> I bet, that when you go on a 500 mile drive, you are stopping that often to use the facilities and get some food already. Nothing changes.

Certainly not. For example on a cross country trip the year before the pandemic I drove my regular car. 400 miles between fuel stops, 5-10 minute stop to fill up and hit the bathroom, ready for another 400 miles. Very easy to do over 1000 miles per day with no worries.

With my Fiat 500e, it's 80 to 90 miles then stop for 3-5 hours to charge. I plan very hard to never be stuck farther than 40 miles from home with that car.

For short errands in town though, it's absolutely perfect!

Luckily I can own multiple cars, right tool for each job. But if I could only have one, it would not be electric.

Driving 1000 miles per day is anywhere between 12 and 14 hours solid driving. You are the outlier of outliers. On a trip that length, hitting any traffic is likely to slow you down more than having to recharge your vehicle.

Maybe an electric vehicle on it's current form isn't going to work for you with a regular 1000 mile per day trip, but you're at least 15 years off _new_ petrol vehicle sales being banned, so second hand ones are around for another 25 at least.

As an aside, this individualist respond of "well i can't do a 1000 mile road trip in one sitting" is why these vehicles are being phased out by legislation, because people won't even consider the _smallest_ changes to their driving habits without being forced to.

There's something romantic about a long road trip, unbroken and unplanned. Call it an outlier experience, but everyone should have one once. It's American to the core. You get in the seat and head out, first watching the familiar pass away. The first time your GPS says stay on this road for 400 miles, that's when the trip starts. That's when you accept it. You'll see whatever comes - open ranges, mountains, trains that span longer than you can see, bison that wander onto the empty road. You'll listen to whatever is on the radio. Nobody will tell you what to do next. A spirit of freedom comes flooding back, and you remember that you aren't just an ape in a box working for the next planned fun, but a human, a natural explorer, and you feel a bit more like yourself. Music is awesome. You spontaneously pull over to snap a picture and take a leak, just because you can, and nobody is around anyway. And then it hits you - bliss. Quietness. No more inner voice. Just sounds, sights, and sensations. The wind. The rest of the road trip after that is a bit different, and the passing of time doesn't matter as much. It's like when you go on vacation - it's not until the third day when you really settle in. For these trips, sure you're trying to get somewhere, but that's not what it's about. You could fly if you wanted to. If you legislate drudgery into this, or take away from the experience in any way, you're robbing others of something special, even if it's not your thing. EVs don't cut it yet - they require more frequent and longer stops and more overall planning. But I hope they improve because their silence is nice.

I did a 477 mile (each way) round trip last summer with no serious planning. Took 2 Supercharger stops each way in decent shopping areas, around 35 min each. I would have used at least one of those to eat lunch anyway, so the overall losses were minimal. Also, the whole point of a “road trip” is to stop occasionally and see things, so having these short breaks made the trip more pleasant.

Plus the sheer nerd excitement of watching my car drink 250KW on the app while I ate a meal. There’s nothing technically exciting about gas stations.

I can relate to this beautiful sentiment. I was reminded of CGP grey's video on the subject. I think you're right they will get there in a decade. In a rational world we could've had a carbon tax or actual legit biofuels, but no one wants to pay more for something they can't see.

These long road trips infact make me feel guily about driving an ICE car, that I had to make a tiny mess in the atmosphere for one tiny ape to get this amazing feeling.

1000 miles in a day is normal in the Midwest. Not common, but many people out here do such a thing on vacation. Flying a family that far is more expensive and uses most of a day so you may as well drive and have a way to get around once there.

> Certainly not. For example on a cross country trip the year before the pandemic I drove my regular car. 400 miles between fuel stops, 5-10 minute stop to fill up and hit the bathroom, ready for another 400 miles. Very easy to do over 1000 miles per day with no worries.

I highly doubt this is most people. I can do 200miles at best before I need a 10-15 minutes break. For woman/kids you are looking at 100 miles per break and more minutes per break.

Yes but even with kids you aren't stopping for 45 minutes just to go to the bathroom.

Charging batteries is a SIGNIFICANT time sync. You can justify it however you like, but it's still there.

It's not a fair comparison to look at a vehicle that has less than 100 miles of range and call it bad for road trips. That car is only meant for commuting. Clearly you will spend a lot of time charging such a small battery with a slow charger. The way to do a longer drive with an electric car is to have several hundred miles of range and use DC fast chargers.

Depending on where you live, going on a long road trip can sometimes become a sudden necessity. If I still lived in a hurricane zone, for example, I wouldn’t go anywhere near an EV except as a second car.

why do you keep comparing a car with 400 mile range to your ev with 80 mile range, that doesn't even have dc fast charging? Its not even a comparison, obviously you wouldnt drive your car designed for daily commutes, you should be comparing to an Ev actually meant to drive 200+ miles, teslas, mache, taycan etc.

> why do you keep comparing a car with 400 mile range to your ev with 80 mile range, that doesn't even have dc fast charging?

I'm not doing a theoretical comparison, these are cars I can afford and actually own right now.

