> ended up being about 4 hours longer than it would be in a gas car
We did some relatively long trips in our BMW i3 last couple of summers. Even though the charging added about 1-1.5hrs to each trip, my SO, which did all the driving, said she preferred it that way. She felt significantly less exhausted when she arrived, thanks to the charging stops.
> I assume all Tesla drivers who are frequent road trippers have a gas car too?
IME, a Tesla is great for a road trip.
- Everyone knows when the next stop is.
- Gives a good break for the driver (or to swap off at fairly consistent intervals)
- Allows a nice quick break for the driver during charge.
It probably comes from a misunderstanding of the charging needed. You usually only charge between a low % and what you need for the next stop. 0% to 80% at a v3 SC ends up being ~30 minutes and you usually don't even need that.
By the time everyone goes to the bathroom and stretches their legs we've been ready to head out.
Plus AP for lanekeep (basic, not FSDj) makes it super enjoyable.
> Most people want to take a break after 4-5 hours of driving anyway
I realize I'm not most people (I love to drive), but this seems like it's bordering on extraordinary-claim territory. I don't actually expect evidence, since this would be the kind that's particularly difficult to gather (you could ask people, but what people say doesn't necessarily translate to what they do).
Regardless, it seems unlikely to me that anyone would want to be forced to take a break at the 4 hour mark rather than waiting for their destination at the 5 hours mark (e.g. SJ-LA).
I realize, of course, that it's just a matter of (not that great a) degree between 20 minutes every 300 miles for charging versus 10 minutes every 400 miles for fueling. However, because we're not even there yet for a comparably-priced/affordable electric car, it may be premature to think that way.
>I'm going on vacation next week, driving with 2 young children. It'll be about a 11 hour drive which is not crazy for a US vacation. I don't want to plan where I stop and stop for 45 minutes to fuel up with 2 toddlers in the car.
How often do you do this? Once, maybe twice a year? With my current commute i have to go out of my way to get gas every week. It takes at least 15 minutes extra on my way home (but thats only because the gas station on the route is about $1 a gallon more). i'd be prepared to add an hour twice a year in return for getting 15 minutes back 48 times a year. And the annoyance of having to make an unexpected trip when i was planning to get gas the next day (whereas i could keep an EV charged abouve 50% at all times).
> Hardly anyone needs 600 miles and no one seems concerned that it takes an hour to add 300 km because most people charge overnight.
Yes, hardly anyone needs 600 miles, but if you can't find a place to charge overnight, boom, you wake up to 80 kilometers left in your charge, and you need to find a fast charger somewhere in the vicinity, and high chances are, it wil be occupied by other cars.
You grossly overestimate availability of chargers in Europe (or anywhere, for that matter)
> but that same car is used for vacation trips in summer and winter with the whole family.
Right, and the charging network isn't _that_ bad, is it? Like, I've now done 4 cross country trips in the US (PA <-> FL <-> WA) in both summer, and winter. With the pre-heat-pump-for-heating Tesla Model 3. I basically had to charge one to two times a day, for about 20-30 minutes each time. This was genuinely a good way to force me to stop and take a break too.
I don't really consider these cars a limitation for long distance trips either?
> Had they done so, they would have been able to do the 1000 miles with less than 2 hours charge total (ABRP claim 1 h 34 min), very little in comparison of the 17h drive...
My gas car would require one or stops to refuel in order to travel 1,000 miles. That would be a maximum of half an hour total, which is one-third the time it would take to charge. That extra hour to charge is one-eighth of the travel day (I do not drive more than eight hours per day on a road trip if I can avoid it).
Right now, today, an electric vehicle is not suitable for road trips IMHO. That's fine! They are great for daily commuting. But given that I do take road trips, and don't commute daily, my gas-powered car is good enough for me today.
> give consumers worse experience in terms of range, recharge time, and reliability
My expectation was also that switching to electric cars would involve some sacrifice but for my use cases it has been net more convenient.
For daily commuting I plug in at the office garage where they have dozens of L1 and about twenty L2 chargers. This has been more convenient than remembering to stop at a gas pump a couple times a month.
I initially kept a gasolene car for long trips because I assumed it would be inconvenient to schedule a ~30m stop every ~4 hours or so. In practice it turns out I need to stop about that frequently for family members to stretch, use the restroom, and grab a bite, etc. The major difference has been that it constrains where we stop rather than when we stop.
However, if you are regularly doing 5+ hour trips in rural or remote areas, then a gasolene or diesel vehicle is a more convenient choice. As they build out a more comprehensive charging infrastructure the difference may lessen.
