We have a bit of a cultural attachment to the road trip. In comparison to other countries, our roads are wonderful and some people can comfortably drive for a thousand miles a day. And our trains and busses are either non-existent or something only a student would do. For most people it's not a regular thing, but for the few times a year they do make the long drive, it's can be a badge of honor and show of independence. And there's usually some competition to see who can drive the most miles in the fewest hours with the least stops. Even when flying would be faster and cheaper, many people prefer to drive for the convenience of having their own car once they get to their destination. I definitely haven't seen this road trip phenomenon in Europe even though you could do similar drives. There just isn't the same need to have your car at your destination and people seem more comfortable taking planes, trains and buses generally.

Yes, people go on 300+ mile drives often enough that the ability to take long drives is important. While long trips are surely not very common as a percentage of trips, taking a "road trip" (a vacation by long car drive) might be done once or more per year in some families. For example, one might drive from San Francisco to LA, or Atlanta to Daytona Beach. It's not entirely uncommon to drive all the way cross-country either.

I believe, though, it's only a matter of time before charging stations reach parity with gas stations. It's already possible to take a road trip by major highways with a Tesla.

Lots of people drive from Canada to Florida in the spring. Go to Clearwater Beach in March and count the number of Ontario license plates you see.

> I believe, though, it's only a matter of time before charging stations reach parity with gas stations. It's already possible to take a road trip by major highways with a Tesla.

For a full transition to EVs, the charger network is going to need enough capacity to handle large emergencies like hurricane evacuations. A typical gas station with 4-8 pumps can keep a lot of cars moving in that sort of situation, and it doesn’t feel like electric charging stations will be able to handle that load anytime soon.

The 500 mile figure is roughly the range of a modern Toyota Camry. It’s just a useful baseline.

But as it happens, we’d drive 500 miles from Atlanta to St Louis every winter to visit our grandparents when we were growing up. I’m sure lots of people have relatives or friends they could visit who live about that far away.

Alternatively, Birmingham to Orange Beach is a bit shy of 300 miles one way. Atlanta to various popular beach vacation spots in Florida and South Carolina is roughly comparable. Beach vacation territory, IOW, is commonly several hundred miles one way.

Maybe once or twice a year, if that. Most people I know who are going more than a few hundred miles just fly and rent a car on the other end.

Not many families can afford that luxury - so they drive.

And that's the real resistance here - freedom. EV enthusiasts do themselves zero favors when they try to pretend that it's not a real issue.

In the US? The number of times people drive 500 miles straight is basically never despite what people here will claim.

> In the US? The number of times people drive 500 miles straight is basically never despite what people here will claim.

At least on the west coast (distances are longer) that's quite common. San Francisco to Los Angeles is ~400 miles. A day trip is ~800 miles, done it often.

San Francisco to Portland is ~600 miles, done that very often as well.

What do you consider very often? I’ve done it several times, but that comes to about once every few years for me. Certainly not a weekly trip.

For three years when I lived in San Diego I drove to Vegas at least once a month (it's where I have family).

Millions of cars on the road happen for a reason. Just because you rarely go on such trips doesn't mean for some they aren't more frequent for others. Heck just to go to my favorite German restaurant or go for my favorite crab cakes that could be a 300 mile round trip. I would do either without a second thought with my current cars and until EVs can get to the same level of comfort for people they will remain a niche vehicle.

That's the practical reality. You can hop up and down with your arguments around moral superiority and god help any idiot who tries to force change via legislation. Want to see a real revolution real fast? Just poke that bear.

Cars = freedom. Freedom of movement, freedom of expression, economic freedom (choice of jobs, supplies, living location, etc.). EV proponents can acknowledge this and work to rationally solve the issues (with transitional tech like range extenders), or continue to insist everyone else is doing it wrong and remain a niche.

Until most of the fervor around EVs graduates from cult status to being at least a touch pragmatic there won't be significant change. Screaming louder about how the environment is being ravaged (right or wrong) isn't going to move the needle either. You convince people by solving their problems, meeting their needs and doing so in a rational manner.

It really isn't that hard - until you roll up your sleeves and really start to work through things. Until we all are willing to do that it's just wish casting.

If by "straight" you mean only fuel stops I do ~750 miles or more at least twice a year.

> twice a year

Meaning basically never.

The importance of those twice a year trips is high though. Visiting family, resting up on vacation, exploring new places. Choosing a vehicle that doesn't support those twice a year trips is a hard sell for many people.

We are talking about buying cars with ~8 year lifetimes. So his "basically never" twice a year is 16 expected trips with the vehicle. That's significant enough to be a serious consideration when comparing ICE to EV purchases.

8 years at an average of 12500 miles a year is 100,000 miles or about 5000-10000 trips. 16 long distance trips is 0.3% of all trip.

So that's 0.3%.

Now ask what the marginal cost of a electric car that can drive 500 miles without stopping vs one that goes have the distance. What's that $20,000? For 16 trips? That's $1250 a trip.

From an accounting point of view that's insane. You should buy the lower range cheaper car and fly.

>So that's 0.3%.

Your heart is a relatively small part of your overall biomass.

So why don't you just do without it?

>From an accounting point of view that's insane. You should buy the lower range cheaper car and fly.

Even more presumptuous. What are you supposed to do on the other end of that plane flight to get around? Rent a car? Bum off of friends/family?

I once thought it would be cost effective to buy an EV and just rent when I needed to take longer trips - until I did the math. Rental cars get very expensive very quickly!

Also for all those saying just fly and rent or rent a car - most of these trips are around the holidays.

When everyone else is having the same thoughts. What happens if you don't get a rental car? No trip? Yeah, that's going to go over well...

Must be this new math. When I was growing up never = 0, not never > 0