Last year I drove from Florida to San Francisco. We did it over 5 days, my wife and I with our dog.
We stopped as-needed and always more than 10 minutes. Just filling the tank & handling payment takes that long. But in reality, you NEED to clean the windshield to clear off the bug splatter. And you NEED to use the facilities. Probably you and your passengers. And you really WANT a moment to stand up and stretch your legs anyway.
Does it always take 30 minutes? Certainly not. Twenty? Probably more like it.
"Just not accurate"? "enthusiasts need to pretend?" From where I'm sitting your comment here is a contender for A-hole of the Thread award. Congrats, you must be so proud.
I take issue with your accusations. I wrote what I wrote in good faith based on my somewhat recent experience with the cross-country road trip. I don't look politely on somebody like yourself suggesting otherwise.
The first line of the abalone's post was needlessly insulting. I'm not saying that tit-for-tat is OK, but I can see what provoked the outburst.
There is definitely a time penalty at stops. Meals are the only one of those things that takes longer than 10 minutes. You do that maybe a couple times a day.
With the model s you are stopping about every 2.5-3 hours for 30 minutes. Exactly one or two of those stops might involve a half hour meal, where it doesn't make a difference. The rest of the time, it does. To characterize this as not "affecting you all that much" vs. a traditional gas trip is just not accurate.
But you know what? That's ok. I don't get why some enthusiasts feel the need to pretend there are no compromises. It's ok for the model s to have some drawbacks at this stage. It's early. That's how the technology cycle works. Like I said elsewhere, the model s is like the first macintosh. It's the future and it's already pretty cool. No need to pretend it does more than it can. That just polarizes people.