The percentage of trips over ~215 miles is quite small. Doing the math you are saving many hours/year on average. Of course I'm not accounting for edge cases but that's the point they are edge cases.
Absolutely. I love my electric car for this reason and I _hate_ it when I'm in our hybrid and the dumb yellow E comes on and I have to make an unplanned pitstop.
I also got over range anxiety pretty quickly too: I've taken our Model S from Portland to Yosemite twice. With little kids, the time to supercharge is less than the time needed to get get them all snacks, potty breaks, stretch, etc. It was great!
PS: Just noticed that the last like 10-15 comments I've made are all about Tesla. I should probably get a new hobby :P
For myself personally, I probably take 5 or 6 trips per year where I'm covering over 400 miles in a day. The time it takes to recharge the car would be a big negative to me. It's nice to be able to jump in the car in SF early morning and be in Seattle by evening. Not sure I'd even make it half way in an electric car.
I'm sure someone will comment "well this car isn't for you" and they are correct.
Your bladder/hunger control must be way better than mine
30 minutes if you can drive right up to a charger. Do you think that will be the case once hundreds of thousands of EVs are on the road? Have you ever road-tripped in the summer and had to wait in line for gas, which takes minutes to fill? I have. Often.
Another problem is that, depending on where you are going, it looks like you might not be able to charge anywhere on the route. I found a map of locations here: http://www.teslarati.com/map/
Like the typical route between Denver, CO to Lake City, CO (255 miles one way) has no supercharger close. Would you modify your route to swing by the location? Or would you have a friend drive a gas car instead?
I have a 90D so I'd be able to make that drive in one go, although it would be close!
That being said, having done Seattle to San Diego recently (while passing thru Gilroy), I should have spent a day in Oregon or Norcal, 13hr days are just not my jam when it comes to driving.
It's true that this is a negative for EVs, but it's also one of their great advantages.
Looking further ahead, the self driving will likely allow the car to go fuel itself while you are out of it. And generally we should see more and more parking spots with chargers.
Heck, it's even better than gas cars now where you car will actually tell you where the nearest super charger is in your range and if there are spots for you at it.
The only real edge case is if someone completely doesn't heed their cars own warnings about running out of energy, and then, well, there's still tow trucks for that edge edge case. Just like if your ICE car breaks down.
The main reason I argue this is that to a lot of consumers, an electric car is nice but functionally less useful than a gas car. That is, a lot of consumers think, "What if my battery runs out? How do I charge it in an emergency?" referring to if the battery runs out somewhere. In a traditional car, if you go somewhere far and run out of gas you can just call AAA and they can either tow your car or bring you a bit of gas to get you to your next gas station, and this isn't really possible with current electric cars. Even in town, if you forget to charge your car you can't just go to the gas station, you have to wait a bit of time for your car to be ready to go. Don't discount 5 vs 15 minutes -- I can fill a car and be done in less than 5 minutes whereas it takes a bit more time to charge an electric car, even a Tesla at a supercharging station.
The company that produces a car that isn't gas powered but can be re-powered in the same amount of time, or creates the technology within batteries, will be the one that causes a true revolution. I don't know if I'd go so far as to short TSLA but I am not completely convinced their cars will take off (also consider the fact that a $35,000 car is still really expensive for the average consumer).