and energy independence.