> you should be comparing to an Ev actually meant to drive 200+ miles, teslas, mache, taycan

I can't responsibly afford a tesla, mache or taycan, so not going to compare those.

I can easily afford a sub-20K regular car though and it lets me do 1000+ mile day road trips.

When I drive long distance like that, I stop only for gas, which is almost always available immediately at the end of the highway exit ramp. I use the bathroom and if necessary get food at the same time. Pulling off the road every 2.5 hours and driving to the nearest mall or wherever the charging point is, and then back to the highway, is a complete deal breaker for those types of drives.

Well of course. You’re comparing 120 years of developing a network of ICE cars with what, 10? of EVS? If gas stations got on the “let’s also sell electrical” movement you’d also have much more availability of chargers at any ramp and you could do 10 min partial charges with less anxiety because you’d know that in any other exit you’ll be able to charge.

Pointing the obvious is just silly.

>Pointing the obvious is just silly.

Just as silly as pretending it's not an issue either :p

That's why range extenders are the perfect compromise and I'm excited to see the Mazda solution. A rotary is the perfect engine for a range extender - small, lightweight, few moving parts - and at a fixed speed many of the issues with seals won't be an issue at all. Should be an incredible solution and perfect transitional vehicle.

> nearest mall or wherever the charging point is

Like the gas station? Here in Norway most gas station chains are building out chargers, and a lot of them have charging stations right next to them already.

After all, gas stations still want to rake in on those snacks and drinks...

I think this is predicated on having a good enough charging network close to the motorway.

It's entirely personal, but I don't like to drive for more than 2.5 hours at a stretch, I find my eyes start to lose a bit of focus and it feels dangerous to me.

> You are driving EV cars wrong.

I assume that also includes tours through the Australian outback or the Siberian winter?

I can refuel an ICE car everywhere within minutes with just a canister. No need for a dedicated refueling spot aka gas station.

As someone else said. It's interesting that the negative responses to this are all incredibly extreme. Someone who likes to drive 1000 miles per day with a 10 minute stop in total. Someone who drives through the Siberian winter. The vast, vast, vast, majority of the population, even the rural population, isn't doing this.

> I assume that also includes tours through the Australian outback or the Siberian winter?

Yes, I frequently take my Toyota Carrolla across the Sahara in June. Until they make an EV that can do that in one trip, they're utterly useless to everyone everywhere under any circumstances.

The people who like doing that can buy ICE cars. This represents a teeny tiny minority of all car use. I'd wager that more than half of the driving population of the US has never in their lives driven in a place with hundreds of miles between fill stations.

> If you do this, you will have a terrible experience! EVs charge ultra fast when the battery is low. You are supposed to drive them down to say 10%, then charge up to around 50% repeatedly. This takes.. 10 minutes. You drive for 200 miles or so, stop for 10 minutes, repeat.

I'm not sure why you're basing this off the assumption current EV's have 500 miles of range... (10->50% of 500 miles would be those 200 miles you're driving)

With actual EV's being more like 250-300, 10->50% is only 100-120 miles. Which leads me to...

> It's pretty reasonable to take a 10 minute break every 2.5 hours.

That's more like a 10 minute break every 90 minutes, and not very reasonable for trips taking 5-10 hours.

75-80mph with the current range availability on Tesla's, E-tron, mach-e, id.4 etc allows you 2-3 hours at speed before requiring a stop to recharge for 20-30 mins on a DC fast charger. It's not unreasonable and probably makes things safer than the guy who thinks you should 1000+ miles a day with only a single stop to refuel.

>You are driving EV cars wrong.

And that's why EVs as currently pitched will NEVER take off. Heck you probably lost the majority of readers of this site, many of which probably have pretty pro-EV leanings when you start blaming the user.

If you are trying to win someone over to your side, telling them they are doing it wrong is NOT a great way to keep them engaged or convince them.

For example - you could point out that sure, EVs don't work exactly the same way as gasoline cars, but for these trade offs you get these other benefits.

Not by hitting them over the head with "your doing it wrong". Good grief.

>I bet, that when you go on a 500 mile drive, you are stopping that often to use the facilities and get some food already. Nothing changes.

Granted I'm probably not most people, but I'm far from in a minority that when I'm doing a long drive I just go. The only time I stop is to get more fuel which I may combine with a meal, maybe not. And I've never had that take more than 30 minutes. I've crossed the US in three days more times than I care to admit and have maybe one more of those trips left to face. And that's leaving me some nice time to have dinner/sleep and a decent breakfast before setting back out. Someone really motivated could probably do it in two but I think it's important to get good sleep when on those kinds of drives. Waiting around 45 minutes every 200-300 miles is ludicrous.

While I don't relish those trips, I relish being at my destination more than I do the drive to get there so an EV would be a huge downgrade and handicap. And at least one, if not two more nights of hotel bills. No thanks!

This seems overly optimistic. I don't even run my ICE tank to 10% because I am concerned that I will run out of gas before finding the next place to fill up. With my EV I am even more concerned, because of all the reasons stated in this thread.