I cannot speak to reliability as we've only had them for a year now.
> it’s 30+ minute charge time. As great as electric is, an extra hour in the car on a road-trip with 3 kids is a tough sell.
I dissent! Just did a 2-day (each way) road trip with young children and those charging breaks are pretty great and well-spaced for letting them run around and blow off steam. It’s not such a bad idea for the adults either…
Most of America is very much NOT city. If you start on the East coast of South Carolina and drive West, after 9.5 hours of driving you'll be in...South Carolina still.
> secondly, on highways there are chargers popping up so it wouldnt matter
Call me when fully recharging an EV takes the same time as fully fueling an ICE car. I don't want to sit at a station for 45 minutes every 180km on my road trip.
> folks who are making this argument underestimate the flexibility people want out of a car
It’s anxiety. I took a parent’s EV to Sonoma and back (100 mi each way + detours + driving around Sonoma) and stopped once for a 5-minute fast charge on the way back. The battery got to a low of 5%, but that was expected.
Unbeknownst to me, my father was checking the battery level remotely and freaking out that it would get that low. Let me remind you, this is in the Bay Area. There is no deficit of public chargers here.
Another: I had a mid-forties friend visit me in Wyoming. I have a gas Subaru. Its fuel level getting to quarter full—good for at least 100 miles—freaked them out. To go to the grocery store. Two miles away.
> Let's say I was towing. That would give me ~180mi/charge. On the 575mi trip I'll have to charge 4 times, so 2hr40min.
You wouldn't start full? Using your numbers, 250*.9 + 180 + 180 makes the trip in two charges. Stopping a couple of times for meals makes it take no net increase in time.
edit: It definitely doesn't work for everyone and every use case, but it's much better than you calculate. The EV road trips I've taken have been slightly inconvenient but the day to day convenience of at home charging makes up for it.
Also I don't understand why you're continuing to edit your message long after I replied.
Yes, long trips require more planning. That will change once high speed chargers are more common.
> Sounds like you own a horse more than a car
The situation is extremely different for day-to-day driving.
When I owned a gas car, I had to put gas in it about once a week. Each stop at the gas station was about 10 minutes out of my way. Now I charge in my garage and I never need to go out of my way to buy gas.
I also don't need to deal with oil changes.
My gas car was a lot more of a "horse" than my Tesla!
It depends. When I had a 160 mi round trip commute without a charger at work, that kind of sucked in the winter, when the range dropped to around 140 mi, although not so much that I ever wanted to take the gas car instead. (Maybe if it had been a newer model, with more driving assistance features…)
Now that I can charge the car at each end, it’s better in every way. Apart from the ride, it’s great never having to stop for gas.
> And the once in a blue moon they do have to drive more than 300 miles, they'll need to have a spare car to do it. They'll buy their new shiny very expensive Telsa and still have to keep a gasoline-powered car around.
I don't think this is the way EV owners deal with long trips.
Most Tesla owners seem to just use the Supercharger network and deal with waiting 20 minutes instead of 5 minutes. After 4 hours driving I usually take a lunch or dinner break regardless.
> Range anxiety is a short term condition, you get over it after surprisingly quickly.
My partner has had a series of EVs for 10 years now.
Just a few weeks ago dropped me off at the airport (~100 mile roundtrip) and started planning for it days it advance. How much needed to driver on day N-2, N-1, how much charge would be left. Then spent the morning of the trip sipping coffee at Whole Foods to bring the charge up to %100 (normally limited to %80). Then spent the whole trip hyperfocused on the mileage remaining, worried about getting home.
While the trip is quite a bit shorter than the advertised range, with hilly terrain it's always uncertain what the real world mileage ends up being.
It all seemed very exhausting. So I guess it takes more than a decade to get over range anxiety.
> If people in the states think that charging a Model 3 or Model Y is too time consuming
A lot of them are being told this, and they just believe it without running the numbers for their use case. For some it would be longer until infrastructure improves, but for others it would actually be less time “waiting” on their EV than their ICE car. I’m in the UK and I’ve spent 0 mins waiting on my EV charging in the last 4 months. Plug in at night and unplug in the morning. I’ve also spent 0 minutes visiting gas stations.
America has bigger distances and there are other factors of course.
We did some relatively long trips in our BMW i3 last couple of summers. Even though the charging added about 1-1.5hrs to each trip, my SO, which did all the driving, said she preferred it that way. She felt significantly less exhausted when she arrived, thanks to the charging stops.
So not clear cut for all drivers it seems.
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